Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FORGIVE ME, MUM
» Evil bomber’s last call to family in Libya » Filmed putting bins out in traditional robe
EVIL Salman Abedi asked his mum “to forgive him” hours before his murderous attack.
The bomber made the phone call from Manchester to his family home in Libya, it has been claimed. As police continued to hunt for accomplices, new details emerged of how the 22-yearold slipped into Britain four days before the atrocity. After telling his parents he was going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, he flew to Turkey, then boarded a plane to Dusseldorf before flying on to Manchester. Pictures emerged yesterday of the £75-a-night flat Manchester-born Abedi rented in the city to make his final deadly preparations. And it was learned that the mass murderer had recently changed his western clothes for traditional Muslim dress. He was seen chanting prayers in the street and filmed by a neighbour putting out a wheelie bin at his home in Fallowfield, Manchester, wearing a brown djellaba with the pointy hood pulled up over his head. It was also revealed he had been banned from a mosque in the city after criticising an imam for “talking b ***** ks” during a sermon critical of Islamic State. Friends and family had reportedly warned he was developing radical views. Yesterday the Libyan Special Deterrent Force, which arrested his father Ramadan, 50, and brother Hashim, 20, said Abedi wired £2,500 to his brother and phoned his mother Samia on Monday. Spokesman Ahmed bin Salem said: “He was giving farewell.” He added that, based on what Hashim told them, they believe “the bomber acted alone”. He said the brother told them Abedi learned to make explosives on the internet and wanted to “seek victory for Islamic State”. But British police are working on the basis the killer was part of a wider network. Experts doubt the college dropout had the skills to mount the first major explosives attack in the UK for nearly 12 years. The Mirror has been told Abedi, who has been linked to a group of five British jihadists from Portsmouth who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State, was injured fighting in Libya last A family friend said he joined a unit called Bunyan Marsous. Another former friend told us cannabissmoking Abedi boasted of fighting in Libya during school holidays and posted pictures of himself holding weapons. His father was a member of Libya’s secret service under ousted Col Muammar Gaddafi but fled in 1991. In Manchester he worked as an airport guard and also as a pizza driver and at Didsbury Mosque, where he led prayers. Friend Ahmed Bashaala said: “Ramadan was an Islamist but not an extremist.” During the final years of Gaddafi’s rule, Abedi Snr was one of a number of Libyans who returned home to join one of the armed antigovernment groups. He found work in Tripoli with the police under the new regime while his three sons returned to Mansummer.
He asked for passport to go on pilgrimage but went to UK to kill FAMILY FRIEND ON LAST DAYS OF BOMBER ABEDI
chester. But the family continued to travel between Libya and Britain. Ramadan brought Salman and Hashim to Libya in mid-april. A friend told us: “He hid their passports but Salman asked for his, saying he wanted to go to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. But instead he went to the UK for the bombing.” Libyan authorities said yesterday they had summoned Abedi’s mother and three siblings – believed to be another younger brother and two younger sisters – for questioning. They have accused Hashim of planning a terror attack in Tripoli while knowing of Abedi’s plans. A treaty exists between Libya and the UK and police could try to extradite him to face charges of conspiring over Monday’s attack.