The Manchester suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a pop concert in May 2017 had been rescued from the civil war in Libya by Britain’s Royal Navy just three years earlier.
Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester, was 19 when he was evacuated from the Libyan capital of Tripoli by HMS Enterprise in August 2014, along with his younger brother Hashem and more than 100 other British citizens.
The ship took the passengers to Malta where they boarded a flight to the UK.
In a statement a British government spokesperson said: “During the deteriorating security situation in Libya in 2014, Border Force officials were deployed to assist with the evacuation of British nationals and their dependents.”
The government at the time advised British nationals to leave Libya as a result of heavy violence in Tripoli and large-scale military offensives against Islamist groups, the statement added.
Abedi was being monitored by British security services when he traveled to Libya but his case was closed a month before he was rescued.
Three years later, Abedi walked into the Manchester Arena before blowing himself up as parents and children left an Ariana Grande show.
The review into the Manchester attack concluded that the decision to close Abedi’s case as a “subject of interest” was sound, based on the information available to British security services at the time.
Abedi grew up in Manchester with parents who had fled Libya under the late Moammar Gadhafi.
Abedi’s brother, Hashem, is currently being held in prison in Libya by a militia group, though the British government has requested his extradition to face trial for alleged involvement in the attack.
