Brother of Manchester bomber is found guilty

LONDON >> A jury in Britain on Tuesday convicted the brother of a suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017, finding him guilty on all 22 counts of murder for his role in planning and executing the attack.

The man, Hashem Abedi, was the brother of Salman Abedi, the man who detonated a vest laden with explosives, killing children, teenagers and parents waiting to pick them up after Grande’s concert at Manchester Arena in northwestern England. More than 235 people were injured in the bombing, one of Britain’s worst recent terrorist attacks, and hundreds of others suffered psychological damage.

The jury took 4 ½ hours to find Hashem Abedi guilty on all of the murder charges, along with one count of attempted murder and one count of conspiracy to cause an explosion. A murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence, prosecutors said.

“Hashem Abedi encouraged and helped his brother knowing that Salman Abedi planned to commit an atrocity,” Max Hill, director of public prosecutions, said in a statement. “He has blood on his hands even if he didn’t detonate the bomb.”

Hill said he hoped Abedi’s conviction would give the victims’ families “a sense that some justice has been done.”

Abedi had pleaded not guilty to all 24 counts, but he offered no evidence or testimony during six weeks of proceedings, stopped participating in the trial and, ultimately, stopped attending.

The brothers used three addresses in Manchester to prepare for the attack, the Manchester police said: one as a delivery address for the chemicals, a second to manufacture the explosives and a third to build the final version of the bomb.

Hashem Abedi, 22, was born in Britain but is originally from Libya. He was extradited from Libya to Britain in July.

Abedi and his older brother had left Britain for Libya about a month before the May 22, 2017, attack.