Bomber’s grim shopping trips caught on CCTV
PICTURES SHOW ABEDI VISITING SCREWFIX TO BUY COMPONENTS FOR HIS EXPLOSIVE
STANDING at the counter of a hardware store waiting to collect an order, this is terrorist Salman Abedi shopping for components to make his deadly bomb.
Abedi’s movements over five days before the Manchester Arena attack on May 22, 2017, were plotted by police through CCTV.
Meanwhile, the detective who led the criminal investigation into the bombing said it would ‘always’ remain open.
Operation Manteline was one of the largest police investigations ever to be carried out in the UK, the public inquiry into the atrocity was told.
Police pieced together Abedi’s movements from May 18, when he arrived back in the country from Libya, up until May 22, the night of the attack, the inquiry heard.
In total, he made six visits to Screwfix on Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, and placed an online collection order for 2,000 nylon thread nuts. Abedi also visited B&Q, B&M Bargains and a private merchants in Cheetham Hill.
Images and footage of Abedi in the stores was shown to the public inquiry yesterday. He was captured speaking with staff behind payment counters and on shop floors.
Abedi was also shown buying the black Karrimor rucksack, which he carries the bomb in, from Sports Direct in the Arndale Centre on May 19.
Abedi’s shopping trips, the inquiry heard, were interposed with ‘hostile reconnaissance’ visits to Manchester Victoria and the Arena before May 22. On May 18, he arrived back at Manchester Airport from Libya - at 11.13am - and was pictured queuing at passport control.
Later that day, he got a taxi to Devell House in Rusholme, where a Nissan Micra that was used to store explosives was parked.
The inquiry was told the Micra had remained in the car park of Devell
House for five weeks before the attack, as Abedi was in Libya.
The footage shows Abedi buying hex nuts from Screwfix, as well as a battery. On his fourth trip to the store, he bought 1,600 metal nuts and a five-litre tin of paint. He also bought a bin, duvet cover and nail clippers from B&M Bargains in Gorton and nuts, dowels, tape and glue from B&Q at Manchester Fort in Cheetham Hill.
On the day of the attack, Abedi dumped items in black bin bags in the basement of Granby House, a flat he rented in Manchester city centre and used to construct the bomb, and arranged for money to be transferred to Libya.
He also dumped a Nike rucksack containing two passports and near the rucksack, a Samsung Galaxy phone was also found, the inquiry was told.
Det Chf Supt Simon Barraclough, who was the senior investigating officer for Operation Manteline, was asked if there was any reason to believe Abedi ‘needed any assistance in the last few days’.
“Despite our suspicions and investigating every line of inquiry we could, we have not found evidence that has happened,” he replied.