A convicted terrorist recruiter has denied helping Salman Abedi carry out the Manchester Arena attack from prison and claimed his mental state is 'too fragile' to give evidence to the public inquiry into the atrocity.
Abdalraouf Abdallah, 27, is said to have used an 'illicit' mobile to attempt to call Abedi while he was in prison in early 2017 a few months before the attack which claimed 22 lives and injured hundreds more.
Abedi also visited him in prison, once in February 2015 while Abdallah was on remand at HMP Belmarsh and then again at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool in January 2017 after he had been convicted and jailed. He was due to visit the inmate in March 2017 but that planned meeting never happened.
The pair are said to have discussed martyrdom.
Abdallah, an Islamic extremist who was left paraplegic while fighting in Libya in 2011, was jailed for terror offences in May 2016. He was released on licence in November last year but has since been recalled to prison.
He is said to have refused to answer questions when he was interviewed by the inquiry legal team in June last year.
The continuing independent inquiry into the atrocity has heard he has 'important evidence' to give about the radicalisation of Abedi but he is resisting attempts to compel him to give evidence.
The families also believe he has questions to answer about the planning of the Arena attack itself, the inquiry has heard.
Two psychiatric reports have concluded Abdallah is unfit to give evidence, the inquiry has been told. The inquiry allowed Abdallah to nominate his own psychiatrist to interview him and write a report after he refused its suggested expert. The report was reviewed by the inquiry's nominated psychiatrist. Both agreed he was unfit to give evidence.
Today (Tuesday) his QC, Rajiv Menon, applied to the chairman of the inquiry to strike out those two psychiatric reports into Abdallah because he said they breached his client's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights due to his 'psychological history and fragile mental state' if made public.
And he would be put at risk of self-harm or suicide if he were ultimately compelled to give evidence to the inquiry, according to the QC.
Mr Menon said he feared his client was a 'sacrificial lamb' and told the the inquiry: "I make it absolutely clear on his behalf again: he did not groom or radicalise Salman Abedi. He had no involvement whatsoever in the planning or preparation of the terrorist attack on the Manchester Arena. He is unfit at present to give evidence and, in our respectful submission, that should be the end of the matter for the time being unless there is a material change in circumstances and, in particular, a material change in the psychiatric opinion of the experts instructed by the inquiry."
He said his client had been advised to 'exercise his right to silence'.
On May 11 2016, Abdallah was sentenced to an extended determinate sentence of nine-and-a-half years, made up of a custodial element of five-and-a-half years and an extended licence period of four years. He was designated as 'dangerous' by the judge.
In the months leading up to the Manchester Arena attack on May 22, 2017, both Salman Abedi and his brother Hashem became visibly more radicalised, gave up on education courses, wore traditional Islamic clothing and grew more religious in their attitudes, and Salman was seen associating with known extremist Abdallah.
How the brothers became radicalised is one of the key questions the inquiry is to explore.
The inquiry was told that Abdallah had numerous telephone contacts with Abedi from 2014 as well as prison visits.
Abdallah, from Moss Side, was paralysed from the waist down after being shot while fighting in the Libyan uprising in 2011 and returned to the UK for treatment.
He was jailed after being convicted of preparing and funding acts of terrorism by helping four others travel to Syria for terrorism, including his older brother, Mohammed Abdallah, 29, an unemployed former drug dealer with a low IQ.
Abdallah's older brother was convicted and jailed for 10 years in 2017 for joining so-called Islamic State (IS) and receiving £2,000 in terrorist funding from his sibling.
Abdallah also assisted Stephen Mustafa Gray, of Whitnall Street, Moss Side, a former RAF serviceman and Iraq war veteran, who converted to Islam and who also tried to get to Syria.
Raymond Matimba, 28, from Moss Side, travelled with Gray to Syria but, unlike him, was able to cross the border.
He reportedly became an IS sniper and appeared in footage with the so-called Beatles terror cell alongside 'Jihadi John'. Despite reports that he was killed in combat, his death has never been confirmed.
Hashem Abedi was jailed for life with a minimum 55 years before parole for his part in the bomb plot.
After Abedi's first visit to Abdallah in HMP Belmarsh in 2015, MI5 and the North West Counter Terrorism Unit actively sought information on the nature of his visit but this did not result in any intelligence which was assessed to justify opening Abedi as a Subject of Interest, the public inquiry has previously heard.
Abedi made a second visit to Abdallah in January 2018, at HMP Altcourse in Liverpool, the same month he took the first steps in planning his Arena attack.
The inquiry chairman, Sir John Saunders, will publish his ruling on the psychiatric reports in due course.
