Police hunting Clapham chemical attack suspect arrest man on suspicion of assisting an offender
A 22-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender as part of the massive police manhunt chasing down Clapham chemical attack suspect Abdul Ezedi.
New footage of Ezedi shows him buying eggs in a grocers in Newcastle the day before a woman and her two children were doused with a corrosive substance.
Ezedi, 35, bought 30 eggs in a convenience store while smiling at the shop worker on the till.
The images were caught near to his home in the Byker Grove area on Tuesday before he travelled to south-west London ahead of the attack that took place on Wednesday evening.
He was found guilty of sexual assault in 2018 but granted asylum after claiming to have converted to Christianity.
However, staff at the shop told the Telegraph they were 'horrified' that Ezedi had been connected to the attack because he was known as a 'good Muslim'.
A £20,000 reward has been offered as part of the manhunt for Ezedi, who suffered a serious injury to the right side of his face.
He is suspected of hurling an alkaline substance at a 31-year-old woman and her daughters aged eight and three, on Wednesday evening.
Investigators are trawling through hundreds of hours of CCTV and have tracked Ezedi’s movements on the Tube network via his bank card, with the latest sighting now on Southwark Bridge at 9.50pm on Wednesday.
The last confirmed time that he used his bank card was on Wednesday, police said.
The 22-year-old has been released on bail.
An NHS worker who witnessed the attack described how the three-year-old was thrown like a "rag doll" to the ground by the attacker.
Ezedi tried to drive off after the attack but crashed and instead fled on foot.
He boarded a Northern line train at Clapham South Tube station at just before 7.35pm.
The got off at King’s Cross just before 8pm. He was the captured on CCTV leaving a Tesco Express on Caledonian Road, near King’s Cross. He entered King’s Cross Tube station at 9pm and boarded a southbound Victoria line train.
He was then seen on CCTV leaving Tower Hill underground station and since the the trail has gone cold.
Nick Aldworth, a former national counter-terrorism co-ordinator, suggested Ezedi, from Newcastle, could have taken his own life or be using an ally as there had been no further sightings since he exited at Tower Hill Tube station in east London at 9.16pm on Wednesday, shortly after the attack.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think if we’ve not seen or heard from him in the last couple of days, which appears to be the case, he’s gone to ground, possibly supported by somebody… or it’s not unlikely or improbable that he may have taken his own life. There is therefore a body to be found somewhere.
“The reason they’ve offered a £20,000 reward is usually because there’s a sense that somebody inside the community might well be harbouring this individual."
