Irish Daily Mirror

Bomber lurks among crowd of innocents at the Arena

Jury sees pic from just before blast

- Paul.byrne@mirror.co.uk @Paulbyrnem­irror

within 10 metres of Abedi. The Old Bailey heard 19 of the 22 fatally injured people were declared dead at the venue.

Members of the public, including an off-duty nurse, rushed to help the youngest victim, Saffie-rose Roussos, eight, from Preston, Lancs.

But she was pronounced dead hospital just over an hour later.

A further 264 were wounded, including 111 taken to hospital, of whom 63 were seriously injured, and 28 very seriously injured. One of the injured survivors included a woman who was in hurt by shrapnel during the 1996 IRA bombing of Manchester.

Another woman, who was left seriously injured, had been in Warrington at the time of the 1993 IRA bomb attack, which left two schoolboys dead.

The bomber was identified by his DNA and fingerprin­ts, which were taken in 2012 when he was arrested for shopliftin­g, the jury was told. An image of the remnants of his clothing was also shown in court.

Jurors heard he had arranged to send €550 to Libya on the day of the blast. He was later caught on CCTV cameras leaving his rented flat on Granby Row in Manchester, with his rucksack, before taking a tram to Victoria Station in the city, which sits alongside Manchester Arena.

While waiting for the tram, he made a call lasting just over four minutes to his family in Libya, the court heard.

The bomber had loitered in the area around the Manchester Arena for two hours before detonating his device at 10.31pm.

The trial continues.

 ??  ?? WAITING Salman Abedi in Arena’s foyer
ACCUSED Hashem Abedi denies killings
WAITING Salman Abedi in Arena’s foyer ACCUSED Hashem Abedi denies killings
 ??  ?? SHRAPNEL Metal added to bomb to kill more
SHRAPNEL Metal added to bomb to kill more
 ??  ?? TERRORIST Salman Abedi had bomb in bag
TERRORIST Salman Abedi had bomb in bag

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