‘Impossible to know’ if asylum seekers converting to Christianity are genuine, says Church

The Church of England has admitted it is “impossible to know” if asylum seekers who claim to have converted to Christianity are genuine in the wake of the Liverpool attacker’s baptism. 

Ben Ryan, home affairs adviser at the Church, said that without opening a “window to the soul”, ministers could never be certain that a person had truly converted.

He said, however, that the Church was not “naive'' and had “extremely rigorous” guidelines for assessing people who wished to convert.

Mr Ryan made the comments following reports that the perpetrator of the Liverpool bomb attack, Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, had converted to Christianity. 

The Church of England is now facing questions over its role in converting hundreds of asylum seekers to Christianity in an attempt to help them avoid deportation.

Mr Ryan, speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, said: “It is ultimately impossible to know for certain - to make a window into someone's soul and confirm definitively that it is a genuine conversion? What would be the alternative to that?” 

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, last week criticised the "merry-go-round" of failed asylum seekers changing religion and using other tactics to launch "appeal after appeal" to stay in the country.

Mr Ryan defended the Church’s policy of giving asylum seekers support and helping them convert if they wished to do so.

He said: “Baptism is something we take very seriously - it is a critical part of our faith. It is a sacrament ordained by god.

“It is critical that it is open to anyone of goodwill who wants it, but we are not naïve in the way it is handed out.”

He described the guidance as “solid” and said there were “very few” instances “where we think there is evidence of abuse at all, and certainly nothing that is sufficiently widespread to be of major concern to the Home Office”.

He added that converting to Christianity was not a “golden ticket” and said the Church was one of the only organisations supporting vulnerable asylum seekers “day in, day out”. 

According to court records, Swealmeen, who was confirmed at Liverpool Cathedral in March 2017, was first refused asylum in 2014 and also lost further appeals in 2015. 

In August 2015, he began seeking to convert to Christianity and adopted a new name, Enzo Almeni, as part of the conversion.