Bomber lurks among crowd of innocents at the Arena
Jury sees pic from just before blast
A CHILLING image of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber just 19 seconds before the blast was shown to a jury yesterday.
Salman Abedi could be seen in the packed foyer of the venue, carrying a large Karrimor rucksack, which contained his deadly homemade device.
Moments later he detonated the bomb, killing 22 innocent people as well as himself, and injuring hundreds more.
His brother Hashem Abedi, 22, who was in Libya with his family at the time, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of helping to plan the attack.
He denies 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.
The court heard 14,054 people had attended an Ariana Grande pop concert at the Arena on May 22, 2017.
At the time of the explosion, 359 people were in the foyer.
Victims were hit by shrapnel and many suffered catastrophic injuries.
Forensic experts later recovered 2,500 metal nuts from the scene.
Those who died were mainly standing within 10 metres of Abedi. The Old Bailey heard 19 of the 22 fatally injured people were declared dead at the venue.
Members of the public, including an off-duty nurse, rushed to help the youngest victim, Saffie-Rose Roussos, eight, from Preston, Lancs.
But she was pronounced dead hospital just over an hour later.
A further 264 were wounded, including 111 taken to hospital, of whom 63 were seriously injured, and 28 very seriously injured. One of the injured survivors included a woman who was in hurt by shrapnel during the 1996 IRA bombing of Manchester.
Another woman, who was left seriously injured, had been in Warrington at the time of the 1993 IRA bomb attack, which left two schoolboys dead.
The bomber was identified by his DNA and fingerprints, which were taken in 2012 when he was arrested for shoplifting, the jury was told. An image of the remnants of his clothing was also shown in court. Jurors heard he had arranged to send £460 to Libya on the day of the blast. He was later caught on CCTV cameras leaving his rented flat on Granby Row in Manchester, with his rucksack, before taking a tram to Victoria Station in the city, which sits alongside Manchester Arena. While waiting for the tram, he made a call lasting just over four minutes to his family in Libya, the court heard.
The bomber had loitered in the area around the Manchester Arena for two hours before detonating his device at 10.31pm.
The trial continues.