The brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber has been handed a plastic spork to eat with and moved back to Belmarsh prison despite his shocking record of vicious assaults on guards.
Hashem Abedi, 28, who is serving a 55-year sentence for helping his brother Salman carry out the devastating 2017 terror attack that killed 22 people, is now back in the infamous Category A jail in southeast London, after allegedly launching a brutal assault on three officers with boiling oil and makeshift blades just days ago.
Abedi, one of Britain’s most dangerous inmates, is believed to have hurled scalding oil at the guards before stabbing them with improvised weapons made from baking trays, during a attack in the kitchen area of the high-security Frankland prison in County Durham.
The rampage is thought to have been pre-planned, with other extremist inmates allegedly smirking and gathering in the gym to distract staff and leave Abedi unsupervised in the kitchen.
Despite the horror, Abedi has now been transferred back to Belmarsh, where he previously assaulted two officers in 2020.
Yet shockingly, prison insiders say he has been given a spork – a hybrid plastic spoon-fork – to eat with, raising serious concerns about the risk of further violence.
One prison expert told the Times: ‘Sporks can be sharpened. Right now he should have nothing in his possession capable of being used as a weapon.’
A Manchester Arena terrorist has ‘attacked three prison officers with cooking oil and makeshift weapons’, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). The officers received life-threatening injuries after being assaulted by Hashem Abedi (pictured) at HMP Frankland, County Durham, the union said
The 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017
Prison staff at Belmarsh are said to be deeply uneasy about the decision, particularly given Abedi’s history of violence.
In the 2020 attack, Abedi and two other inmates ambushed officer Paul Edwards in his office, an incident that added almost four years to his sentence.
He is now being held under the ‘multi-unlock protocol’, meaning five officers must be present each time his cell door is opened, alongside another who must wear riot gear and film the interaction.
In response to the latest incident, the Ministry of Justice has suspended kitchen access for inmates in specialist extremist wings, known as separation centres, at Frankland and HMP Woodhill.
These units house some of the UK’s most dangerous ideologues and were designed to stop radicalisation behind bars.
Counterterrorism police are investigating the Frankland attack, and a full independent review is expected to be launched by the end of the week.
There are also questions over whether Abedi may have been influenced by notorious Islamist extremist Anjem Choudary, who was also housed at Frankland. Officials have dismissed such claims as ‘speculation’.
A view of HMP Frankland in Durham, where the police officers were attacked earlier today
Salman Abedi, Hashem’s brother, at Victoria Station making his way to the Manchester Arena, on May 22, 2017
This picture shows police interviewing Hashem following the horrific 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack
Speaking to Times Radio, Prisons Minister Lord Timpson described the incident as ‘absolutely shocking’ and vowed a thorough investigation, adding: ‘But, you know, my heart goes out to the staff … The whole thing is terrible.’
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a riot erupted at HMP Lowdham Grange in Nottinghamshire on Tuesday, with inmates taking a prisoner hostage, climbing onto roofs, and scaling netting.
The chaos was eventually brought under control by specialist prison response teams.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘Prison staff rapidly resolved this incident, and I would like to pay tribute to them for doing so.
‘But this is another sign of the problems we are facing in our prisons, with prisons that are overcrowded and violent.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood posted on X, formerly Twitter: ‘I am appalled by the attack of three brave officers at HMP Frankland today. My thoughts are with them and their families.
‘The police are now investigating. I will be pushing for the strongest possible punishment. Violence against our staff will never be tolerated.’
Hashem (pictured posing with a gun) was in Libya at the time of the bombing, having left the UK weeks earlier. He offered no defence to the charges that he had helped his brother plan the attack on the Manchester Arena in May 2017, killing children, teenagers and adults as they poured out of an Ariana Grande concert or waited for their loved ones, and critically injuring dozens more
Emergency services responded in force (pictured) to the attack during the Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena
Calls are now growing from families of Manchester Arena victims for Abedi to be placed in permanent solitary confinement.
Abedi was jailed for life in August 2020 and is currently serving at the category A HMP Frankland.
He offered no defence to the charges that he had helped his brother plan the attack on the Manchester Arena in May 2017, killing children, teenagers and adults as they poured out of an Ariana Grande concert or waited for their loved ones, and critically injuring dozens more.
Abedi was charged with the murders in a bold move by the Crown Prosecution Service even though he was in Libya at the time of the suicide attack by his older brother, Salman who died in the attack.
Duncan Penny QC, prosecuting, told the jury Hashem Abedi was ‘just as responsible for this atrocity, as surely as if he had selected the target and detonated the bomb himself’.
