The Daily Telegraph

Preacher under suspicion 10 years before arena attack

- By Susie Coen

MI5 suspected a Muslim preacher whom Salman Abedi visited on his deathbed had radicalise­d followers more than a decade before the Manchester attack, according to reports.

Mansour Al-anezi was being monitored by the authoritie­s even before one of his associates detonated a failed suicide bomb in Exeter in 2008.

On the ninth anniversar­y of the botched attack, Abedi killed 22 people after setting off a bomb in the foyer of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.

The public inquiry was told of links between Abedi, 22, and Al-anezi, who had previously been arrested and interviewe­d over his connection with the Exeter attack. He had regularly led prayers at a Plymouth mosque attended by Muslim convert Nicky Reilly, who tried to blow up a restaurant in the Devon city when he was 22.

Al-anezi was not charged, but the BBC found investigat­ors were warned by MI5 when Al-anezi moved to Plymouth from Manchester, before the attack. He was allegedly being monitored at the mosque where he preached.

The revelation­s come two days before the Manchester Arena inquiry publishes its report into the radicalisa­tion of Abedi, looking at whether the attack could have been prevented.

Families bereaved by the Manchester attack said they were “disappoint­ed to learn of yet more links to terrorism in Abedi’s background which do not appear to have been investigat­ed”.

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