Hadi Alodid: Man charged over Belfast stabbing was asylum seeker who came to UK from Sudan
Hadi Alodid, a Sudanese man, has been charged over a knife attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which left one man in a serious condition.
Police said the 30-year-old appeared at Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday morning and was charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, who lost his left eye and suffered deep cuts to his head, face and back during the alleged attack on Monday.
He was also charged with threatening to kill an NHS radiographer and possessing a knife on the same day.
Footage circulating online showed members of the public trying to fight off the attacker before police arrived at the scene late on Monday and seized what they believed to be a kitchen knife.
Authorities have urged the public to remain calm and let police do their job after violent protests turned ugly on Tuesday night, with homes and cars burned and tensions rising over immigration in the UK.
Sir Keir Starmer condemned the “unacceptable” riots, saying “people were targeted last night because of their past and I will not tolerate that.”
While police investigate the stabbing, here’s what we know about the man accused:
Who is the suspect and where is he from?
Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese national from Duncairn Avenue in Belfast, was named in court as the man charged with attempted murder following the attack.
A detective told Belfast Magistrates’ Court that he argued he should not be granted bail due to “strong public feeling” about the incident out of fear it would cause “serious public confusion”.
Police said they were “strongly” opposed to Alodid being granted bail on the grounds that he was accused of an “extremely serious offence” which had attracted “significant media attention”.
The detective said that if further crimes were committed they would be “serious and unpredictable” and that the applicant was Sudanese and had connections outside the jurisdiction.
After the hearing, he was detained for 4 weeks.
Deputy police chief Ryan Henderson said at a news conference Tuesday that authorities are not looking for anyone else in connection with the case at this time.
Police initially reported that the suspect was believed to be of Somali origin.
The Home Office later said the arrested man was a Sudanese national and had permission to remain in the UK until 2028.
“The individual claims to have entered the UK via the Common Travel Area,” a spokesman said.
How did he come to Northern Ireland?
Police believe the suspect traveled from Sudan to Paris several years ago, before arriving at Dublin in the Republic of Ireland and then Belfast in Northern Ireland.
The Home Office said the man arrived in the UK in 2023 and was granted refugee status at the end of the same year, adding that there was no record of the man being in the country before that year.
Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said the man was believed to have been granted permission to remain in the UK on September 28, 2023.
Mr Boutcher said police were working to establish that the man traveled from Sudan to Paris on unknown dates, then flew to Dublin on a date also to be confirmed.
“My current understanding is that he traveled by bus from Dublin to Belfast on 10 February 2023 and requested asylum on that date,” he added.
“There is no trace of this suspect in any of our national security databases and he was not known to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.”
