Brother Of Manchester Concert Bomber Goes On Trial For Murder

Hashem Abedi, the youngest brother of the suicide bomber, who killed 22 people at Ariana Grande's Manchester concert in 2017, is just as guilty as his late brother, a British prosecutor said on Tuesday (February 4).

Abedi, 22, has been accused of conspiring with Salman Abedi over the attack, which also injured more than 260 individuals. The former died during the attack as he denoted a bomb at the venue at the end of her "Dangerous Woman World Tour" set on May 22. Opening the case at London’s Central Criminal Court, prosecution lawyer Duncan Penny revealed that the two brothers engaged in "months of planning" to create the explosives. Abedi denied the 22 counts of murder. He also denied a charge of attempted murder, regarding those who were injured and survived, as well as another charge that he conspired with his brother to cause an explosion.

"This body of evidence suggests that the defendant in this case — the surviving brother — is just as responsible for the crimes that resulted in so much death, serious injury and damage following the detonation of the bomb by his dead brother," Penny said during the trial, which is scheduled to last eight weeks. "The bomb which was detonated was self-evidently designed to kill and maim as many people as possible. It was packed with lethal shrapnel and it was detonated in the middle of a crowd in a very public area — the intention being to kill and to inflict maximum damage."

Before the attack, Abedi traveled to Libya (his parents' homeland) and was detained in a militia allied with a U.N.-recognized government in the Libyan capital, and transported to Britain in 2019.

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