THE CASUAL KILLER ON HIS WAY TO MASS MURDER
Hands in pockets, sauntering to the Manchester arena, f irst picture of the bomber minutes before atrocity
LEANING back nonchalantly with his hands thrust casually into the pockets of his black body warmer, there is nothing about Salman Abedi’s relaxed demeanour that betrays his monstrous intent.
Yet minutes after these photographs were taken, he would detonate the nail bomb in his backpack, killing 22 people, many of them children, and maiming dozens more.
Though facing his own death, too, there is nothing about his manner or his appearance to separate him from the countless other young men hanging around Manchester city centre last Monday night.
He blends in with the crowd with his casual attire: a £65 Hollister body warmer, his best £150 Nike Air Jordan trainers, a black baseball cap, navy jeans with turn-ups.
These images, taken from CCTV cameras, were released yesterday by detectives piecing together the final movements of the callous killer. And in both pictures, the police have blacked out the background, suggesting they wished to protect the identities of people standing next to him at the time.
Officers have not said where the 22-year-old was standing or exactly when on Monday night the images were captured.
But as he appears to be waiting, it is possible he had already reached his destination: the Manchester Arena, where thousands of children and their parents were attending the Ariana Grande concert.
Only the straps of the rucksack – a bag containing tricyclic acetone peroxide, bolts and nails – are visible in the pictures. At 10.30pm, he detonated the ‘highly sophisticated’ device.
The images were released yesterday as:
Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said that the ‘fast moving and complex investigation’ had made ‘significant progress’;
It was claimed MI5 was warned by the FBI in January that Abedi was planning an attack in Britain;
The bomber’s younger brother allegedly confessed to involvement in the plot;
Police made further arrests – taking the total to 13 – and later evacuated an area of Moss Side in Manchester as bomb disposal officers searched an address;
The UK terrorism threat level was reduced from critical to severe, indicating an attack is highly likely, but not expected imminently.
SAS-trained security guards were also despatched to the Costa del Sol to protect British tourists and the British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said more terrorist atrocities could be expected if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister.
Before setting off for the arena, Abedi carried out the final assembly of the bomb at a £75-a-night flat on Granby Row, close to Piccadilly station in the city, which he rented four days earlier. He had flown into the city via Turkey and Germany.
If he travelled on a tram for the short journey to the arena, it would have taken only nine minutes. It is also possible that the images were taken on board, or as he waited.
Mr Hopkins said last night: ‘We are gathering a detailed picture of Abedi as the investigation develops and now need people to tell us if they have any information about his movements from May 18, when he returned to the UK, through to Monday night. The whole team are working round-the-clock. We have around 1,000 people involved in the investigation alone.
‘In the past five days we have gathered significant information about Abedi, his associates, his finances, the places he had been, how the device was built and the wider conspiracy. As a result of the arrests and searches which have taken place, we now have many further lines of enquiry. We have more than 1,500 actions we are pursuing.’
It emerged yesterday that Abedi’s younger brother, Hashem, detained last week by authorities in Libya, has allegedly admitted buying the components of the device. The 20-year-old is said to have told interrogators that he and his brother supported Islamic State, and claimed that the attack was carried out in revenge for the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The brothers left Britain to visit their parents in Libya after stockpiling the bomb parts, before Abedi returned to carry out his deadly mission. It was also claimed Hashem planned to carry out an attack in the capital Tripoli.
Following his alleged confession he could face extradition to the UK and stand trial over Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity since 7/7.
Ahmed Bin Salem, of Libya’s Special Deterrents Force, told the Mail on Sunday: ‘Hashem knew what Salman was doing. He knew he was planning an attack but did not know exactly when.
‘He has admitted buying the materials for Salman in Manchester.’
After spending three weeks in Tripoli with their parents, Salman pretended he was going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia – but then secretly returned to Britain via Germany. The MoS can reveal that a secret meeting of Germany’s most
‘1,000 police officers working on the case’ ‘Revenge for conflicts in Syria and Iraq’
senior security officials took place last week to discuss the threat from European terror networks they believe underwrote Abedi’s mission. Officials are concerned about Abedi’s links with radicals in their country and fear he may have received instructions or bomb components, when he passed through Dusseldorf airport on May 18 en route to Manchester.
Hashem was arrested two days after the atrocity, when a government-approved militia raided his suburban home in Tripoli, taking him and his father Ramadan into custody. Salman’s elder brother Ismail, 23, was arrested in Manchester on Tuesday.
Police and security services in the UK are now confident they know who the ‘main players’ were in the terror cell, and that there is not a master bomb-maker on the loose or explosives unaccounted for, as had been feared.
Many of the worst Islamist terror outrages have been carried out by brothers, including the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the Paris atrocity later in 2015, last year’s Brussels bombings, the Boston marathon attack, and 9/11.
A close family friend of the Abedis said last night the boys’ father had come to his house in Tripoli on April 27, asking him to take a package to England on his behalf.‘I was preparing to travel to Manchester to see my children and I was already carrying a lot of luggage,’ the friend said. ‘I said I didn’t want to take any more. I am very glad and relieved now that I did not get involved.’
Police evacuated an area of Moss Side in Manchester yesterday as a precaution as a bomb disposal unit searched an address. There were no arrests.
Earlier two brothers linked to Abedi were arrested five miles away. Yahya, 22, and Mohamed Werfalli, 20, were held after police used an explosive to breach their front door at 2.30am. They live next door to Abdul Wahab Hafidah, a friend of Salman Abedi who was stabbed in a suspected gang killing last May. Friends said Abedi considered the murder a hate crime and that it contributed to his radicalisation.