A senior MI5 officer tells the Manchester Arena Inquiry Ramadan Abedi influenced his son’s views.
Image source, Family handouts
The father of the Manchester Arena bomber influenced his son’s extremist beliefs, a senior MI5 officer has told the inquiry into the attack.
A senior director general, referred to as Witness J, told the Manchester Arena Inquiry an assessment by the security services found it was “likely” Ramadan Abedi shaped his son Salman’s views.
The court has previously heard Ramadan Abedi has refused to help the inquiry.
He remains a suspect in the police investigation into the atrocity.
The inquiry has begun looking at what was known about Salman Abedi before the attack, which saw 22 people die and hundreds more suffer injuries in a bombing at the venue on 22 May 2017.
Witness J, who appeared in court inside a bespoke wooden box and shielded from victims’ families to maintain his anonymity, said Abedi’s extremist views were “likely to have been influenced by his father Ramadan Abedi”.
The witness said he would not discuss in public whether Ramadan Abedi had been a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The court heard that a 2010 report by the joint terrorism analysis centre, which is based in MI5, had examined Islamist extremism in Manchester and had assessed that younger people of Libyan heritage were likely to be influenced by an older generation, some of whom were linked to groups like the LIFG.
Ramadan Abedi left the UK for Libya five weeks before the bombing and has not returned since.
The inquiry continues.
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