Brother of Manchester Arena bomber, two other terrorists guilty of assaulting prison officer

Hashem Abedi, 24, conspired with his brother Salman Abedi in the deadly bombing of an Arianna Grande concert in Manchester in 2017, killing 22. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 22 February 2022
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Brother of Manchester Arena bomber, two other terrorists guilty of assaulting prison officer

  • Paul Edwards, 57, said he feared he would die in the sudden assault
  • Each terrorist had three or more years added to their sentences

LONDON: Three convicted terrorists, including the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, have been found guilty of attacking a prison officer in a London prison’s high-security unit.

Prison officer Paul Edwards, 57, said he thought he would be killed when the three men attacked him in May 2020.

Attackers Hashem Abedi, Ahmed Hassan and Muhammed Saeed all had been convicted for terror-related offenses.

Abedi, 24, conspired with his brother Salman Abedi in the deadly bombing of an Arianna Grande concert in Manchester in 2017, killing 22 — many of them children.

Iraqi national Hassan injured 30 people when a homemade bomb partially exploded on a London tube train. He is serving time in jail for the attempted murder of 93 people in 2018.

Saeed had planned online to commit violent acts of terrorism.

Abedi, thought to be the ringleader of the attack on Edwards, was handed an additional three years and 10 months behind bars, while the other two men were given three each.

Abedi is already due to serve more than three decades behind bars for his role in the Manchester attack.

He was suspected of being the leader of a group of Islamist terrorist inmates inside Belmarsh’s “prison within a prison,” Woolwich Crown Court heard.

“I feared for my life, and I genuinely thought if I hadn’t fought back I would’ve ended up with at least extreme injuries or dead,” Edwards told the court.

During the trial, Abedi said: “I don’t think the sentence is going to make any difference.

“Inshallah (God willing), myself and all my brothers will be leaving the prison very soon.”

Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb told him: “Mr. Abedi, you have ahead of you many decades in custody.

“You say the sentence I pass will make no difference, and perhaps in your mind it will make no difference. But it is important that the law is applied and that each and every prisoner knows that if there is an attack on prison officers, they will be brought to justice.”


Explosion in downtown Kabul kills at least 7

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Explosion in downtown Kabul kills at least 7

KABUL, Afghanistan: An explosion in downtown Kabul on Monday killed at least seven people and wounded about a dozen more, according to an Italian medical charity running a surgical care facility in the city. The reasons for the blast were not immediately clear.
The explosion appeared to have hit a restaurant in the Shahr-e-Naw district of the Afghan capital. In the first few minutes after the blast, a police spokesman, Khalid Zadran, had identified the facility affected as a hotel.
The Italian NGO, EMERGENCY, said its surgical center in Kabul had received 20 people from the blast, including seven who were already dead when they arrived. It noted the number of casualties was “still provisional.”
Those injured included four women and a child, the organization’s Country Director in Afghanistan, Dejan Panic, said.
“The wounded, some of whom are being assessed for surgery, have suffered lacerations and bruises,” he added.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the blast had caused both deaths and injuries but did not have any details on the numbers.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said two Chinese people had been seriously injured and a security guard had been killed in the blast, which it said had occurred at a restaurant.
Footage aired by local television station Tolo News and filmed through a car windscreen showed people in the street with smoke and dust billowing behind them.