Freed, ‘svengali’ who groomed arena bomber
AN ISLAMIC State ‘svengali’ who groomed the Manchester Arena bomber is being released from prison despite refusing to co-operate with the public inquiry or police investigation into the atrocity.
Abdalraouf Abdallah, 27, is to be freed ‘imminently’ after serving only five-anda-half years for terror offences.
Salman Abedi, who murdered 22 people – including 14-year-old Eilidh MacLeod from the isle of Barra – in the attack in May 2017, visited Abdallah in prison several times.
Abdallah also spoke to Abedi via an illicit mobile phone on the day he took delivery of chemicals for his bomb. Sources described Abdallah as a ‘svengali’ and said Abedi had come under his spell.
Abdallah was convicted of helping his brother and two other jihadists travel to Syria in 2014. Confined to a wheelchair after he was shot while fighting in the 2011 Libyan revolution, he will be on licence for the next four years – an extended period because the judge who jailed him found him to be ‘dangerous’.
A parole review was twice adjourned due to Covid-19 and was never completed. Abdallah now qualifies for automatic release having served all of his sentence due to time spent on remand. A Parole Board spokesman said: ‘ The case was not concluded before the condit i onal r el ease date was reached.’
A source said: ‘ Abdallah hasn’t shown a great deal of evidence of de-radicalisation but has to be released because, counting time on remand, he’s at the end of his sentence.’
Lawyer Victoria Higgins, who is representing the families of 12 victims at the inquiry, said: ‘ This i s truly devastating news.’ Robby Potter, who was blasted through the heart with shrapnel in the bombing, said: ‘The penalty for all terrorism should be life.’
Abdallah’s friendship with Abedi, whose parents are from Libya, was revealed by the
Mail weeks after the bombing. Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, said their relationship ‘was one of some significance’. But Abdallah refused to answer the inquiry team’s questions, Mr Greaney added.
Abdallah will be in supervised accommodation on a GPS tag and banned from much of Manchester.
He must also engage with deradicalisation schemes, though it was said he defaced an invitation to one last year with ‘inappropriate comments’.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: ‘Terrorists released on licence are supervised by the probation service, with the support of police and the security services, subject to strict conditions. If they break those conditions they can be brought back to prison.’
‘Devastating news’