The man who exploded a homemade bomb outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital has been revealed to be a Middle Eastern asylum seeker named Emad Al Swealmeen.

Emad Al Swealmeen, who died in the blast on Sunday inside a taxi cab has been revealed to have been a failed asylum seeker reportedly of Syrian and Iraqi heritage.

Four other men were arrested under the Terrorism Act in Liverpool but were subsequently released from police custody without any charges, the BBC reported.

In the wake of the attack, which occurred just moments before the national moment of silence for Remembrance Sunday when the United Kingdom honours fallen war dead, the government raised the terror threat level to “severe”. It is not believed that this is in connection to any known imminent threat, however.

In a statement on Monday, the police said that they have made “significant progress” on the case and now have a “much greater understanding of the component parts of the device, how they were obtained and how the parts are likely to have been assembled.”

Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson said: “Following interviews with the arrested men, we are satisfied with the accounts they have provided and they have been released from police custody.”

“It is likely to be some time, perhaps many weeks until we are confident on our understanding of what has taken place”, he said, adding that police have “considerable resources and staff deployed to understand how this device was built and who, if anyone, else was involved.”

CCTV footage of the blast was revealed on Monday, showing the “heroic” taxi driver, who has been named in the press as Dave Perry, jumping out of the car after having allegedly locked in the attacker in order to prevent any other civilians from being injured.

A Christian couple from Liverpool, Elizabeth and Malcolm Hitchcott, who took Al Swealmeen into their home in 2017, said that the bomber had converted to Christianity, having been baptised and confirmed in the local cathedral.

In an interview with ITV, Mr Hitchcott described Al Swealmeen as having been a “quiet” and “deep” person, who had converted to Christianity after becoming disillusioned with Islam.

“I mean he lived here for eight months, and we were living cheek by jowl. There was never any suggestion of anything amiss,” he said.

“What a waste of a life. But the one thing I suppose to be thankful for is that he did not kill anyone else,” Elizabeth Hitchcott said.

Mr Hitchcott told the Daily Mail that Al Swealmeen had spent several months in a mental institution after having been arrested for carrying a “large knife” after his asylum claim was rejected.

Despite this, reports have claimed that the attacker was not on any government terrorism watch lists.

Concerns have been raised that Muslim migrants have been abusing the Liverpool Cathedral by converting to Christianity in order to increase their odds of attaining asylum status in Britain. A former Muslim, who was ordained as a curate at the cathedral in 2016, Mohammad Eghtedarian told The Telegraph that many migrants perform false conversions to cheat the system.

“I do understand there are a lot of mixed motives. There are many people abusing the system – I’m not ashamed of saying that,” Eghtedarian said.

In comments provided to Breitbart London, Migration Watch chairman Alp Mehmet said: “This is a seriously worrying case, which could be the tip of the iceberg. It points to the dysfunctional depths into which our shattered asylum system has sunk. Why this person was not removed or detained having been denied asylum is utterly baffling. We need to know.”

Responding to the attack at a Downing Street press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the bombing was a “stark reminder” for the public to remain vigilant in the face of the terror threat facing the country.

“What yesterday showed above all is that the British people will never be cowed by terrorism, we will never give in to those who seek to divide us with senseless acts of violence,” Johnson said, adding: “And our freedoms and our way of life will always prevail.”

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