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Brother, father of Manchester bomber arrested in Libya

May 25, 2017 at 2:13 pm

Forensics scientists look for evidence in the Manchester Arena stadium in Manchester, UK on May 23, 2017 [Lindsey Parnaby/Anadolu Agency]

The brother and father of Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who killed 22 people in the UK city of Manchester this week, have reportedly been detained in Tripoli, Libya.

Salman’s brother, 20-year-old Hashem Abedi was arrested by members of the Rada Special Deterrence Force yesterday evening after being observed for over a month.

Hashem had allegedly confessed that both he and his brother Salman were members of Daesh and that he had known the details of the Manchester bombing and had been in constant contact with his brother.

According to Rada, Hashem had left Britain for Libya on 16 April where he planned a terrorist attack in Tripoli and was withdrawing money sent from his brother in the UK from a bank account when he was arrested.

Read: Memorial in London for Manchester terror attack victims

Ramadan Abedi, Salman’s father, an alleged former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, was also been seized by masked gunmen yesterday whilst giving phone interviews at his Tripoli home. Ramadan had previously affirmed that his son was “innocent” and denied his son had spent time in Syria or fought with Daesh which claimed responsibility for the concert bombing.

We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us

he said. He also confirmed that British police had arrested his third and eldest son, Ismail, in Manchester.

This is reportedly the second time Hashem Abedi has been detained by Rada; he was previously held in a round-up of sympathisers of the Benghazi Revolutionary Shura Council.

Warnings from Libya

The Beida-based government of Abdullah Thinni has come out to say that it had warned the British government that the UK was harbouring Libyan terrorists and had continued to “offer a safe haven to the members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)”.

In a statement, Thinni began by denouncing the Manchester terror bombing and British support for the Presidency Council (PC) which it said was not recognised by the House of Representatives (HoR) and which operated illegally in Tripoli.

#ManchesterAttack

It linked the Manchester attack to decades of British policy in which the UK has been “recruiting Libyan and Muslim youth in the UK and Europe and sending them to Libya and other countries to deliver terrorism and death.”

Thinni condemned former Prime Minister, David Cameron, for pushing the dominance of groups in Libya who “have been destroying our cities and towns in an attempt to shape Libya into an exporter of terror to the whole planet.”

The Beida government insisted that London was in fact well aware that it and the Libyan National Army (LNA) were combating these terrorists.