UK asks Libya to extradite brother of arena bomber
The UK is seeking the extradition of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi’s brother, who is being held by a militia group in Libya.
Hashem Abedi travelled with his brother to Libya in April before Salman returned alone to carry out the nail-bomb attack on a pop concert at the Manchester Arena on May 22 that left 22 people dead and hundreds more injured.
Police believe that Salman Abedi carried out the suicide bomb attack on his own and was not part of a wider network, but said they wanted to interview his brother in connection with the attack.
Police have secured an arrest warrant for 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion against Hashem Abedi and passed on an extradition request to Libya on Wednesday.
The Abedi family, originally from Libya, fled during the dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi and sought asylum in the UK. Both brothers were born in Manchester and went to school there.
An extradition agreement between the two countries was agreed in 2008 but the overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011 has split the country between feuding factions.
The extradition request has been made to the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord, police said.
Hashem and his father were arrested in May by a militia in Tripoli on suspicion of having links with ISIL.
The arrests came shortly after his father, Ramadan, told reporters that he was “really shocked” at hearing the news of the attack by Salman.
“As we were discussing news of similar attacks earlier, he was always against those attacks, saying there’s no religious justification for them,” he told Bloomberg. “I don’t understand how he’d have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children.”
The extradition is far from certain, with no known cases of suspects being sent to the UK since the signing of the extradition agreement.
The deal came after a failed attempt to bring back to Britain a suspect wanted for the fatal shooting of a police officer from inside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
Twenty-three people have been arrested as part of the inquiry, including another Abedi brother, but nobody has been charged with any crime.