Manchester bomber was a ‘normal, quiet boy who was always respectful’

TRIPOLI — The father of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi said he spoke to his son last week to discuss meeting in Tripoli during Ramadan, and expressed disbelief that the 22-year-old had carried out the United Kingdom’s deadliest act of terrorism in more than a decade.

Mr Ramadan Abedi said in Tripoli that he had not been contacted by the British authorities about his son, who was reportedly known to the security services before Monday’s bombing at a pop concert in Manchester.

“I was really shocked when I saw the news, I still don’t believe it,” he said. The holy month of Ramadan starts this weekend.

“My son was as religious as any child who opens his eyes in a religious family,” said Mr Abedi, who arrived in the UK from his native Libya in the 1990s. “As we were discussing news of similar attacks earlier, he was always against those attacks, saying there’s no religious justification for them. I don’t understand how he’d have become involved in an attack that led to the killing of children.”

The 22 people killed in the Manchester bombing included elementary school students, with the youngest just eight years old. Of the 59 wounded, many were children under 16.

Police appeared to be widening their security operation, with the arrest of a 23-year-old from south Manchester. They also carried out searches at two addresses. Mr Abedi said one of his other sons — he has four and two daughters, according to his official identification documents — had been arrested and is being questioned by the police.

The suspect made frequent trips to visit his family in Libya, his father said, and was in the country last week, where he had told his mother he intended to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

“Until now my son is a suspect, and the authorities haven’t come up with a final conclusion,” Mr Abedi said in an interview at his home in Tripoli, insisting on his son’s innocence.

“Every father knows his son and his thoughts, my son does not have extremist thoughts ... We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us.”

The business student, who dropped out of university, is thought to have returned from Libya as recently as this week. A school friend told The Times: “He went to Libya three weeks ago and came back recently, like days ago.”

Several new pictures of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber also emerged yesterday. The pictures showed Abedi with his friends on a beach, believed to be in Libya, and outside his Manchester home aged about 14 or 15.

Mr Abedi said he served as a security officer during Muammar Gaddafi’s rule before being accused by the regime of links to extremist groups, accusations he strongly denies.

He left for the UK in 1993, returning to Libya in 2008, where he was joined by most of his family after the ouster of Gaddafi in the 2011 revolution. Salman Abedi and one brother stayed in the UK to finish their studies.

“The last time we spoke, I told him he should come to fast during Ramadan with us in Libya, and he showed no objection,” the father said. “If he had anything in his mind by that time he would’ve disagreed.”

Friends and associates described him as a quiet and withdrawn person.

A friend of the suspect was quoted as saying in The Standard: “He was just a normal kid — not one of those who ever particularly stood out.”

One member of Manchester’s Libyan community told The Guardian newspaper: “He was such a quiet boy, always very respectful ... His brother Ismail is outgoing, but Salman was very quiet. He is such an unlikely person to have done this.”

However, Mr Mohammed Saeed El-Saeiti, an imam at the Didsbury mosque, said Salman Abedi had shown him “the face of hate” after he gave a talk warning on the dangers of the Islamic State.

Salman Abedi visited the mosque to pray, but the imam insisted “he was not my friend, he is not close. I could understand he was not happy with me because I did combat IS in that Friday sermon sometimes”. AGENCIES