Brother’s ‘common goal’ with bomber
ACCUSED Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi shared a ‘common goal’ with his suicide bomber brother, his murder trial was told.
He denies sourcing chemicals and shrapnel for a bomb for his brother Salman, who killed himself and 22 others when he detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) in the foyer of Manchester Arena as concert-goers were leaving an Ariana Granda gig on May 22, 2017.
As Hashem Abedi’s trial continued at the Old Bailey in London, the judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker, told the jurors the defendant, who has been absent from the dock for the last few days of the case, was unlikely to return and that he had chosen not to have a defence team – his QC and junior counsel were also no longer in court. Prosecutor Duncan Penny QC gave a closing speech in which he described how the defendant had acted as Salman Abedi’s ‘chauffeur, quartermaster and munitions technician’ in the months before the attack.
Mr Penny said the prepared statement Hashem Abedi had given to the police following his extradition from Libya was ‘demonstrably riddled with lies’ and was ‘an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the investigators and explain away’ what he knew about the evidence against him at that time and ‘point the finger of responsibility at his dead brother’ and ‘evade responsibility’ for the Arena attack. Hashem Abedi, 22, from Fallowfield, denies 22 counts of murder, one charge of attempted murder concerning those who were hurt but survived and a charge that he conspired with Salman Abedi to cause an explosion.
● Proceeding.