The brother of the Manchester Arena bomber has pleaded not guilty to carrying out “terrorist” attacks on prison officers at a maximum-security jail with hot cooking oil and makeshift weapons.
Hashem Abedi, 28, appeared at the Old Bailey on Friday by video link from HMP Belmarsh in south-east London. The prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said the case had a terrorist connection and taken place during “a session where he was permitted to use cooking equipment”.
Ledward told the court that Abedi “attacked and attempted to murder three prison officers using hot oil and makeshift weapons he had constructed himself”, shouting “Allahu Akbar” twice during the attack. A fourth officer was assaulted.
Ledward said there was no indication the defendant had any previous hostility towards the alleged victims, but that he did hold an extremist mindset considering “not least his conviction in 2020 in connection with the Manchester Arena bombing”.
Abedi was convicted of assisting his suicide bomber brother, Salman Abedi, who killed 22 people by detonating a homemade device at an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.
The prison attack took place on 12 April this year at HMP Frankland, County Durham, where Abedi has been kept since being given a whole-life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years in 2020 for helping to orchestrate the Manchester Arena attack, the longest minimum term ever imposed by a British court.
Abedi, who was not represented by a lawyer in court by his own wishes, pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder and one count of actual bodily harm.
The trial will begin on 18 January 2027 and is expected to last for two to three weeks, while a provisional hearing has been set for 30 January 2026.
When Abedi was asked by Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb if he wished to be represented during the proceedings, Abedi responded: “Yeah, basically I don’t want to attend anyway. That’s why.” He was then remanded into custody.
