Manchester bomber’s brother ‘is just as guilty of murdering 22 people’
THE younger brother of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi shared the killer’s goal to commit mass murder and is just as guilty, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Hashem Abedi assisted and encouraged his older sibling and bears equal responsibility for the slaughter of the 22 people who died in the attack, it was alleged.
The blast sent a mass of metal nuts, bolts and screws ripping through crowds at the end of a concert by US singerAriana Grande, the jury was told.
Nineteen people died in the foyer of the Manchester Arena on the night of May 22, 2017.
Three other victims were helped by survivors and paramedics but died shortly afterwards. Another 28 people were very seriously wounded, 63 suffered serious injuries while a further 111 needed hospital treatment, said Duncan Penny,
QC, prosecuting.
Mr Penny told the court: “Hashem Abedi is just as guilty of the murder of 22 people as was his brother, he is equally guilty of the attempted murder of many others and in doing so, he is equally guilty of agreeing with his brother to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.”
He said he was just as responsible for the atrocity “as surely as if he had selected the target and detonated the bomb himself”.
Manchester-born Abedi, 22, denies 22 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
He also denies conspiring with his brother to cause an explosion.
The brothers did not have a specific target and date for the attack when they set out to assemble the bomb, the court heard.
Buying chemicals off the internet, they made a compound known as TATP – a sensitive and unpredictable high explosive used in terror attacks across the world, jurors were told.
They tried to construct metal parts for the bomb by cutting up vegetable oil tins, Mr Penny said. The brothers used the garden shed at the home they shared in Fallowfield, south Manchester, and a basement flat in the city centre to work on the construction of the device, it was alleged.
Prints
Hashem Abedi’s finger and palm prints were found on a modified vegetable oil tin in the shed, the jury was told. It had been fitted with a lid from a can of tomatoes and was an early attempt to build a container for the bomb, the Old Bailey heard.
In the flat, police discovered a blue plastic rubbish bag containing six, tightly rolled metal cylinders.
Hashem Abedi’s thumb prints were found on the inside of one of them, Mr Penny said. In the end, they allegedly opted for a cylindrical money box with a removable lid and a detonator fashioned from an aluminium soft drinks can.
A scrap of metal from the scene of the blast was compared to pieces from the garden shed and basement flat. They were found to be a “perfect mechanical fit” and were from the same vegetable oil tin, he added.
The court heard that before the blast Hashem Abedi used a relative’s account with online retailer Amazon to buy five litres of sulphuric acid, one of the components needed to make TATP.
The trial continues.