THE brother of a suicide bomber who set off an explosion at a 2017 Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds, was sentenced on Thursday (20) to a minimum of 55 years in prison.
Hashem Abedi, 23, had denied helping plan the attack at Manchester Arena but was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and conspiring to cause explosions. His sentencing had been postponed due to travel restrictions.
His elder brother Salman Abedi had died as he set off the bomb.
Among the dead were seven children, the youngest aged just eight, while 237 people were injured. The attack was the deadliest in Britain since the 2005 London transport suicide bombings which killed 52 people.
Hashem was not in court for the sentencing hearing, having refused to enter the courtroom where distraught families of victims had given harrowing accounts of the devastating impact the bombing had had on their lives.
Judge Jeremy Baker said during the hearing that the two brothers were “equally culpable for the deaths and injuries caused by the explosion”.
“Although Salman Abedi was directly responsible, it was clear the defendant took an integral part in the planning,” he noted.
The judge said that had the younger brother been over age 21 at the time of the bombing, he would have been given a “whole-life term”. Instead, he was sentenced to serve a minimum of 55 years before parole may be considered.
“The defendant should clearly understand the minimum term he should serve is 55 years. He may never be released,” Baker said.
He added that there was a “significant degree of premeditation” and that the motivation for the brothers was “to advance the ideology of Islamism”.
The Abedi brothers, born to Libyan parents who moved to Britain during the rule of late leader Muammar Gaddafi, had plotted the attack at their home in south Manchester, experimenting with the construction of a homemade device.
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event