themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Hashem Abedi: Evil of the Arena bomber's 'proper jihadi' brother

When Salman Abedi detonated that huge bomb in his backpack as exhilarated kids and teenagers were leaving a pop concert at Manchester Arena , he wasn ’ t alone .
As he inflicted the most horrific single crime our city has witnessed , his cowardly , hate-filled younger brother Hashem Abedi was awaiting news 2,000 miles away in Libya .
Only Salman Abedi detonated the device , causing the blast that sent 3,000 pieces of shrapnel , flying like bullets across the foyer , killing 22 and maiming dozens more .
But Hashem was there in spirit - and he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for an unfathomable crime visited upon innocent people .
Hashem didn ’ t flick the switch , nor could he hear the dull groans of pain of those who had survived the blast .
But Salman , who was decapitated by the force of the blast , couldn ’ t have committed the mass-murder/suicide without him .
The suicide bomber looked to his younger brother as his munitions expert , quartermaster , driver and confidante .
Now , Hashem Abedi , college drop-out , takeaway delivery driver and petty thief , has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempting to murder those who survived the blast ; and conspiracy to cause an explosion .
The case ’ s senior investigating officer , Det Chf Supt Simon Barraclough , said : “ He ’ s every bit as responsible as his brother Salman .
“ The fact that he was in Libya when that bomb was detonated , for me , is utterly irrelevant .
He was with his brother throughout the entire process of making this explosive and building this bomb .
“ I believe he provided encouragement right up to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dissuade him from doing anything and withdraw from the conspiracy , this is a man who has been with his brother from start to finish.
” Those convictions were the result of an amazing police investigation which saw Hashem extradited from Libya .
Here , Manchester Evening News crime reporter John Scheerhout examines Hashem Abedi ’ s role in helping his suicide bomber brother make the devastating improvised explosive device ( IED ) and prepare for the attack .
And he shines a light on how the siblings turned on Manchester - the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , education and refuge from Libya , the country from which their parents had fled .
Disturbingly , police believe Hashem Abedi , with his technical knowhow and ability to source chemicals , could have gone on to commit another atrocity .
The family attempt to stop the Abedi brothers ’ terror attack that was too little , too late In April 2017 , Salman and Hashem ’ s Abedi ’ parents flew back to Manchester from Libya , where they were living at the time .
Police are confident the events of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the would-be terrorists miles away from Manchester , where they had set up a bomb factory .
Nine days after the Abedi parents , Ramadan , 52 , and Samia Abedi , 52 , arrived in Manchester they flew back to Libya with Salman , 22 , and Hashem Abedi , then 20 .
The two young men were travelling on one-way tickets - booked for them by their elder brother , Ismail Abedi .
“ ( The family ) must have known that these two ( Hashem and Salman ) were getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do something stupid - must have ” , Det Chf Supt Barraclough said .
Indeed , once the family were back in Tripoli , the Libyan capital , it ’ s understood that Ramadan Abedi confiscated Salman Abedi ’ s passport .
But on May 18 , 2017 , after just over a month in Libya , Salman Abedi flew back to Manchester alone .
It seems he had retrieved his passport and escaped his family ’ s home .
The fact Hashem stayed behind in Libya has raised suspicion of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact he stayed in Libya… I don ’ t know why they made that decision ” , Det Chf Supt Barraclough said .
“ Was that because Hashem was going to do something else ?
`` Going to move into perhaps the next terrorism atrocity ?
This was all about the sick ideology of IS ( Islamic State ) and this desire for martyrdom .
`` What was he going to do next ?
Where would his career as a terrorist take him ?
” Meanwhile , once back in the UK , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Rusholme , where he and his brother Hashem had left a Nissan Micra .
They had bought the Nissan Micra hours before their parents had flown them out of the country , at a time when their terror plans had been thrown suddenly in turmoil .
Just before midnight on April 13 , they had found the vehicle online and paid £230 cash for it .
They had then faced a race against time to clear out their bomb factory before they had to leave Manchester for Libya .
Indeed , exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they retrieved their explosive - a substance called TATP ( triacetone triperoxide ) , chemicals and shrapnel from their 12th floor bomb factory at Somerton Court , a tower block in Blackley .
They loaded their Micra with nails , screws and large blue barrels , each filled with the deadly home-made TATP - and water - so the volatile substance didn ’ t explode by accident .
Neither had a driving licence and the car wasn ’ t insured , so to avoid the risk of both being caught , Hashem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Devell House in Rusholme , while Salman followed in a taxi , carrying two cardboard boxes , with the pair nervously calling and texting each other all the way .
This meant that , after Salman managed to escape Libya in May , the car was still waiting for him , the explosives undisturbed , ready for him to use in an attack at the Ariana Grande concert , at Manchester Arena , days later .
He had checked on the Micra , likely fearing it was being watched by police , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blue Kangol suitcase and loading it with the explosives from the car .
CCTV captured him dragging the heavy suitcase behind him to a cab , which took him to another flat he had rented at Granby Row in central Manchester , where he carefully assembled the device , dried out the TATP on carpet protector and towels he laid across the floor , and made final preparations for the attack he and his brother had planned so carefully .
He followed brother Hashem ’ s instructions on how to wire up the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later found at the scene would reveal .
And he carried out a reconnaissance mission at the Arena , where Take That were in concert that Thursday night , the first of three nights at the venue .
CCTV played to the jury showed Salman Abedi , hiding under a cap , walking by a long queue of people at the box office and then standing and looking at concert-goers who were on their way into the venue , no doubt contemplating how to inflict the maximum carnage .
Salman Abedi chose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at 10.31pm on the Monday night of May 22 , as concert-goers , mostly teenagers and young children were leaving the venue , following the Ariana Grande concert .
The last call he made was timed at 8.20pm , while he was sitting on a bench at the platform at Shudehill Metrolink station , as he made his final preparations for the attack .
The call was to the Abedi family home in Tripoli and lasted four minutes and 12 seconds .
It ’ s likely it was to Hashem Abedi .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brother getting his last-minute inspiration and last-minute advice and he ’ s telling him what he ’ s about to do ” , Det Chf Supt Barraclough said .
“ These two brothers were literally hand in glove in this process.
” In the aftermath of the attack , Ramadan Abedi protested his family ’ s innocence .
`` This is not us , ” he is reported to have said .
But his second and third sons clearly did believe in it .
They were hell-bent on it .
And their family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been too little , too late .
Hashem and Salman Abedi had been on a dangerous path for years .
Hashem Abedi and his brother Salman were raised to hate Colonel Gaddafi , Libya ’ s despotic secular ruler , by their religious radical father , Ramadan Abedi .
The family were firmly rooted in the ultra-conservative Salafi branch of Sunni Islam .
Said to be a member of the al-Qaeda aligned Libya Islamic Fighting Group , dad Ramadan proudly posted a picture on his Facebook page of a young Hashem , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an automatic weapon with the caption : “ Hashem the lion… in training.
” Ramadan expected his son Hashem to shoulder arms to fight for Libya and radical Islam .
Ramadan had been a security officer under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi ’ s regime , but was among a number of religious radicals who fled in the early 1990s .
In 1994 Ramadan settled here , with his wife Samia and eldest son Ismail , making Fallowfield their home .
They went on to have four more sons - all born in the UK @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Othman ) - and a daughter ( Jomana ) .
With no known employment , Ramadan spent a lot of time in the mosques around Manchester where he was a well-known figure .
His wife Samia was also deeply religious .
Years later , when they were old enough , Ramadan would take the boys back to north Africa , during their school holidays , to take part in the Arab Spring wave of uprisings .
Salman and Hashem went to Burnage High School for Boys , where they got to know other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a passing interest in radical Islam , and where the former landed ten GCSEs including an A* in Arabic .
Hashem was taken out of school aged 14 because the entire family returned to Tripoli in 2011 , following the death in Libya of Muammar Gaddafi .
With Gaddafi gone , the Abedis thought they were safe to resume family life in Libya .
But the country 's turmoil didn ’ t end - and so the Abedi family returned to Manchester two years later .
By August 2013 they were all back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother Samia was claiming housing benefit for herself and her five youngest children , Ismail having moved out by then .
The family ’ s return to Manchester didn ’ t stop the teenage brothers Salman and Hashem spending the summer of 2014 back in Libya , possibly fighting in the civil war that was raging there at the time .
The pair had to be rescued by HMS Enterprise in Tripoli in August 2014 , with more than 100 other British citizens caught up in the fighting .
Their rescue was one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were happy to accept from a country they grew to hate .
As well as their council home , the family enjoyed approaching £200,000 in state benefits and student loans across seven years , some of which would end up being spent on preparations for the Arena bomb .
Having grown up steeped in the language of Libyan religious radicalism , Salman and Hashem developed their own extremist concept of jihad .
Not merely against Colonel Gadaffi , but against the West .
In the months after their rescue from Libya by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members of the L Squad - a hard-partying , weed-smoking gang of Libyan-heritage teenagers - into radicalised ultra-conservative Muslim fanatics preparing for terror , got well underway .
Within the walls of the Abedi family home on Elsmore Road in Fallowfield , there was support for the Islamic State group in August 2015 .
Hashem Abedi cooked a traditional Libyan stew for his brother and a group of Libyan-heritage friends invited round to their home .
Mum and dad weren ’ t there .
The chat turned to an item on CNN about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out along the border between Syria and Iraq .
One of the fellow students enjoying dinner that night noted Salman Abedi was quick to express ‘ empathy ’ with IS .
He was irked at how the media seemed to ‘ attack ’ them .
Some of the half a dozen young men who were at the dinner agreed with Salman .
What was discussed at the get-together of young mates is known because one of the diners was a student who spent a few weeks living with the Abedi brothers and who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trial .
The pair had become friends at Burnage High School for Boys .
Hashem , he said , appeared to be ‘ in agreement ’ with what his brother was saying , he would later tell police .
The Abedi brothers , he said , were planning to go to Mecca in Saudi Arabia in September 2015 for Hajj , the annual pilgrimage Muslims are obliged to carry out at least once in their lifetime .
The police would later find Hajj ID cards for the brothers confirming that they did make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friend would see the brothers again was in April 2017 , just a few weeks before the bombing , back at the Abedi family home after Friday prayers .
He was shocked .
Salman Abedi , who had been a regular at the gym in 2015 , had lost a lot of weight .
The brothers were wearing traditional Islamic dress .
It was around 2015 the brothers started wearing traditional Islamic clothes more frequently , and Salman in particular became far more pious , sometimes berating the younger Hashem for not being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to becoming dangerous jihadis took different paths .
They appeared sometimes to be at odds with each other but their hatred of the west was shared .
The trial heard evidence Salman Abedi spoke ‘ aggressively ’ to Hashem at a party on Rusholme ’ s Curry Mile in May 2015 , humiliating him in front of a group of other young Libyan-heritage men .
He seemed upset his younger brother hadn ’ t been home all weekend and was more interested in partying .
The brothers were back in Libya in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least , taking drugs and partying , rather than fighting , were on the agenda .
A mate dismissed by Salman Abedi as a ‘ bad influence ’ on his younger brother recalled an ‘ amazing ’ party at a beach house near Tripoli .
When the mate had gone to pick up Hashem for the party , the pair saw Salman and hid from the more religious , older lad .
He noted how both brothers became more religious back in Manchester .
Known for ‘ hating ’ education , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as more serious about their faith , as they grew into young men .
Salman went to North Trafford College where he would he would get a D in GCSE English but an A* in A-level Arabic , as well as a business diploma .
In 2014 Hashem resumed the education he had abandoned in 2011 by taking GCSEs in English and maths at Manchester College in Openshaw , as well as a BTEC diploma in engineering .
Despite his brother ’ s disapproval , and the growing seriousness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really gave up a party lifestyle .
But he also formed an association with an older man that would later raise investigators ' eyebrows .
In 2016 he spent time in Germany working for a man who the US had once suspected of being a fundraiser for Libyans affiliated to al-Qaeda .
Later that year , in October , Hashem was spotted at a party in Amsterdam , by the peer whom his brother Salman considered a bad influence , doing drugs .
Hashem was an enthusiastic consumer of drugs , any drugs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ invite pals to ‘ hotbox ’ in his BMW and was renowned for rolling an ‘ extra large spliff ’ .
Even by January 2017 , when Hashem was plotting a terror attack with his brother , who had dropped out of a business management course at Salford University so he could concentrate on it , he carried on partying : in Manchester , at a hotel in London .
His ‘ bad influence ’ friend told the trial : “ I think he was taking drugs because he knew what his brother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dropped out of education again in March 2016 , and when he did work , it was handing out flyers in the mornings and on-off employment as a £5-an-hour , cash in hand takeaway delivery driver in the evenings , where he would routinely pocket the change due to customers .
Salman ’ s transformation appeared to be more profound .
He had grown from an aspiring footballer with ‘ a good left foot ’ into one of the ‘ bad boys ’ of young Libyans from the park - the L Squad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lads from Moss Side .
Smoking cannabis , bulking up in the gym and getting involved in fights Salman had lived what one friend described as ‘ a little bit of a gangster lifestyle ’ in his teens .
But as he got older , he became something of a would-be radical preacher , to the point that the parents of more liberal Muslims urged their kids not to listen to the young fanatic .
`` My mum would often confront Salman about his religious views and this sometimes resulted in conflict , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Salman Abedi wouldn ’ t just urge people to pray , go to the mosque and recite stories from Islam .
He would say ‘ life is temporary ’ and talk openly about martyrdom , saying it was ‘ something big ’ saying ‘ jihad is beautiful ’ .
When Salman Abedi went to the mosque , he liked to be at the front to listen to the imam .
His brother Hashem ’ s trial heard about an occasion in March 2017 , two months before the bombing , when - @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stepped in and took over prayers when the imam began to stutter .
Brother Hashem was sitting a few rows back with a pal who told the trial he thought what Salman had done was ‘ cheeky ’ .
Two months before the attack , only half joking , Salman Abedi told a young student during a car journey : `` Do chemistry so you can build a bomb . ''
Tellingly , brother Hashem - who claimed to be unaware of his brother ’ s increasingly extreme views - was driving when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later told the police the anecdote said he laughed it off at the time .
`` To be honest even if he had said to me ' I 'm going to build a bomb ' I would n't have believed him , '' said the witness , who can not be named for legal reasons .
Others observed that Hashem appeared ‘ scared ’ of Salman and didn ’ t want his older brother to know he still smoked weed or ‘ did anything naughty ’ .
Salman certainly didn ’ t think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friend as ‘ clumsy , a little stupid and Goofy ’ , was going to the mosque enough .
Hashem might not have seemed as fanatical as his brother on the surface , but he played a critical role in his brother ’ s atrocity .
Hashem asked friends and family to buy sulphuric acid on Amazon for him .
His ‘ bad influence ’ friend didn ’ t believe his ‘ bulls**t story ’ that it was needed to replace acid in a battery which had been knocked over and spilled back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He soon realised this was one of chemicals used to make explosives , snubbed his friend and , following the explosion , told police what he knew .
But Hashem did manage to persuade his cousin , Alharth Forjani , 21 , to buy sulphuric acid via his Amazon account in January 2017 , telling him it was ‘ for his car ’ .
Actually it was to makeTATP , the explosive used in the bomb at the Arena .
Hashem and Salman both went to Alharth Forjani ’ s house to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delivered by DHL .
Like others , Alharth Forjani admitted he had a ‘ bad feeling ’ - but said he only learned later it could be used to make explosives .
“ I think he believes in it , ” he told his cousin ’ s murder trial .
When pressed what he meant by ‘ it ’ , he said simply : “ Terrorism.
” The Abedi brothers were regulars at Fade Away barbershop on Princess Road , in Moss Side , where Libyan politics - and terrorism - were hot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the barbershop was a man from the nearby Alexandra Park estate , paraplegic Abdalraouf Abdallah .
The dual British-Libya national was something of a hero in Manchester ’ s close-knit Libyan dissident community - he was paralysed in 2011 after being shot in the spine fighting Gaddafi ’ s men in Libya .
And , as he was recovering in hospital , Abedis father , Ramadan , urged friends on Facebook to pray for him .
In the years that followed his life-changing injury , Abdalraouf Abdallah became an Islamic State recruiter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a south Manchester-based clique of Islamic State sympathisers .
He ran a communications hub from the family home on Westerling Way in Moss Side , arranging contact with IS , money , go-betweens and weapons .
Abdalraouf ’ s brother , Mohammed Abdallah , was also a fanatic .
He once filled out an application form to become an IS sniper - listing his fighting abilities , previous experience of holy war , and preference for anti-aircraft machine guns .
And , after Abdalraouf brokered his brother ’ s membership of IS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the terror group - in Syria and Libya - before returning to the UK , only for justice to catch up with him .
Salman and Hashem Abedi no doubt considered the Abdallahs as inspirational jihadis in their warped worldview .
And at Fade Away in Moss Side - which police raided in the wake of the bomb - the Abedi brothers chatted and listened to Abdalraouf , before he ended up being locked up for terror offences , as did his brother Mohammed .
Fade Away was run by the Abedi brothers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told Hashem ’ s trial that he had noticed that the siblings had ‘ started to be radicalised ’ .
The uncle , 49 , himself a Libyan refugee who came to the UK in 1994 , warned his own sons not to associate with Abdalraouf .
He told the trial : `` I told them that I did not want him to come back to the shop and not mingle with them , when my son told me this man had ISIS way of thinking.
” But Salman Abedi kept in touch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Islamic State recruiter while he was on remand at HMP Belmarsh in February 2015 , awaiting trial .
And he visited him in the months before the attack at the arena , at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool on January 18 , 2017 , where Abdalraouf Abdallah was serving his jail sentence following his conviction for terror crimes .
A week later , even though he was behind bars , Abdalraouf managed to call Salman Abedi on a mobile phone - they chatted for four minutes and 17 seconds .
What they discussed has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not difficult to imagine that summer ’ s ‘ operation ’ may have been one of the subjects .
Abedi also booked to visit him again - on March 6 - but didn ’ t attend on that occasion .
Was Abdalraouf the man who radicalised the Abedi brothers ?
Detectives who investigated the Arena bombing don ’ t think so .
He was certainly like-minded .
But the guiding hand who taught them the skills they would need to build a bomb and avoid the police ?
The Arena investigators doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ identified by the police investigation but detectives strongly suspect the radicalisation , and indeed the training , which propelled the Abedi brothers to the Arena bombing , happened when they were on their ‘ summer holidays ’ in Libya .
Between January and April 2017 , Hashem Abedi and brother Salman are known to have sourced 16 litres of sulphuric acid and 55 litres of hydrogen peroxide , two of the three chemicals required to make TATP , the explosive nicknamed ‘ Mother of Satan ’ .
They had enough chemicals to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five kilos are estimated to have been used in the Arena bomb .
With Hashem having asked pals to to use their Amazon accounts , the chemicals came in from restoration and crafts , hygiene and chemical suppliers from as far away as northern Italy .
While some pals had become suspicious , enough agreed , and the brothers simply picked the packages up once they were delivered .
The brothers also used an unoccupied terraced house on Lindum Street in Rusholme , whose Libyan tenant was away , as a delivery address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s prints were found there while Salman was seen riding away from the property on his mountain bike .
During the early days of their ‘ operation ’ , the brothers experimented on a prototype bomb at the family home in Elsmore Road , Fallowfield .
Hashem Abedi , from his work at takeaways , managed to get his hands on old 20 litre tins of Consumer ’ s Pride vegetable oil .
The brothers spent hours cutting up the tins in what were early , experimental efforts at making detonator tubes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improvised explosive device ) .
Their prints were found all over the inside and outside of the pieces of tin in the shed in the back garden - so many of them it made a complete mockery of Hashem Abedi ’ s later claim that he only touched them while enjoying a furtive cigarette there .
Hashem also bought nails and screws , claiming these weren ’ t for shrapnel but to do up the shed , although the shed was in such a poor condition nails and screws weren ’ t going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also on six potential detonator tubes - not used in the final device - found at the city centre apartment where his brother assembled the bomb .
Equally ludicrous was Hashem ’ s claim that he only collected the oil drums to trade in for scrap - it turns out each tin would have been worth just 18p had he weighed it in at his local scrap merchants .
Having a City and Guilds qualification in electrical installation from Manchester College in Openshaw , Hashem Abedi was responsible for ensuring the circuitry for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were found on a rolled up document uncovered in the attic at the Abedi home featuring a list of questions about electricity titled ‘ Power Factor ’ and also on A4 sized hand-drawn diagram of electrical circuits titled ' 3 minute alarm ' found in an upstairs box room .
He paid £250 for an old Toyota Aygo to collect the chemicals and transport them to the12th floor flat at Somerton Court in Blackley , north Manchester , where the brothers carefully manufactured TATP .
The pair took advantage of the tenant , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to earn enough money to reunite his son with his other sibling and mother in Libya , so was willing to flout housing association rules and sublet his apartment to them for £850 for two months .
He and his son would stay with a friend , and he had no idea his humble one-bed flat would be used to produce explosives , traces of which would be found in the sump in the shower room , in the u-bend under the kitchen sink and in the vacuum cleaner .
The sub-letter had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a Libyan community Facebook group in Arabic , looking for a place to rent .
When the Arena bomber turned up , he was rude .
He scorned Arab custom by turning down the offer of a cup of tea - and appeared disinterested in the spec or the asking price .
Brother Hashem only seemed interested in whether there was a local mosque .
Having secured themselves a place well away from their home in Fallowfield , the brothers set about sourcing more chemicals and making TATP , storing the volatile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dried it .
Hashem Abedi set up an email address , 'bedab7jeana @ gmail.com ' , to purchase 30 litres of hydrogen peroxide .
In Arabic , the email translates as 'we come to slaughter ' or 'to slaughter we have come ' , a widely-used slogan in Salafi-jihadi circles .
Hashem Abedi , when he set up the email address via free wifi at Hulme Market , was clearly taking a sick pleasure in sign-posting what was to come - with an in-joke few others would understand .
At some point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plans became more sophisticated .
Items found at the scene of the explosion - and at the city centre apartment where Salman Abedi assembled the device - led police to believe the pair must have viewed an Islamic State video on how to build a bomb which the terror group posted on the internet in November 2016 .
In it , a masked jihadi wearing white gloves is seen carefully making TATP in a kitchen , using household products , with an icon of an Islamic State flag in one corner of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ English subtitles , he casually describes how some of the items required can be obtained in the shops , instructing viewers to wear a mask during the process .
“ Only prepare this shortly before an operation , ” says the masked figure .
The device would be detonated ‘ with Allah ’ s permission ’ , he says .
Step-by-step instructions are given on how to manufacture both the explosive and the detonators using rolled up pieces of aluminium from a soft drinks can .
Not all of the IS instructional video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shown was a portion showing a man being forced to wear a rucksack packed with TATP and it being detonated as he runs away .
The precise nature of the detonators used in the Arena bomb was never established from what was found at the scene .
However , one clue that the brothers were inspired by this video lay in the remains of two drinks cans found in the foyer after the blast and other items found at the city centre flat where the bomb was assembled .
The brothers were probably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ car accident on March 23 , 2017 , in Fallowfield .
In spite of the fact neither had a licence , Hashem was at the wheel , with his brother beside him , when he crashed the Aygo into another car , leaving the lady driver of the other motor traumatised and in tears , on Wellington Road .
The pair were seen trying in vain to repair the car before ripping labels from a box in the rear of the vehicle and then running away in opposite directions , verbally abusing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the incident .
He noticed that there were four or five brown cardboard boxes on the back seat of their damaged car and the pair were 'tampering with them - ripping labels off ' .
No-one saw the brothers remove bottles of chemicals , but it ’ s not difficult to imagine this was exactly what they were doing .
The car was taken away and scrapped and it was only after the bombing the significance of the crash became clear to the Arena investigators .
Two days after the crash 25 litres @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wifi at the Golden Tandoori , the curry house in the Northern Quarter where Hashem Abedi worked , using an the Amazon account of a friend of Hashem .
This order was delivered to the empty house in Lindum Street , Rusholme .
It was one of nine known actual or attempted purchases of chemicals by Hashem Abedi , using a blizzard of ten different mobile phones and at least four sim cards to thwart any police investigation .
Those steps were yet another indication of the determination with which the Abedi brothers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the network of addresses they used , their association with radical Islamists on two continents , the months of planning , and Salman Abedi ’ s escape from his parents home in Libya , after the family became suspicious they were bent on violent extremism .
“ These are not kids caught in the headlights up to something they don ’ t understand , ” Det Chf Supt Simon Barraclough said .
“ These two men are the real deal .
These are proper jihadis .
You can not walk into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with an enormous bomb like that , taking with you 22 other lives like that , unless you are proper jihadis .
`` This is the proper stuff . ''

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When Salman Abedi detonated that huge bomb in his backpack as exhilarated kids and teenagers were leaving a pop concert at Manchester Arena, he wasn’t alone.
As he inflicted the most horrific single crime our city has witnessed, his cowardly, hate-filled younger brother Hashem Abedi was awaiting news 2,000 miles away in Libya.
Only Salman Abedi detonated the device, causing the blast that sent 3,000 pieces of shrapnel, flying like bullets across the foyer, killing 22 and maiming dozens more.
But Hashem was there in spirit - and he was just as culpable as his brother for an unfathomable crime visited upon innocent people.
(Image: GMP)
Hashem didn’t flick the switch, nor could he hear the dull groans of pain of those who had survived the blast.
But Salman, who was decapitated by the force of the blast, couldn’t have committed the mass-murder/suicide without him.
The suicide bomber looked to his younger brother as his munitions expert, quartermaster, driver and confidante.
Hashem Abedi, college drop-out, takeaway delivery driver and petty thief, was this year convicted of 22 counts of murder; attempting to murder those who survived the blast; and conspiracy to cause an explosion.
Today, he was sentenced to life in jail with a minimum term of 55 years. He will be in his 70s before he will even be considered for parole.
The case’s senior investigating officer, Det Chf Supt Simon Barraclough, said: “He’s every bit as responsible as his brother Salman.
“The fact that he was in Libya when that bomb was detonated, for me, is utterly irrelevant. He was with his brother throughout the entire process of making this explosive and building this bomb.
“I believe he provided encouragement right up to the end, far from trying to dissuade him from doing anything and withdraw from the conspiracy, this is a man who has been with his brother from start to finish.”
Those convictions, secured in March this year, were the result of an amazing police investigation which saw Hashem extradited from Libya.
(Image: GMP)
Here, Manchester Evening News crime reporter John Scheerhout examines Hashem Abedi’s role in helping his suicide bomber brother make the devastating improvised explosive device (IED) and prepare for the attack.
And he shines a light on how the siblings turned on Manchester - the city which had given them a home, education and refuge from Libya, the country from which their parents had fled.
Disturbingly, police believe Hashem Abedi, with his technical knowhow and ability to source chemicals, could have gone on to commit another atrocity.
The family attempt to stop the Abedi brothers’ terror attack that was too little, too late
In April 2017, Salman and Hashem’s Abedi’ parents flew back to Manchester from Libya, where they were living at the time.
Police are confident the events of that month reveal an attempt to get the would-be terrorists miles away from Manchester, where they had set up a bomb factory.
Nine days after the Abedi parents, Ramadan, 52, and Samia Abedi, 52, arrived in Manchester they flew back to Libya with Salman, 22, and Hashem Abedi, then 20.
The two young men were travelling on one-way tickets - booked for them by their elder brother, Ismail Abedi.
“(The family) must have known that these two (Hashem and Salman) were getting so badly radicalised and they were about to do something stupid - must have”, Det Chf Supt Barraclough said.
Indeed, once the family were back in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, it’s understood that Ramadan Abedi confiscated Salman Abedi’s passport.
But on May 18, 2017, after just over a month in Libya, Salman Abedi flew back to Manchester alone. It seems he had retrieved his passport and escaped his family’s home.
The fact Hashem stayed behind in Libya has raised suspicion of the potential for another attack.
“The fact he stayed in Libya… I don’t know why they made that decision”, Det Chf Supt Barraclough said.
“Was that because Hashem was going to do something else?
"Going to move into perhaps the next terrorism atrocity? This was all about the sick ideology of IS (Islamic State) and this desire for martyrdom.
"What was he going to do next? Where would his career as a terrorist take him?”
Meanwhile, once back in the UK, Salman Abedi went straight from Manchester Airport to Rusholme, where he and his brother Hashem had left a Nissan Micra.
(Image: GMP)
They had bought the Nissan Micra hours before their parents had flown them out of the country, at a time when their terror plans had been thrown suddenly in turmoil.
Just before midnight on April 13, they had found the vehicle online and paid £230 cash for it.
They had then faced a race against time to clear out their bomb factory before they had to leave Manchester for Libya.
Indeed, exactly 24 hours after they bought the car, they retrieved their explosive - a substance called TATP (triacetone triperoxide), chemicals and shrapnel from their 12th floor bomb factory at Somerton Court, a tower block in Blackley.
They loaded their Micra with nails, screws and large blue barrels, each filled with the deadly home-made TATP - and water - so the volatile substance didn’t explode by accident.
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Neither had a driving licence and the car wasn’t insured, so to avoid the risk of both being caught, Hashem drove the Micra to a car park of Devell House in Rusholme, while Salman followed in a taxi, carrying two cardboard boxes, with the pair nervously calling and texting each other all the way.
This meant that, after Salman managed to escape Libya in May, the car was still waiting for him, the explosives undisturbed, ready for him to use in an attack at the Ariana Grande concert, at Manchester Arena, days later.
He had checked on the Micra, likely fearing it was being watched by police, before going to buy a large, blue Kangol suitcase and loading it with the explosives from the car.
CCTV captured him dragging the heavy suitcase behind him to a cab, which took him to another flat he had rented at Granby Row in central Manchester, where he carefully assembled the device, dried out the TATP on carpet protector and towels he laid across the floor, and made final preparations for the attack he and his brother had planned so carefully.
He followed brother Hashem’s instructions on how to wire up the device properly, as notes in Arabic later found at the scene would reveal.
And he carried out a reconnaissance mission at the Arena, where Take That were in concert that Thursday night, the first of three nights at the venue.
CCTV played to the jury showed Salman Abedi, hiding under a cap, walking by a long queue of people at the box office and then standing and looking at concert-goers who were on their way into the venue, no doubt contemplating how to inflict the maximum carnage.
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Salman Abedi chose to detonate his bomb four days later, at 10.31pm on the Monday night of May 22, as concert-goers, mostly teenagers and young children were leaving the venue, following the Ariana Grande concert.
The last call he made was timed at 8.20pm, while he was sitting on a bench at the platform at Shudehill Metrolink station, as he made his final preparations for the attack.
The call was to the Abedi family home in Tripoli and lasted four minutes and 12 seconds.
It’s likely it was to Hashem Abedi.
“I think he’s ringing his brother getting his last-minute inspiration and last-minute advice and he’s telling him what he’s about to do”, Det Chf Supt Barraclough said.
“These two brothers were literally hand in glove in this process.”
In the aftermath of the attack, Ramadan Abedi protested his family’s innocence.
“We don’t believe in killing innocents.
"This is not us,” he is reported to have said.
But his second and third sons clearly did believe in it.
They were hell-bent on it.
And their family’s attempt to stop them had been too little, too late. Hashem and Salman Abedi had been on a dangerous path for years.
A radical childhood
Hashem Abedi and his brother Salman were raised to hate Colonel Gaddafi, Libya’s despotic secular ruler, by their religious radical father, Ramadan Abedi.
The family were firmly rooted in the ultra-conservative Salafi branch of Sunni Islam.
Said to be a member of the al-Qaeda aligned Libya Islamic Fighting Group, dad Ramadan proudly posted a picture on his Facebook page of a young Hashem, then 15, somewhere in north Africa with an automatic weapon with the caption: “Hashem the lion… in training.”
Ramadan expected his son Hashem to shoulder arms to fight for Libya and radical Islam.
Ramadan had been a security officer under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, but was among a number of religious radicals who fled in the early 1990s.
In 1994 Ramadan settled here, with his wife Samia and eldest son Ismail, making Fallowfield their home.
They went on to have four more sons - all born in the UK (Salman, Hashem, Wesel, Othman) - and a daughter (Jomana).
With no known employment, Ramadan spent a lot of time in the mosques around Manchester where he was a well-known figure. His wife Samia was also deeply religious.
Years later, when they were old enough, Ramadan would take the boys back to north Africa, during their school holidays, to take part in the Arab Spring wave of uprisings.
Salman and Hashem went to Burnage High School for Boys, where they got to know other like-minded Libyan heritage kids with more than a passing interest in radical Islam, and where the former landed ten GCSEs including an A* in Arabic.
Hashem was taken out of school aged 14 because the entire family returned to Tripoli in 2011, following the death in Libya of Muammar Gaddafi.
With Gaddafi gone, the Abedis thought they were safe to resume family life in Libya.
But the country's turmoil didn’t end - and so the Abedi family returned to Manchester two years later.
By August 2013 they were all back at Elsmore Road in Fallowfield, where mother Samia was claiming housing benefit for herself and her five youngest children, Ismail having moved out by then.
The family’s return to Manchester didn’t stop the teenage brothers Salman and Hashem spending the summer of 2014 back in Libya, possibly fighting in the civil war that was raging there at the time.
The pair had to be rescued by HMS Enterprise in Tripoli in August 2014, with more than 100 other British citizens caught up in the fighting.
Their rescue was one of many acts of humanity and generosity they were happy to accept from a country they grew to hate.
As well as their council home, the family enjoyed approaching £200,000 in state benefits and student loans across seven years, some of which would end up being spent on preparations for the Arena bomb.
Having grown up steeped in the language of Libyan religious radicalism, Salman and Hashem developed their own extremist concept of jihad.
Not merely against Colonel Gadaffi, but against the West.
In the months after their rescue from Libya by the Royal Navy, their transformation from members of the L Squad - a hard-partying, weed-smoking gang of Libyan-heritage teenagers - into radicalised ultra-conservative Muslim fanatics preparing for terror, got well underway.
Drugs, parties and radicalisation
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Within the walls of the Abedi family home on Elsmore Road in Fallowfield, there was support for the Islamic State group in August 2015.
Hashem Abedi cooked a traditional Libyan stew for his brother and a group of Libyan-heritage friends invited round to their home. Mum and dad weren’t there.
The chat turned to an item on CNN about the ‘caliphate’ IS was carving out along the border between Syria and Iraq.
One of the fellow students enjoying dinner that night noted Salman Abedi was quick to express ‘empathy’ with IS. He was irked at how the media seemed to ‘attack’ them.
Some of the half a dozen young men who were at the dinner agreed with Salman.
What was discussed at the get-together of young mates is known because one of the diners was a student who spent a few weeks living with the Abedi brothers and who gave evidence against Hashem Abedi during his trial.
The pair had become friends at Burnage High School for Boys.
Hashem, he said, appeared to be ‘in agreement’ with what his brother was saying, he would later tell police.
The Abedi brothers, he said, were planning to go to Mecca in Saudi Arabia in September 2015 for Hajj, the annual pilgrimage Muslims are obliged to carry out at least once in their lifetime. The police would later find Hajj ID cards for the brothers confirming that they did make the trip.
The next time this friend would see the brothers again was in April 2017, just a few weeks before the bombing, back at the Abedi family home after Friday prayers.
He was shocked. Salman Abedi, who had been a regular at the gym in 2015, had lost a lot of weight. The brothers were wearing traditional Islamic dress.
It was around 2015 the brothers started wearing traditional Islamic clothes more frequently, and Salman in particular became far more pious, sometimes berating the younger Hashem for not being serious enough.
The brothers’ journey to becoming dangerous jihadis took different paths. They appeared sometimes to be at odds with each other but their hatred of the west was shared.
The trial heard evidence Salman Abedi spoke ‘aggressively’ to Hashem at a party on Rusholme’s Curry Mile in May 2015, humiliating him in front of a group of other young Libyan-heritage men.
He seemed upset his younger brother hadn’t been home all weekend and was more interested in partying.
The brothers were back in Libya in the summer of 2015 where, for Hashem at least, taking drugs and partying, rather than fighting, were on the agenda.
A mate dismissed by Salman Abedi as a ‘bad influence’ on his younger brother recalled an ‘amazing’ party at a beach house near Tripoli.
When the mate had gone to pick up Hashem for the party, the pair saw Salman and hid from the more religious, older lad. He noted how both brothers became more religious back in Manchester.
Known for ‘hating’ education, they gave the impression of being more studious, as well as more serious about their faith, as they grew into young men.
Salman went to North Trafford College where he would he would get a D in GCSE English but an A* in A-level Arabic, as well as a business diploma.
In 2014 Hashem resumed the education he had abandoned in 2011 by taking GCSEs in English and maths at Manchester College in Openshaw, as well as a BTEC diploma in engineering.
Despite his brother’s disapproval, and the growing seriousness of his attitude to religion, Hashem never really gave up a party lifestyle.
But he also formed an association with an older man that would later raise investigators' eyebrows.
In 2016 he spent time in Germany working for a man who the US had once suspected of being a fundraiser for Libyans affiliated to al-Qaeda.
Later that year, in October, Hashem was spotted at a party in Amsterdam, by the peer whom his brother Salman considered a bad influence, doing drugs.
Hashem was an enthusiastic consumer of drugs, any drugs, but mainly cannabis.
He would invite pals to ‘hotbox’ in his BMW and was renowned for rolling an ‘extra large spliff’.
(Image: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)
Even by January 2017, when Hashem was plotting a terror attack with his brother, who had dropped out of a business management course at Salford University so he could concentrate on it, he carried on partying: in Manchester, at a hotel in London.
His ‘bad influence’ friend told the trial: “I think he was taking drugs because he knew what his brother was going to do."
Hashem dropped out of education again in March 2016, and when he did work, it was handing out flyers in the mornings and on-off employment as a £5-an-hour, cash in hand takeaway delivery driver in the evenings, where he would routinely pocket the change due to customers.
Salman’s transformation appeared to be more profound. He had grown from an aspiring footballer with ‘a good left foot’ into one of the ‘bad boys’ of young Libyans from the park - the L Squad - whose rivals were a group of lads from Moss Side.
Smoking cannabis, bulking up in the gym and getting involved in fights Salman had lived what one friend described as ‘a little bit of a gangster lifestyle’ in his teens.
But as he got older, he became something of a would-be radical preacher, to the point that the parents of more liberal Muslims urged their kids not to listen to the young fanatic.
"My mum would often confront Salman about his religious views and this sometimes resulted in conflict," one family friend told the trial.
Salman Abedi wouldn’t just urge people to pray, go to the mosque and recite stories from Islam.
He would say ‘life is temporary’ and talk openly about martyrdom,saying it was ‘something big’ saying ‘jihad is beautiful’.
When Salman Abedi went to the mosque, he liked to be at the front to listen to the imam.
His brother Hashem’s trial heard about an occasion in March 2017, two months before the bombing, when - again seated at the front - Salman stepped in and took over prayers when the imam began to stutter.
Brother Hashem was sitting a few rows back with a pal who told the trial he thought what Salman had done was ‘cheeky’.
Two months before the attack, only half joking, Salman Abedi told a young student during a car journey: "Do chemistry so you can build a bomb."
(Image: GMP)
Tellingly, brother Hashem - who claimed to be unaware of his brother’s increasingly extreme views - was driving when Salman said it.
The student who later told the police the anecdote said he laughed it off at the time.
"To be honest even if he had said to me 'I'm going to build a bomb' I wouldn't have believed him," said the witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Others observed that Hashem appeared ‘scared’ of Salman and didn’t want his older brother to know he still smoked weed or ‘did anything naughty’.
Salman certainly didn’t think his younger brother, known by one friend as ‘clumsy, a little stupid and Goofy’, was going to the mosque enough.
Hashem might not have seemed as fanatical as his brother on the surface, but he played a critical role in his brother’s atrocity.
Hashem asked friends and family to buy sulphuric acid on Amazon for him.
His ‘bad influence’ friend didn’t believe his ‘bulls**t story’ that it was needed to replace acid in a battery which had been knocked over and spilled back at the Abedi family home in Libya.
He soon realised this was one of chemicals used to make explosives, snubbed his friend and, following the explosion, told police what he knew.
But Hashem did manage to persuade his cousin, Alharth Forjani, 21, to buy sulphuric acid via his Amazon account in January 2017, telling him it was ‘for his car’.
Actually it was to makeTATP, the explosive used in the bomb at the Arena.
Hashem and Salman both went to Alharth Forjani’s house to pick it up once it had been delivered by DHL.
Like others, Alharth Forjani admitted he had a ‘bad feeling’ - but said he only learned later it could be used to make explosives.
“I think he believes in it,” he told his cousin’s murder trial. When pressed what he meant by ‘it’, he said simply: “Terrorism.”
A link to ISIS
(Image: PA)
The Abedi brothers were regulars at Fade Away barbershop on Princess Road, in Moss Side, where Libyan politics - and terrorism - were hot topics of discussion.
Another well-known face in the barbershop was a man from the nearby Alexandra Park estate, paraplegic Abdalraouf Abdallah.
The dual British-Libya national was something of a hero in Manchester’s close-knit Libyan dissident community - he was paralysed in 2011 after being shot in the spine fighting Gaddafi’s men in Libya.
And, as he was recovering in hospital, Abedis father, Ramadan, urged friends on Facebook to pray for him.
In the years that followed his life-changing injury, Abdalraouf Abdallah became an Islamic State recruiter, and a figure at the heart of a south Manchester-based clique of Islamic State sympathisers.
He ran a communications hub from the family home on Westerling Way in Moss Side, arranging contact with IS, money, go-betweens and weapons.
Abdalraouf’s brother, Mohammed Abdallah, was also a fanatic. He once filled out an application form to become an IS sniper - listing his fighting abilities, previous experience of holy war, and preference for anti-aircraft machine guns.
And, after Abdalraouf brokered his brother’s membership of IS, Mohammed became a trusted operative of the terror group - in Syria and Libya - before returning to the UK, only for justice to catch up with him.
Salman and Hashem Abedi no doubt considered the Abdallahs as inspirational jihadis in their warped worldview.
And at Fade Away in Moss Side - which police raided in the wake of the bomb - the Abedi brothers chatted and listened to Abdalraouf, before he ended up being locked up for terror offences, as did his brother Mohammed.
Fade Away was run by the Abedi brothers’ maternal uncle Adel Forjani, who told Hashem’s trial that he had noticed that the siblings had ‘started to be radicalised’.
The uncle, 49, himself a Libyan refugee who came to the UK in 1994, warned his own sons not to associate with Abdalraouf.
He told the trial: "I told them that I did not want him to come back to the shop and not mingle with them, when my son told me this man had ISIS way of thinking.”
But Salman Abedi kept in touch with Abdalraouf.
Salman Abedi visited the Islamic State recruiter while he was on remand at HMP Belmarsh in February 2015, awaiting trial.
And he visited him in the months before the attack at the arena, at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool on January 18, 2017, where Abdalraouf Abdallah was serving his jail sentence following his conviction for terror crimes.
A week later, even though he was behind bars, Abdalraouf managed to call Salman Abedi on a mobile phone - they chatted for four minutes and 17 seconds.
What they discussed has never been revealed, although it’s not difficult to imagine that summer’s ‘operation’ may have been one of the subjects.
Abedi also booked to visit him again - on March 6 - but didn’t attend on that occasion.
Was Abdalraouf the man who radicalised the Abedi brothers?
Detectives who investigated the Arena bombing don’t think so. He was certainly like-minded. But the guiding hand who taught them the skills they would need to build a bomb and avoid the police? The Arena investigators doubt that.
That person had never been identified by the police investigation but detectives strongly suspect the radicalisation, and indeed the training, which propelled the Abedi brothers to the Arena bombing, happened when they were on their ‘summer holidays’ in Libya.
How Hashem Abedi helped his brother commit mass murder
(Image: GMP)
Between January and April 2017, Hashem Abedi and brother Salman are known to have sourced 16 litres of sulphuric acid and 55 litres of hydrogen peroxide, two of the three chemicals required to make TATP, the explosive nicknamed ‘Mother of Satan’.
They had enough chemicals to make six kilos of TATP - up to five kilos are estimated to have been used in the Arena bomb.
With Hashem having asked pals to to use their Amazon accounts, the chemicals came in from restoration and crafts, hygiene and chemical suppliers from as far away as northern Italy.
While some pals had become suspicious, enough agreed, and the brothers simply picked the packages up once they were delivered.
The brothers also used an unoccupied terraced house on Lindum Street in Rusholme, whose Libyan tenant was away, as a delivery address for some of the chemicals - Hashem’s prints were found there while Salman was seen riding away from the property on his mountain bike.
During the early days of their ‘operation’, the brothers experimented on a prototype bomb at the family home in Elsmore Road, Fallowfield.
Hashem Abedi, from his work at takeaways, managed to get his hands on old 20 litre tins of Consumer’s Pride vegetable oil.
The brothers spent hours cutting up the tins in what were early, experimental efforts at making detonator tubes and other parts of an IED (improvised explosive device).
Their prints were found all over the inside and outside of the pieces of tin in the shed in the back garden - so many of them it made a complete mockery of Hashem Abedi’s later claim that he only touched them while enjoying a furtive cigarette there.
Hashem also bought nails and screws, claiming these weren’t for shrapnel but to do up the shed, although the shed was in such a poor condition nails and screws weren’t going to save it.
(Image: GMP)
His prints were also on six potential detonator tubes - not used in the final device - found at the city centre apartment where his brother assembled the bomb.
Equally ludicrous was Hashem’s claim that he only collected the oil drums to trade in for scrap - it turns out each tin would have been worth just 18p had he weighed it in at his local scrap merchants.
Having a City and Guilds qualification in electrical installation from Manchester College in Openshaw, Hashem Abedi was responsible for ensuring the circuitry for the device worked properly.
His prints were found on a rolled up document uncovered in the attic at the Abedi home featuring a list of questions about electricity titled ‘Power Factor’ and also on A4 sized hand-drawn diagram of electrical circuits titled '3 minute alarm' found in an upstairs box room.
He paid £250 for an old Toyota Aygo to collect the chemicals and transport them to the12th floor flat at Somerton Court in Blackley, north Manchester, where the brothers carefully manufactured TATP.
The pair took advantage of the tenant, a Libyan law graduate who was desperate to earn enough money to reunite his son with his other sibling and mother in Libya, so was willing to flout housing association rules and sublet his apartment to them for £850 for two months.
He and his son would stay with a friend, and he had no idea his humble one-bed flat would be used to produce explosives, traces of which would be found in the sump in the shower room, in the u-bend under the kitchen sink and in the vacuum cleaner.
(Image: PA)
The sub-letter had spotted a notice Salman Abedi had posted on a Libyan community Facebook group in Arabic, looking for a place to rent.
When the Arena bomber turned up, he was rude. He scorned Arab custom by turning down the offer of a cup of tea - and appeared disinterested in the spec or the asking price. Brother Hashem only seemed interested in whether there was a local mosque.
Having secured themselves a place well away from their home in Fallowfield, the brothers set about sourcing more chemicals and making TATP, storing the volatile substance in the freezer once they produced and dried it.
Hashem Abedi set up an email address, 'bedab7jeana@gmail.com', to purchase 30 litres of hydrogen peroxide.
In Arabic, the email translates as 'we come to slaughter' or 'to slaughter we have come', a widely-used slogan in Salafi-jihadi circles.
Hashem Abedi, when he set up the email address via free wifi at Hulme Market, was clearly taking a sick pleasure in sign-posting what was to come - with an in-joke few others would understand.
(Image: GMP)
At some point, the brothers’ fairly rudimentary bomb plans became more sophisticated.
Items found at the scene of the explosion - and at the city centre apartment where Salman Abedi assembled the device - led police to believe the pair must have viewed an Islamic State video on how to build a bomb which the terror group posted on the internet in November 2016.
In it, a masked jihadi wearing white gloves is seen carefully making TATP in a kitchen, using household products, with an icon of an Islamic State flag in one corner of the screen.
Speaking in Arabic but with English subtitles, he casually describes how some of the items required can be obtained in the shops, instructing viewers to wear a mask during the process.
“Only prepare this shortly before an operation,” says the masked figure. The device would be detonated ‘with Allah’s permission’, he says.
Step-by-step instructions are given on how to manufacture both the explosive and the detonators using rolled up pieces of aluminium from a soft drinks can.
Not all of the IS instructional video was shown to the jury - not shown was a portion showing a man being forced to wear a rucksack packed with TATP and it being detonated as he runs away.
The precise nature of the detonators used in the Arena bomb was never established from what was found at the scene.
However, one clue that the brothers were inspired by this video lay in the remains of two drinks cans found in the foyer after the blast and other items found at the city centre flat where the bomb was assembled.
The brothers were probably transporting more chemicals when they had a car accident on March 23, 2017, in Fallowfield.
In spite of the fact neither had a licence, Hashem was at the wheel, with his brother beside him, when he crashed the Aygo into another car, leaving the lady driver of the other motor traumatised and in tears, on Wellington Road.
The pair were seen trying in vain to repair the car before ripping labels from a box in the rear of the vehicle and then running away in opposite directions, verbally abusing a pedestrian as he called police to report the incident.
He noticed that there were four or five brown cardboard boxes on the back seat of their damaged car and the pair were 'tampering with them - ripping labels off'.
No-one saw the brothers remove bottles of chemicals, but it’s not difficult to imagine this was exactly what they were doing.
The car was taken away and scrapped and it was only after the bombing the significance of the crash became clear to the Arena investigators.
Two days after the crash 25 litres of hydrogen peroxide were ordered using the wifi at the Golden Tandoori, the curry house in the Northern Quarter where Hashem Abedi worked, using an the Amazon account of a friend of Hashem.
This order was delivered to the empty house in Lindum Street, Rusholme.
It was one of nine known actual or attempted purchases of chemicals by Hashem Abedi, using a blizzard of ten different mobile phones and at least four sim cards to thwart any police investigation.
Those steps were yet another indication of the determination with which the Abedi brothers went about their evil work, along with the network of addresses they used, their association with radical Islamists on two continents, the months of planning, and Salman Abedi’s escape from his parents home in Libya, after the family became suspicious they were bent on violent extremism.
“These are not kids caught in the headlights up to something they don’t understand,” Det Chf Supt Simon Barraclough said.
“These two men are the real deal. These are proper jihadis. You cannot walk into a space like that arena, kill yourself with an enormous bomb like that, taking with you 22 other lives like that, unless you are proper jihadis.
"This is the proper stuff."


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Section of M6 closed after 'serious' crash with traffic delays

A section of the M6 has been closed following a 'serious ' road traffic collision .
The northbound carriageway is @ @ @ @ @ and junction 19 .
North West Motorway Police are asking people to avoid the area @ @ @ @ @ will be taken off the carriageway at junction 19 while they await accident investigation .
@ @ @ @ @ that they are currently unable to join the motorway from services .
Highways England said @ @ @ @ @ place for 'some time ' .
Traffic is being diverted via the A54 westbound , @ @ @ @ @ A556 northbound , to leave at junction 18 and return at 19 .
Any further @ @ @ @ @ our live blog below .
Get breaking news first on the free Manchester Evening News @ @ @ @ @ for your Apple or Android device .
You can also get a round-up of the @ @ @ @ @ your inbox every day with the MEN email newsletter - subscribe here .
And you @ @ @ @ @ here .

A section of the M6 has been closed following a 'serious' road traffic collision.
The northbound carriageway is fully closed between junction 18 and junction 19.
North West Motorway Police are asking people to avoid the area.
They said all traffic will be taken off the carriageway at junction 19 while they await accident investigation.
Drivers are also being advised that they are currently unable to join the motorway from services.
Highways England said the closure will remain in place for 'some time'.
Traffic is being diverted via the A54 westbound, B5309 and A530 northbound and A556 northbound, to leave at junction 18 and return at 19.
Any further updates will be posted into our live blog below.
Get breaking news first on the free Manchester Evening News app - download it here for your Apple or Android device. You can also get a round-up of the biggest stories sent direct to your inbox every day with the MEN email newsletter - subscribe here. And you can follow us on Facebook here.


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Government offers grants to coronavirus-hit restaurants, shops and bars

Grants of up to £25,000 will be offered to struggling restaurants , bars and shops , the Chancellor announced today .
Rishi Sunak also told businesses that they will be able to make insurance claims if they have pandemic cover in a televised briefing this afternoon .
A 12 month business rates holiday , offered to small firms in his Budget last week , has also been extended to cover all businesses , he announced .
Restaurant and bar owners in Manchester said they 'd been 'hung out to dry ' yesterday after the government urged customers to stay away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and offering support .
Mr Sunak said today he would do 'whatever it takes ' to help the hospitality , retail and leisure sectors with an 'unprecedented package ' of support .
Addressing concerns over whether insurance companies would pay out without the Government ordering closures , he said : `` Let me confirm that for those businesses that do have a policy for insurance that covers pandemics , that the Government 's action is sufficient .
`` That will allow businesses to make an insurance claim against their policies . ''
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not have such insurance - 'so we will need to do more ' .
Grants of up to £25,000 will be made available to hospitality , retail and leisure businesses with a rateable value under £51,000 , Mr Sunak announced .
Those businesses were already granted a 12 month business rates holiday in last week 's budget .
Today , Mr Sunak confirmed he would be extending that relief to all businesses 'irrespective of their rateable value ' .
He said : `` That means every single shop , pub , theatre , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business in the retail , hospitality or leisure sector will pay no business rates whatsoever for 12 months , and if their rateable value is less than £51,000 they can get a cash grant as well . ''
Mr Sunak also announced he would be making £330bn available in Government-backed loans to businesses that need to pay rent , salaries , suppliers or purchase stock .
And he pledged to go further if necessary as he vowed to do 'whatever it takes ' to fight an economic emergency on a scale the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manchester 's night time economy adviser Sacha Lord said the measures were a start but the industry needed more help .
`` I 'm glad the Government have understood the economic emergency the hospitality sector is facing .
The cash grant of 25k is helpful , but does n't go far enough , especially if this period lasts longer , '' he said .
`` Businesses need grants across the board , not repayable loans .
`` Insurance claims are only available for businesses who have policies detailing pandemic insurance .
Is n't @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Still huge uncertainty for zero hour contracts and freelancers .
A start , but we need more help .
`` As a final point , we are one of the only countries in the world , that has n't set a timescale .
Most are saying end of April , which helps create more certainty and stability .
`` Lastly , a significant amount of people who work within the night time economy , rent .
They do n't have mortgages .
A holiday break on mortgages wo n't help them in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the Government need to go a lot further . ''
Kate Nichols , chief executive of UKHospitality , said the measures were a 'huge breathing space ' for the industry .
She said Mr Sunak was 'really delivering for hundreds of thousands of businesses who were last night in despair ' .
`` This is a huge breathing space to allow businesses to focus on their teams and the promise of more to come if needed , '' she tweeted .
`` We may still need to encourage landlords to play their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if extended to smaller businesses operating from larger premises to get them over the challenge of quarter rent day in 9 days .
That ’ s the timetable and focus now . ''
The Campaign for Real Ale said the measures still do not go far enough to ensure pubs , clubs and breweries do not go out of business as a result of the crisis .
National chairman Nik Antona said : `` While a business rate holiday for all hospitality businesses and rate relief for eligible pubs will help alleviate some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compensate for the potential collapse of cashflow in businesses which customers have been told to stay away from .
`` Making loans to businesses with no money coming in and multiple overheads to meet through a period of no , or low trading , is simply kicking the can down the road .
`` We would urge additional measures to cover all liabilities , however long the restrictions on pubs , to ensure these vital businesses can emerge unsaddled by debt and able to deliver the many benefits to the communities they serve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus outbreak here Mr Sunak 's assurances come after the Association of British Insurers warned today that the vast majority of businesses will not have purchased cover that extends to closures as a result of coronavirus .
A spokesperson said : `` Standard business interruption cover – the type the majority of businesses purchase - does not include forced closure by authorities as it is intended to respond to physical damage at the property which results in the business being unable to continue to trade .
`` A small minority of typically larger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their cover for closure due to any infectious disease .
In this instance an enforced closure could help them make the claim , but this will depend on the precise nature of the cover they have purchased . ''

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Grants of up to £25,000 will be offered to struggling restaurants, bars and shops, the Chancellor announced today.
Rishi Sunak also told businesses that they will be able to make insurance claims if they have pandemic cover in a televised briefing this afternoon.
A 12 month business rates holiday, offered to small firms in his Budget last week, has also been extended to cover all businesses, he announced.
Restaurant and bar owners in Manchester said they'd been 'hung out to dry' yesterday after the government urged customers to stay away - but stopped short of ordering closures and offering support.
Mr Sunak said today he would do 'whatever it takes' to help the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors with an 'unprecedented package' of support.
Addressing concerns over whether insurance companies would pay out without the Government ordering closures, he said: "Let me confirm that for those businesses that do have a policy for insurance that covers pandemics, that the Government's action is sufficient.
"That will allow businesses to make an insurance claim against their policies."
However, he said many such businesses would not have such insurance - 'so we will need to do more'.
Grants of up to £25,000 will be made available to hospitality, retail and leisure businesses with a rateable value under £51,000, Mr Sunak announced.
Those businesses were already granted a 12 month business rates holiday in last week's budget.
Today, Mr Sunak confirmed he would be extending that relief to all businesses 'irrespective of their rateable value'.
He said: "That means every single shop, pub, theatre, music venue, restaurant and any other business in the retail, hospitality or leisure sector will pay no business rates whatsoever for 12 months, and if their rateable value is less than £51,000 they can get a cash grant as well."
Mr Sunak also announced he would be making £330bn available in Government-backed loans to businesses that need to pay rent, salaries, suppliers or purchase stock.
And he pledged to go further if necessary as he vowed to do 'whatever it takes' to fight an economic emergency on a scale the country has never faced in peacetime.
(Image: Getty Images)
Greater Manchester's night time economy adviser Sacha Lord said the measures were a start but the industry needed more help.
"I'm glad the Government have understood the economic emergency the hospitality sector is facing. The cash grant of 25k is helpful, but doesn't go far enough, especially if this period lasts longer," he said.
"Businesses need grants across the board, not repayable loans.
"Insurance claims are only available for businesses who have policies detailing pandemic insurance. Isn't it time insurers play their part? Still huge uncertainty for zero hour contracts and freelancers. A start, but we need more help.
"As a final point, we are one of the only countries in the world, that hasn't set a timescale. Most are saying end of April, which helps create more certainty and stability.
"Lastly, a significant amount of people who work within the night time economy, rent. They don't have mortgages. A holiday break on mortgages won't help them in the slightest. Again, a start, but the Government need to go a lot further."
Kate Nichols, chief executive of UKHospitality, said the measures were a 'huge breathing space' for the industry.
She said Mr Sunak was 'really delivering for hundreds of thousands of businesses who were last night in despair'.
"This is a huge breathing space to allow businesses to focus on their teams and the promise of more to come if needed," she tweeted.
"We may still need to encourage landlords to play their part and the £25k grant would help if extended to smaller businesses operating from larger premises to get them over the challenge of quarter rent day in 9 days. That’s the timetable and focus now."
The Campaign for Real Ale said the measures still do not go far enough to ensure pubs, clubs and breweries do not go out of business as a result of the crisis.
National chairman Nik Antona said: "While a business rate holiday for all hospitality businesses and rate relief for eligible pubs will help alleviate some costs, this will do little to compensate for the potential collapse of cashflow in businesses which customers have been told to stay away from.
"Making loans to businesses with no money coming in and multiple overheads to meet through a period of no, or low trading, is simply kicking the can down the road.
"We would urge additional measures to cover all liabilities, however long the restrictions on pubs, to ensure these vital businesses can emerge unsaddled by debt and able to deliver the many benefits to the communities they serve."
Mr Sunak's assurances come after the Association of British Insurers warned today that the vast majority of businesses will not have purchased cover that extends to closures as a result of coronavirus.
A spokesperson said: "Standard business interruption cover – the type the majority of businesses purchase - does not include forced closure by authorities as it is intended to respond to physical damage at the property which results in the business being unable to continue to trade.
"A small minority of typically larger firms might have purchased an extension to their cover for closure due to any infectious disease. In this instance an enforced closure could help them make the claim, but this will depend on the precise nature of the cover they have purchased."


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Manchester United must strengthen three positions in transfer window

It ’ s been a mixed season as a whole for Manchester United , but the marked improvement since the January transfer window came to a close is a clear sign at how effective good , clever signings can be .
United currently sit on an 11 game unbeaten run , having played the likes of Chelsea , Wolves and Manchester City twice .
New signings Bruno Fernandes and Odion Ighalo are yet to lose in red and it ’ s clear how much of an impact they ’ ve had on the side .
Fernandes ’ ambition , skill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatening on the attack and Ighalo offers Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a different option to the rest of his strike force , and has already over delivered on goals .
January was the second successful transfer window Solskjaer has had in a row , and here are the positions he should target if he wants to make it a third in the summer .
While Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial are both enjoying very good seasons in front of goal , it ’ s still unclear as to whether their best position is actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and injuries have also taken their toll .
While Ighalo has impressed and could earn a permanent move as a result , it must be remembered that he was a last minute stopgap after the club opted against signing Erling Haaland .
So despite the promising signs United must not abandon their hunt for a new striker .
The Norwegian wonderkid would have been a great addition but the club must now find a striker in a similar mould to grab the goals if they want to start challenging for the Premier League @ @ @ @ @ @ @ players who can play out wide , they are short on out and out wingers , with the only one being Daniel James .
While the Welshman had a great start to life at Old Trafford and his speed is a valuable weapon , he has been relied upon too heavily and is now beginning to look exhausted out on the pitch , with his decision making taking a hit .
It ’ s hardly surprising since it ’ s only his second full season and his first at Premier League level but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to help lessen the load , provide reliable , quality delivery from the flanks and get involved in the goals .
One of the positions United have looked strongest in this season is midfield , and Solskjaer should receive huge credit for the improvements he ’ s made to Fred , Nemanja Matic and Scott McTominay , but they ’ re all defensive-minded .
Despite the arrival of Fernandes , who has proven versatile across the middle of the park , another creative midfielder could be brought in to make United even more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may well depend on the future of Paul Pogba who has managed just eight appearances this season due to a troublesome ankle injury but is still being touted to move to Real Madrid or Juventus .
Should the Frenchman depart then there will be an even greater need to add more quality and flair to the United midfield .

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It’s been a mixed season as a whole for Manchester United, but the marked improvement since the January transfer window came to a close is a clear sign at how effective good, clever signings can be.
United currently sit on an 11 game unbeaten run, having played the likes of Chelsea, Wolves and Manchester City twice.
New signings Bruno Fernandes and Odion Ighalo are yet to lose in red and it’s clear how much of an impact they’ve had on the side. Fernandes’ ambition, skill and leadership have made United much more threatening on the attack and Ighalo offers Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a different option to the rest of his strike force, and has already over delivered on goals.
January was the second successful transfer window Solskjaer has had in a row, and here are the positions he should target if he wants to make it a third in the summer.
Striker
While Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial are both enjoying very good seasons in front of goal, it’s still unclear as to whether their best position is actually out wide instead of leading the line and injuries have also taken their toll.
While Ighalo has impressed and could earn a permanent move as a result, it must be remembered that he was a last minute stopgap after the club opted against signing Erling Haaland. So despite the promising signs United must not abandon their hunt for a new striker.
The Norwegian wonderkid would have been a great addition but the club must now find a striker in a similar mould to grab the goals if they want to start challenging for the Premier League title again.
Possible signings: Lautaro Martinez, Moussa Dembele
Winger
While United have several players who can play out wide, they are short on out and out wingers, with the only one being Daniel James.
While the Welshman had a great start to life at Old Trafford and his speed is a valuable weapon, he has been relied upon too heavily and is now beginning to look exhausted out on the pitch, with his decision making taking a hit.
It’s hardly surprising since it’s only his second full season and his first at Premier League level but United really need to bring in someone to help lessen the load, provide reliable, quality delivery from the flanks and get involved in the goals.
Possible signing: Jadon Sancho
Creative midfielder
One of the positions United have looked strongest in this season is midfield, and Solskjaer should receive huge credit for the improvements he’s made to Fred, Nemanja Matic and Scott McTominay, but they’re all defensive-minded.
Despite the arrival of Fernandes, who has proven versatile across the middle of the park, another creative midfielder could be brought in to make United even more imaginative and threatening going forward.
It may well depend on the future of Paul Pogba who has managed just eight appearances this season due to a troublesome ankle injury but is still being touted to move to Real Madrid or Juventus.
Should the Frenchman depart then there will be an even greater need to add more quality and flair to the United midfield.
Possible signings: Jack Grealish, James Maddison


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Government announces three month mortgage holidays for homeowners

Homeowners will get a `` three-month mortgage holiday '' if they get into difficulty as a result of the coronavirus pandemic .
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the step on Tuesday afternoon in the second daily press conference alongside the Prime Minister Boris Johnson .
He said 'never in peacetime have we faced an economic fight like this one ' and 'this is a time to be bold , a time for courage ' .
The mortgage break is part of a series of pledges to help the UK economy .
Mr Sunak said : `` For those in difficulty due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offer a three-month mortgage holiday so that people will not have to pay a penny towards their mortgage cost while they get back on their feet . ''
It comes after the chancellor unveiled an `` unprecedented package '' of Government-backed loans worth £330 billion to help businesses .
He said : `` That means any business who needs access to cash to pay their rent , their salaries , suppliers or purchase stock will be able to access a Government-backed loan or credit on attractive terms . ''
He added : `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initial £330 billion I 'm making available today , I will go further and provide as much capacity as required .
I said whatever it takes , and I meant it . ''
These new measures should be available by next week .

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Homeowners will get a "three-month mortgage holiday" if they get into difficulty as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the step on Tuesday afternoon in the second daily press conference alongside the Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
He said 'never in peacetime have we faced an economic fight like this one' and 'this is a time to be bold, a time for courage'.
The mortgage break is part of a series of pledges to help the UK economy.
Mr Sunak said: "For those in difficulty due to coronavirus, mortgage lenders will now offer a three-month mortgage holiday so that people will not have to pay a penny towards their mortgage cost while they get back on their feet."
It comes after the chancellor unveiled an "unprecedented package" of Government-backed loans worth £330 billion to help businesses.
He said: "That means any business who needs access to cash to pay their rent, their salaries, suppliers or purchase stock will be able to access a Government-backed loan or credit on attractive terms."
He added: "And if demand is greater than the initial £330 billion I'm making available today, I will go further and provide as much capacity as required. I said whatever it takes, and I meant it."
These new measures should be available by next week.


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Martyn Hett’s mum on Hashem Abedi's conviction

The mother of Martyn Hett - one of the 22 murdered in the Manchester Arena terror atrocity - said the conviction of Hashem Abedi today has strengthened her determination to prevent young people being radicalised .
Abedi was convicted of 22 counts of murder , one count of attempted murder relating to all those who were injured and of conspiring with his older brother Salman to cause an explosion .
Figen Murray , much-loved PR manager Martyn ’ s mother , said the attack in May 2017 was ‘ carefully planned by young men who had gone very wrong in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the case had been difficult to listen to and admitted relief at the trial ’ s conclusion .
Speaking after the jury ’ s verdict , Mrs Murray and her husband Stuart thanked all those who ’ ve ‘ worked so hard to see justice delivered for Martyn , the other victims and the survivors and their families .
Mr Murray is a GP and will now be focusing on helping the public through the coronavirus outbreak In a joint statement they described Martyn , who was 29 and from Stockport , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fabulous ' .
Mr and Mrs Murray said “ We ’ re extremely relieved this difficult and emotional trial has come to an end .
“ We want to thank our legal team and all those who ’ ve worked so hard to see justice delivered for Martyn , and the other victims - as well as the survivors and their families .
“ It gives us comfort to know the British justice system has played its role but it does not give us closure .
“ The loss of Martyn who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and fabulous , is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives .
“ We have been shocked at the details of the case , which have been difficult to listen to .
“ This attack was carefully planned by young men who had gone very wrong in life .
“ This has been an incredibly emotionally intense period for us and our family , we ask the media to please respect our privacy at this time .
“ In his role as a GP , Stuart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus with his colleagues at this challenging time.
” Mrs Murray has long campaigned for Martyn ’ s Law in her son ’ s memory - specific anti-terror legislation for public venues .
She has also toured schools and colleges promoting peace .
She added : “ It has strengthened my determination to do more to work with schools to make whatever difference I can to prevent young people being radicalised .
“ I will also be working with the government on the progress for Martyn ’ s Law which will introduce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terror attacks .
Safer communities and a safer country for us all - this is the legacy I want to leave for my son .
”

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The mother of Martyn Hett - one of the 22 murdered in the Manchester Arena terror atrocity - said the conviction of Hashem Abedi today has strengthened her determination to prevent young people being radicalised.
Abedi was convicted of 22 counts of murder, one count of attempted murder relating to all those who were injured and of conspiring with his older brother Salman to cause an explosion.
Figen Murray, much-loved PR manager Martyn’s mother, said the attack in May 2017 was ‘carefully planned by young men who had gone very wrong in life’.
She said the details of the case had been difficult to listen to and admitted relief at the trial’s conclusion.
Speaking after the jury’s verdict, Mrs Murray and her husband Stuart thanked all those who’ve ‘worked so hard to see justice delivered for Martyn, the other victims and the survivors and their families.
(Image: MEN)
Mr Murray is a GP and will now be focusing on helping the public through the coronavirus outbreak
In a joint statement they described Martyn, who was 29 and from Stockport, as 'unique, kind, hilarious - and fabulous'.
Mr and Mrs Murray said “We’re extremely relieved this difficult and emotional trial has come to an end.
“We want to thank our legal team and all those who’ve worked so hard to see justice delivered for Martyn, and the other victims - as well as the survivors and their families.
“It gives us comfort to know the British justice system has played its role but it does not give us closure.
“The loss of Martyn who was so unique, kind, hilarious, and fabulous, is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives.
“We have been shocked at the details of the case, which have been difficult to listen to.
“This attack was carefully planned by young men who had gone very wrong in life.
(Image: PA)
“This has been an incredibly emotionally intense period for us and our family, we ask the media to please respect our privacy at this time.
“In his role as a GP, Stuart will be returning to focus on tackling the coronavirus with his colleagues at this challenging time.”
Mrs Murray has long campaigned for Martyn’s Law in her son’s memory - specific anti-terror legislation for public venues.
She has also toured schools and colleges promoting peace.
She added: “It has strengthened my determination to do more to work with schools to make whatever difference I can to prevent young people being radicalised.
“I will also be working with the government on the progress for Martyn’s Law which will introduce new measures to keep venues safe from terror attacks. Safer communities and a safer country for us all - this is the legacy I want to leave for my son.”


themanchestereveningnews--2020-03-17--Chancellor unveils historic £330bn bail-out to protect economy from coronavirus

The government has unveiled a historic bail-out of the UK economy as ministers pledged to do ‘ whatever it takes ’ to ensure it weathers the threat of coronavirus .
At Downing Street ’ s daily press conference on the pandemic , Chancellor Rishi Sunak revealed the Treasury would guarantee £330bn worth of loans to businesses - equivalent of 15pc of the country ’ s economic output - and up the support available to smaller firms facing closure as a result of social distancing measures .
They will now be able to apply for separate loans of up to £5m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , bars , restaurants , theatres and other hospitality or leisure outlets will have their business rates written off for a year , regardless of their size .
Smaller venues in that sector will also be able to apply for a £25,000 government grant to see them through the next few weeks .
A three-week mortgage holiday is also on the cards for homeowners and support for airports and airlines will be announced in the coming days .
An initial £30bn package of business support had already been announced at last week ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of the coronavirus has escalated and yesterday the government issued hard-hitting social distancing advice designed to suppress it .
Pubs , bars and restaurants expressed horror at the guidance , which told the public to keep away from their businesses without forcing them to close , raising fears that losses would not be recoupable from insurance .
Today , Mr Sunak insisted the government would do whatever necessary to help them through , unveiling a range of measures similar to that introduced in France yesterday .
“ I promised to do whatever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this crisis – and that if the situation changed , I would not hesitate to take further action .
That is what I want to begin doing today , ” he said .
The goverment would guarantee £330bn in loans so ‘ any business who needs access to cash to pay their rent , the salaries , suppliers , or purchase stock , will be able to access a government-backed loan on attractive terms ’ .
That sum could increase , he said , to meet whatever was required .
A new low-cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bank of England to ensure larger firms had liquidity , while small and medium-sized firms would now be able to apply for a ‘ business interruption ’ loan of up to £5m , up from the original limit of £1.2m , with no interest due for six months .
He also announced specific support for the hospitality , retail and leisure industry .
“ Following the changed medical advice yesterday , there are concerns about the impact on pubs , clubs , theatres and other hospitality , leisure and retail venues , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , for those businesses which do have a policy that covers pandemics , the government ’ s action is sufficient and will allow businesses to make an insurance claim against their policy .
“ But many of those businesses don ’ t have insurance – so we will go further.
” All shops , pubs and other firms in the sector will get now a business rate holiday of 12 months , while any with a rateable value of under £51,000 will be able to get the cash grants of £25,000 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for grants of £10,000 , up from the £3,000 announced in the Budget , in order to support cashflow .
Local authorities will be reimbursed for losses in business rates , he said , which make up a large part of their income .
The Chancellor also announced that anyone struggling to pay their mortgage due to coronavirus will be entitled to a repayment holiday of at least three months , adding that he will go ‘ much further to support people ’ s financial security ' in the coming days .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade unions and business groups to urgently develop new forms of employment support to help protect people ’ s jobs and incomes through this period , ” he added .
The huge package - which echoes others being unveiled by governments around the world - was part of a ‘ comprehensive , coordinated and coherent response to what is a serious and evolving economic situation , he said , adding : “ These are only the first steps – I will set out the next stage of our response in the coming days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic fight like this one .
But we are well prepared .
We will get through this .
And we will do whatever it takes .
”

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The government has unveiled a historic bail-out of the UK economy as ministers pledged to do ‘whatever it takes’ to ensure it weathers the threat of coronavirus.
At Downing Street’s daily press conference on the pandemic, Chancellor Rishi Sunak revealed the Treasury would guarantee £330bn worth of loans to businesses - equivalent of 15pc of the country’s economic output - and up the support available to smaller firms facing closure as a result of social distancing measures.
They will now be able to apply for separate loans of up to £5m each, while all shops, pubs, bars, restaurants, theatres and other hospitality or leisure outlets will have their business rates written off for a year, regardless of their size.
Smaller venues in that sector will also be able to apply for a £25,000 government grant to see them through the next few weeks.
A three-week mortgage holiday is also on the cards for homeowners and support for airports and airlines will be announced in the coming days.
(Image: Sam Evans)
An initial £30bn package of business support had already been announced at last week’s Budget - but since then the spread of the coronavirus has escalated and yesterday the government issued hard-hitting social distancing advice designed to suppress it.
Pubs, bars and restaurants expressed horror at the guidance, which told the public to keep away from their businesses without forcing them to close, raising fears that losses would not be recoupable from insurance.
Today, Mr Sunak insisted the government would do whatever necessary to help them through, unveiling a range of measures similar to that introduced in France yesterday.
“I promised to do whatever it takes to support our economy through this crisis – and that if the situation changed, I would not hesitate to take further action. That is what I want to begin doing today,” he said.
The goverment would guarantee £330bn in loans so ‘any business who needs access to cash to pay their rent, the salaries, suppliers, or purchase stock, will be able to access a government-backed loan on attractive terms’. That sum could increase, he said, to meet whatever was required.
(Image: PA)
A new low-cost lending facility had been agreed with the Bank of England to ensure larger firms had liquidity, while small and medium-sized firms would now be able to apply for a ‘business interruption’ loan of up to £5m, up from the original limit of £1.2m, with no interest due for six months.
He also announced specific support for the hospitality, retail and leisure industry.
“Following the changed medical advice yesterday, there are concerns about the impact on pubs, clubs, theatres and other hospitality, leisure and retail venues,” he said.
“Let me confirm that, for those businesses which do have a policy that covers pandemics, the government’s action is sufficient and will allow businesses to make an insurance claim against their policy.
“But many of those businesses don’t have insurance – so we will go further.”
All shops, pubs and other firms in the sector will get now a business rate holiday of 12 months, while any with a rateable value of under £51,000 will be able to get the cash grants of £25,000.
(Image: PA)
The very smallest firms will be eligible for grants of £10,000, up from the £3,000 announced in the Budget, in order to support cashflow.
Local authorities will be reimbursed for losses in business rates, he said, which make up a large part of their income.
The Chancellor also announced that anyone struggling to pay their mortgage due to coronavirus will be entitled to a repayment holiday of at least three months, adding that he will go ‘much further to support people’s financial security' in the coming days.
“In particular, I will work with trade unions and business groups to urgently develop new forms of employment support to help protect people’s jobs and incomes through this period,” he added.
The huge package - which echoes others being unveiled by governments around the world - was part of a ‘comprehensive, coordinated and coherent response to what is a serious and evolving economic situation, he said, adding: “These are only the first steps – I will set out the next stage of our response in the coming days.
"We have never faced an economic fight like this one. But we are well prepared. We will get through this. And we will do whatever it takes.”