A 30-year-old man charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast entered the United Kingdom through a streamlined asylum process that did not require a face-to-face interview. Hadi Alodid appeared at Belfast Magistrates’ Court via video-link to face the charge.

Alodid was granted refugee status and five years leave to remain after arriving in Northern Ireland from Sudan via Paris and Dublin in February 2023. He completed a Home Office questionnaire under the streamlined asylum process (SAP) scheme, which was introduced for adults from countries with asylum grant rates above 95%, including Sudan.

The scheme meant that claimants from designated nations were not required to attend a personal interview. It was established under the previous Conservative government and has since been discontinued. All adult asylum seekers are now interviewed.

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn stated that the asylum system is now operating with proper processing. Applicants are checked against security databases and interviewed in almost all cases. He described the earlier approach as chaotic and said it was put in place by a government that had lost control of immigration.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she was not responsible for the policy but offered an apology. She claimed that those who enacted it have since defected to the Reform UK party and that a naive assumption that all claimants were genuine had been exploited.

Alodid’s journey from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland was facilitated by the Common Travel Area, which allows free movement between the jurisdictions without routine immigration checks. Official data gaps mean the number of asylum seekers using this route is unknown, but the UK removed only one migrant under an asylum returns deal with Ireland signed in 2020.

The UK Government is intensifying efforts to prevent the Common Travel Area being used as a back route. Cabinet Office minister Baroness Anderson told the House of Lords that 1,500 enforcement operations linked to illegal immigration have taken place in Northern Ireland over the past 12 months, resulting in over 1,200 arrests.