Manchester bomber's brother had ISIS material

The Manchester Arena Inquiry has heard how the bomber's elder brother had a ‘significant’ amount of extremist material when he was teaching at a mosque.

Ismail Abedi helped with Quran reading in Arabic in classes at Didsbury Mosque between February 2014 and July 2017. The inquiry was told images of him and his brothers holding weapons and pro-Islamic State material was found on his devices in 2015, after he was stopped at Heathrow Airport on his return from honeymoon in Indonesia.

An investigation uncovered a ‘significant’ amount of material supporting the ISIS group, including music encouraging suicide missions and a ‘very disturbing’ Facebook post of a man being burned to death in a cage, to which Ismail had added the caption ‘looking for seasoned firewood’. Also downloaded were images, which were believed to have been taken in Libya around the time of the country's civil war in 2011, of both Ismail and Salman Abedi and their younger brother, Hashem Abedi, who was jailed for life for aiding the bombing.

The inquiry was told no action was taken against Ismail Abedi following the Heathrow port stop. The 28-year-old left the UK in August, a month after he was summonsed to give evidence to the inquiry.