The judge in the trial of Hashem Abedi, who is accused of helping to plan the Manchester Arena bombing, has urged the jury to put their emotions to one side as they prepare to retire and consider their verdicts.
Abedi, 22, has been accused of standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother, Salman, in carrying out one of the deadliest terror attacks seen in the UK.
On Friday, as Justice Jeremy Baker summed up the evidence against Abedi, he cautioned the jurors about the high level of emotions surrounding the case.
Abedi, a former pupil at Burnage high school, has been on trial at the Old Bailey for the last six weeks, accused of murder, attempted murder and conspiring with his brother to cause explosions.
Prosecutors have said Abedi acted as quartermaster, chauffeur and technician in the planning of the May 2017 attack that killed 23 people and maimed hundreds of others at an Ariana Grande pop concert.
The court heard that the Manchester-born brothers “stood shoulder to shoulder” in the alleged plot, with the younger sibling “just as guilty of murder” as the bomber himself.
Addressing the 12 jurors directly, Baker said it would not be surprising if the jurors felt sympathy towards the innocent people who were killed during the attack. However, he asked them to exercise objectivity and to consider the verdict dispassionately.
“The death of anyone is obviously a sad event, so too is the suffering of serious injury – the more so when the death and injury takes place prematurely in circumstances such as these,” he said.
“It would be surprising therefore if you were not exercised to some extent with sympathy for the family and friends both of the deceased and the injured in this case. However, as I am sure you will appreciate, emotions are likely to obscure rather than clarify one’s ability to discern the truth, which is your task in this case.
“Therefore, for the purposes of the exercise which you will be performing when you deliberate upon the evidence next week, it is important for you to put any such feelings to one side for the time being and to undertake your task with dispassion and objectivity.”
Abedi was not present in court on Friday after sacking his legal team, refusing to give evidence, and withdrawing from the court process. He denies 22 counts of murder, one count of attempted murder encompassing the injured survivors, and conspiring with his brother to cause explosions.
The trial continues.
