Brother got parts for Manchester bomb
BRITAIN: The younger brother of the Manchester bomber is said to have admitted helping to buy materials for the device that killed 22 people at a pop concert.
Hashem Abedi, 20, said that despite purchasing the items he did not know the details of what his brother Salman was planning, according to security forces in Libya. Abedi, 22, attacked the Manchester Arena last month at the end of a concert by American singer Ariana Grande.
The British-born bomber was radicalised in 2015 and begged his mother for forgiveness an hour before the blast, his brother told investigators. Libya’s Special Deterrence Force (Rada) in Tripoli reported that Abedi spoke with his younger brother just moments before he blew himself up.
Rada is a counter-terrorism brigade within the interior ministry of the United Nations-backed unity government in Libya, and is interrogating Hashem and the father Ramadan Abedi, alongside British police investigators.
‘‘Hashem said they bought many things together in the UK but that he did not fully understand what they were for,’’ Ahmed bin Salem, Rada’s spokesman, said.
‘‘Hashem said Salman was radicalised in 2015, from watching videos about Syria and Iraq, as well as friends in Manchester.’’
Earlier this week police said they had found ‘‘significant evidence’’ in a car that Salman might have stored items to put together the makeshift bomb before he carried out the attack.
Twenty-one people have been arrested in connection with the investigation. Twelve have been released and nine remain in custody.
Salman called his brother’s phone to speak to his family in Libya an hour before the bombing but his mother initially refused to speak to him because she was upset he had lied about where he was, the Rada spokesman added.
Salman had arrived in Tripoli a month before the attack and was under the watchful eye of his parents, who hung on to his passport, Rada officials said. Salman told his mother he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in order to trick her into relinquishing his passport. He left for Manchester about a week before the attack on May 22.
‘‘His mother didn’t realise he was in Manchester and was extremely upset with him that he had lied about not going to Saudi; she refused to talk to him at first. Hashem begged her to pick up the phone the second time, she was then concerned something was wrong,’’ bin Salem said.
In the second and final phone call Salman begged his mother for forgiveness before hanging up and blowing himself up. Hashem realised something was going to happen but did not know where or when, bin Salem added.
Salman Abedi’s sister Jomana, 18, who is still in Tripoli and was briefly questioned by Rada, said she and her mother were shocked when they found out Salman was the bomber.
She said that Salman had returned to Libya with the family on April 16 but left a month later. In Libya he was a recluse and a loner.
‘‘We never felt that Salman was weird at all. He didn’t go out of the house a lot,’’ she said. ‘‘He has no best friends. Me and all the family are all shocked. He was normal.’’
Salman’s grandmother Khairia Tabbal, who is also in Libya, said she thought her grandson had been radicalised in the UK.
‘‘He was manipulated from Manchester not Libya. The plan came from Britain, not from here. He returned to Libya but he didn’t do anything: he prayed at the mosque, read the Koran and did nothing bad.’’ – The Times