Abdalraouf Abdallah, a convicted terrorist who played a critical role in radicalising the Manchester Arena bomber, has been granted a hearing to determine if he can be released from prison. Abdallah, who was initially imprisoned in 2016 for assisting others to join the Islamic State group in Syria, will face a Parole Board panel in April. The panel’s verdict, through the release of a license, could result in Abdallah’s release from prison.
While Parole Board hearings are typically held in private, it was possible to request public hearings since 2022. However, in the BBC’s case, its application to attend the hearing was denied, with the Parole Board arguing that the “high bar” to justify a public hearing had not been met. The board cited the presence of sensitive materials that could not be disclosed publicly as one of the reasons.
Claire Booth, whose sister Kelly Brewster was among the 22 people killed in the bombing, agreed with the BBC’s stance that Abdallah’s application and the Parole Board’s process ought to be scrutinised publicly. She appeared unhappy with the board’s decision to deny the application, alongside the fact that victims of the bombing were not alerted to the upcoming hearing.
Abdallah’s trial, which highlighted how he coordinated for the transportation of money and fighters to Syria from his wheelchair with the aid of a mobile phone, resulted in him being paralysed from the waist down. Contacts between him and Salman Abedi, the bomber, were established after Abdallah had already been imprisoned. The public inquiry into the bombing in 2023 assented to Abdallah having played an “important role in radicalising” Abedi. It also discovered that the link between the two after Abdallah’s imprisonment firm Abedi’s resolve to carry out the attack.
As a result, Murphy Phillips, a member of Abedi’s legal team, clarified his position by rejecting such claims as “baseless” and “unsubstantiated” in a hearin
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