LIBYAN-CANADIAN CLERIC DENIES LINK TO MANCHESTER BOMBER
TORONTO A Libyan-Canadian cleric accused by the federal government of promoting violent jihad has denied any links to Manchester bomber Salman Abedi, according to a Libyan website.
“The alleged links between Abedi and me, which was claimed by The New York Times and National Post, are baseless and lack evidence,” Abdul Baset Ghwela, pictured at right, a former Ottawa imam who has returned to Libya, told the Libya Observer.
The Times, meanwhile, reported Sunday that Abedi, who detonated a bomb outside a concert crowded with teens, killing 22, had “established a connection” with Ghwela on a visit to Libya.
Ghwela did not respond to a request for comment. But the Libya Observer, which said it had contacted him by email, said the cleric “has never met with Abedi before.”
It also reported that Ghwela felt that a 2014 video in which he incited Libyan fighters to jihad was taken out of context. Rather, he said, he was “calling in that video for fighting the bandits and the henchmen of dictator Gaddafi.”
Also known as Abdu Albasset Egwilla, Ghwela is known as a hardliner. His son Owais, pictured at left, also a Canadian, died while fighting with an armed Islamist group last March.
A Canadian intelligence report about Ghwela, titled “Canadian-Libyan promotes violent jihad in Libya on YouTube,” quoted him as saying that, “Jihad today is simple and easily accessible, and does not require moving as in the past, as it was for Afghanistan and Iraq.”