Manchester: Jailed Islamic extremist who was visited in prison by Salman Abedi denies grooming the suicide bomber

From the Manchester Evening News 

A convicted terrorist recruiter has denied helping Salman Abedi carry out the Manchester Arena attack from prison and claimed his mental state is ‘too fragile’ to give evidence to the public inquiry into the atrocity.

Abdalraouf Abdallah, 27, is said to have used an ‘illicit’ mobile to attempt to call Abedi while he was in prison in early 2017 a few months before the attack which claimed 22 lives and injured hundreds more. Abedi also visited him in prison, once in February 2015 while Abdallah was on remand at HMP Belmarsh and then again at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool in January 2017 after he had been convicted and jailed. He was due to visit the inmate in March 2017 but that planned meeting never happened.

The pair are said to have discussed martyrdom.

Abdallah, an Islamic extremist who was left paraplegic while fighting in Libya in 2011, was jailed for terror offences in May 2016. He was released on licence in November last year but has since been recalled to prison.

The continuing independent inquiry into the atrocity has heard he has ‘important evidence’ to give about the radicalisation of Abedi but he is resisting attempts to compel him to give evidence.

The families also believe he has questions to answer about the planning of the Arena attack itself, the inquiry has heard.  Peter Weatherby QC, speaking for the bereaved families, said Abdallah was an ‘important’ witness who should be called to give evidence. And he told the inquiry the medical reports were ‘central’ to whether he should be excused from going into the witness box. He added: ‘This is evidence (that) goes to the heart of some key matters – radicalisation has been referred to and whether the plot went further than Abedi (and his brother).’

Two psychiatric reports have concluded Abdallah is unfit to give evidence, the inquiry has been told. The inquiry allowed Abdallah to nominate his own psychiatrist to interview him and write a report after he refused its suggested expert. The report was reviewed by the inquiry’s nominated psychiatrist. Both agreed he was unfit to give evidence.

Yesterday (Tuesday) his QC, Rajiv Menon, applied to the chairman of the inquiry to strike out those two psychiatric reports into Abdallah because he said they breached his client’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights due to his ‘psychological history and fragile mental state’ if made public.

Mr Menon said he feared his client was a ‘sacrificial lamb’ and told the the inquiry: “I make it absolutely clear on his behalf again: he did not groom or radicalise Salman Abedi. He had no involvement whatsoever in the planning or preparation of the terrorist attack on the Manchester Arena. He is unfit at present to give evidence and, in our respectful submission, that should be the end of the matter for the time being  . . . “

In the months leading up to the Manchester Arena attack on May 22, 2017, both Salman Abedi and his brother Hashem became visibly more radicalised, gave up on education courses, wore traditional Islamic clothing and grew more religious in their attitudes, and Salman was seen associating with known extremist Abdallah. The inquiry was told that Abdallah had numerous telephone contacts with Abedi from 2014 as well as prison visits. How the brothers became radicalised is one of the key questions the inquiry is to explore.