Member of public questioned ‘ dodgy’ Arena bomber

A WORRIED member of the public asked Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi, “What have you got in your rucksack?” but was “fobbed off” after raising concerns to security, the public inquiry into the terror attack heard.

Christopher Wild spoke to the 22- year- old, dressed in black and with a “massive” rucksack, as his appearance and presence outside the concert appeared “strange” and “dodgy” to Mr Wild and his partner Julie Whitley.

The couple, believed to be from East Yorkshire, were waiting in the City Room, the foyer of the arena, to pick up Ms Whitley’s daughter, 14, and her daughter’s friend, after an Ariana Grande concert.

They came across Abedi, hiding at the back of the City Room, shortly before he detonated his home- made rucksack bomb, at 10.30pm on May 22, 2017, killing 22 bystanders and injuring hundreds more.

Mr Wild told the hearing in Manchester: “I just thought it was strange. It’s a kids concert. It just all seemed very strange to me why he would be sat there.

“He was keeping out of view and that’s another reason why I thought it was strange.

“I started to think about things that happened in the world, I just thought it could be dangerous.”

Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked the witness: “What danger was it? What did you think he might do?”

Mr Wild said: “Let a bomb off.” He continued: “I decided to have a word with him. Because Julie was wary of him and so was I. I just wanted to know why he was there. I asked him what he was doing there, did he know how bad it looked, him sitting there out of sight of everybody?

“I felt a bit bad about challenging him, but I asked, ‘ what have you got in your rucksack?’ He didn’t reply, he just looked up at me. “I said, ‘ It doesn’t look very good, you know, what you see with bombs and such, you with a rucksack like this in a place like this, what are you doing?’”

Mr Wild said Abedi told him he was “waiting for someone” and asked him a couple of times “what the time was”.

“He seemed on edge, nervous,” Mr Wild added. Shortly after, at 10.14pm, around 16 minutes before Abedi detonated his rucksack bomb, Mr Wild approached Mohammed Agha, a Showsec steward, the security contractors for the arena. But said he felt “fobbed off”.

The inquiry continues.