tv BBC News BBC News March 23, 2023 11:30pm-12:01am GMT
11:30 pm
hello, i'm hugh ferris. for england and their captain, the european championship qualifying campaign could barely have got off to a better start. harry kane became his country's all—time leading goal—scorer, his 54th in international football, proving the winner in england's 2—1 victory against italy in naples, their first away win in the country since 1961. jane dougall reports. it may have seen better days, but the footballing pedigree of the diego armando maradona stadium is in tact. italy haven't played here for ten years... ..and it's been longer since england fans saw their country beat them. security was tight, with good reason — supporter napoli has added
11:31 pm
repetition for intimidation. but it didn't put the 2,500 england fans off, keen to watch the toughest match in their group. on the pitch, harry kane might�*ve been thinking about his next goal — the fans hoping to witness and become england's record scorer. he didn't get the first, but he tried. kane blocked... declan rice with the rebound. just before half—time, an italian handball in the box — and the penalty—taker harry kane had his chance. the last time he took one of these for england, he missed, and they went out of the world cup. would his nerves hold? and there is his immortal moment! his 54th goal for england, ecstatic to be his country's record goal—scorer. but italy are the european champions and fought back in the second half. a late red card for luke shaw didn't help italy — defeated by england for the first
11:32 pm
time in 11 years. but this match was about harry kane — breaking records at 29 years old, he has ample time to do so much more. jane dougalfor us in naples. northern ireland also started their qualifying campaign with a win and perhaps a more expected one. they beat the team last in the world rankings san marino 2—0 — bolton's dion charles with the opener. and the striker got his and northern ireland's second shortly after half time. a first victory for michael o'neill in his first game back as manager after being re—appointed in december last year. elsewhere, cristiano ronaldo has picked up yet another record. he's become the most—capped men's international footballer, winning his 197th cap for portugal as they beat liechtenstein 4—0 in their first qualifier, with ronaldo scoring twice. world athletics have announced that the russian athletic federation
11:33 pm
have been reinstated after a seven—year ban over doping — but russian and belarusian athletes remain excluded because of the ongoing war in ukraine. the sport's governing body also banned transgender women from competing in the female category at international events. a working group will be set up to conduct further research into the transgender eligibility guidelines. the world athletics council has today taken the decisive action to protect the female category in our sport, and to do so by restricting the participation of transgender and 050 athletes. the decision was taken in consultation with a number of stakeholders, including a0 member federations, our coaches, our athletes, and through the athletes commission, as well as a range of other community groups including trans groups, un experts, the international olympic committee, and pa ra—athletics. and finally — in super league, defending champions st helens have bounced back from their surprise defeat to leigh.
11:34 pm
they beat huddersfield at thejohn smith's stadium, but onlyjust — tommy makinson with the second of their tries in a 14—12 victory. the win moves st helens above their opponents and into fifth, four points behind leaders warrington. much more on our website, of course, but that is your sport for now. this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. screaming i'm at the men arena in manchester, there's a bombjust gone off in the foyer. 0k, just hold the line. go that way. the main concourse has had a very loud bang go off. -
11:35 pm
evacuating the station immediately. it's definitely a bomb. people injured, at i least 20 casualties. 10.31pm, may 22, 2017. salman abedi detonates a bomb in the city room entrance to the manchester arena. so we've got mass—casualties, it does look like it's been like a nail bomb. there's bolts and shrapnel everywhere inside. an area packed full of happy children and their families leaving the ariana grande concert. 22 people are killed, hundreds injured. it's the most devastating terrorist attack on uk soil since the london bombings in july 2005. the bomber was a young mancunian, radicalised to the point where he could kill and maim children in the heart of the city he was born and raised in. what was salman abedi's journey towards mass murder? could the attack have been stopped?
11:36 pm
the final day of the manchester arena inquiry. it's lasted more than two years, heard from 267 witnesses and collected tens of thousands of pages of evidence. it's the day when the families of the 22 victims will hear inquiry chairman sirjohn saunders�* verdict on how the security services dealt with salman abedi, someone who'd been known to them for years before the attack. he said there were failures. there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained, which might have led to action preventing the attack. the reasons for this missed opportunity included a failure by the security service, in my view, to act swiftly enough. those that played any part in the murder of our children will never, ever get forgiveness. from top to bottom, mi5, to the associates of the attacker, we will always believe that you all played a part
11:37 pm
in the murder of our children. as a result of these failures, at the very least, a real possibility of preventing this attack was lost. this is a devastating conclusion for us. may 23, the day after the arena attack. the hunt for answers has begun. detectives and forensic teams descend on salman abedi's home. it's the starting point of a trail that will lead from the unremarkable streets of inner city south manchester to a north african war zone and into the dark complexities of radicalisation. salman abedi was a mancunian of libyan background, born and raised on these streets. he went to primary school round the corner, secondary school down the road. he was a manchester united supporter, played football on the streets with his mates, took little interest in schoolwork.
11:38 pm
a pretty typical teenage boy. but those teenage years became increasingly unstable. there were fights, shouting matches with teachers, petty crime. the head teacher at burnage high school described him as unlikable, lacklustre, just not engaged. moss side/hulme was a big hunting ground for people trying to recruit young people, especially for is and other related groups. due to social deprivation, people feeling marginalised, disenfranchised. ismael lee south spends his life trying to tackle the spread of islamic extremism. he says some young muslims like salman abedi were seduced by the violent glamour of the is story, a stark contrast to their lives here. these things you would see on everyday news, front page of the newspapers are muslims, benefit frauds, benefit thieves. so muslims were very demonised, muslim youths were demonised
11:39 pm
and disenfranchised. so many muslims felt under attack. so when people were seeing the marketing of is, they were saying, "hey, i'm hated, but this could be a place "where i can live, where i'm free, where i can live in, "like in a utopia." salman abedi accessed extreme islamist propaganda online, but it was his immediate family who exerted the strongest influence. his father, ramadan abedi, was a hardcore islamist who fled gaddafi's regime. he arrived in manchester with his wife samir in 1993 and settled into what was to become the largest libyan exile community in the uk. people living in this area call it little tripoli. ramadan was a member of the libyan islamic fighting group. it's thought all the key figures in this organisation lived in manchester at some point. in 2010, there was a report produced by thejoint terrorism analysis centre, which is, jtac, that's a,
11:40 pm
an office that exists in the heart of mi5. and within that report, they highlighted that the libyan community or members of the libyan community were at risk of being radicalised, the younger members at risk of being radicalised by some of the older members who had perhaps lived through the gaddafi regime, who had got a different view around islamism and that this activity was going on. i'd like to think that if that report arrived on somebody�*s desk today, they'd look at it and they'd think, "0k, we need some sort of community strategy to try and disrupt what's "going on", or actually understand better what's going on and identify those specific individuals who are involved. i see no evidence in the inquiry that that happened. one of those libyan extremists living in the city was this man, anas al—libi, a friend of ramadan
11:41 pm
abedi. given asylum here in 1995, he was later arrested by the us government, accused of plotting attacks on us embassies in nairobi and dar es salaam. this 180—page text on how to wage a jihadist war was found in his flat. it's now known as the manchester manual. salman abedi's brothers, ismail and hashem were also significant influences. the investigation revealed they both had large amounts of material relating to is. ismail, bbc news, can i ask you a few questions, please? ismail refused to give evidence to the inquiry or talk to the bbc and is now in libya. why won't you speak to the inquiry? hashem was jailed for life for his part in planning the arena attack. disengaged, angry, salman abedi was, according to one expert witness to the arena inquiry, ripe for radicalisation. his close family clearly didn't, held the law in this country in pretty scant regard.
11:42 pm
it didn't really matter too much if they broke it. that was the first thing. so he had no connection to the legal side of british life in the sense of being law—abiding, getting a law—abiding world view, as we've already mentioned, for various reasons, such as lack of parental support. he didn't engage with that massive mechanism of mainstream education that wasn't open to him, although he did try, to be fair. he had various moments when he tried to engage. erm, and so really, he had no, no active connection to law—abiding british society. i must admit, i've never seen such a complete picture of, of the petri dish absolutely brimming with germs, if you like. chanting prayers didsbury mosque, the abedi family worshipped here. the arena inquiry heard claims from the family's legal teams that the mosque had turned a blind
11:43 pm
eye to extremism. sirjohn didn't find any evidence of that or that it radicalised salman abedi, but he said it wilfully ignored highly—charged political tensions between libyan factions there. for the first time, the mosque agreed to answer those extremism allegations. how can people say that we have radicalised or are radicalising people? as i mentioned to other people, my children could have been at the arena. there were muslim children at the arena. what that person, salman abedi, did was evil. and he definitely did not become radicalised by listening to a ten—minute sermon here orjoin forces with other so—called terrorists or other radicalised people at the centre. we have no room for radicalisation. i can say that 100%, i'm very sure.
11:44 pm
tell me about your relationship with the police and security services. i mean, there were some criticism that you hadn't worked, this mosque hadn't worked that closely. but were you ever told anything about abedi? you know, were you ever given any worrying information? we were never told anything about abedi. and i would reiterate and repeat that we were never told anything about abedi or anybody else. there were other terrorists who we were told used to frequent the centre. we never knew them. we were never told about them. of course, i'm going to criticise the police, if they knew, had they been told by the counterterrorism unit that these people are frequenting this mosque or that mosque? and remember something else, it is not only this mosque that these people frequented. i do feel that this centre is being used as a scapegoat. i really do feel that. i know that the police and the ctu will always do their best. but as i said earlier on, and i'll repeat it, if we are not aware of these radical people who are coming to this
11:45 pm
centre to pray and go, i cannot help the police. they refuse to tell us. we never know anything about what's going on. we want to really put this behind us. but again, i cannot put everything that's happened behind me. 22 victims have gone. i cannot forget about them. may their souls rest in peace. whatever happened in manchester, it was the collapse of the gaddafi regime in 2011 and the years of civil war that followed that appear to have played a major part in turning radicalised salman abedi into a killer. from 2011, salman abedi and his brothers made numerous trips to libya to join their parents and may have fought with the libyan islamic fighting group. anyone being involved in a conflict zone is likely to instigate a degree of trauma. they would have seen things, experience things that we wouldn't normally expect, especially young teenagers, to go through in the united kingdom.
11:46 pm
but also alongside that, we see a normalisation of violence. we see a normalisation of violence such that it becomes a solution to problems. it becomes something that they can imagine doing because they can see other people doing. but it also reinforces a sense of masculinity, especially where becoming a hero, a defender, being willing to protect through violence, through willingness to take up arms, is linked to being a hero, a good man. following his trips to libya, salman abedi became increasingly withdrawn. the partying stopped. he was seen in the street outside his home, chanting prayers and wearing robes. he argued with fellow muslims who condemned is. he intensified his contact with this man, abdulraouf abdallah, who'd also fought in libya. the pair exchanged hundreds of texts, in some of them salman abedi talked of martyrdom. abdallah was laterjailed for trying to recruit fighters for is.
11:47 pm
salman abedi visited him in prison. abdallah gave evidence at the arena inquiry. i didn't play any part of radicalisation or anything. and again, just to tell you that my fight was against gaddafi and assad and the dictators in our countries. did you ever have any suspicion that he would become a suicide bomber? not me or my friends or anyone... ..had... ..any idea of what was going on in salman�*s head. the fact is, when it happened, i heard it on the radio because i was in basic at the time in prison, and i actually called my friend elias on a prison phone, and i was crying and confused and shocked. i said, "what the hell happened? "i thought he was in libya." he said, "it's true, yeah, it is him. "it's in the news."
11:48 pm
so... what happened to salman? it's a very... it's a very, something that... ..i can never, ever, ever take out of my mind. and it's haunting me to know because he's my friend and the salman that i knew... ..he had never, ever spoke about something like that. salman abedi returned from his final visit to libya in early may 2017. an unhappy, angry young man radicalised by his family, his friends online propaganda and exposure to violent conflict. he was days away from launching his devastating attack. he put the bomb together here at a rented city centre flat. the parts collected over several weeks with the help of his younger brother, hashem. at seven in the evening, salman abedi set out to maim and kill, the rucksack he was carrying packed with 3,000
11:49 pm
nuts and bolts around the explosive. salman abedi's final journey to the arena. as the crowds filled the city room, he detonated the device. witnesses said he smiled as he did so. 22 dead, more than 200 injured. could m15 and counter—terrorism officers have prevented the attack? that was the focus of the third part of the manchester arena inquiry in 2022. much of the evidence was heard behind closed doors, a decision that angered families of the victims. but the inquiry did reveal that abedi had been known to police and m15 for years.
11:50 pm
members of the libyan community reported abedi to an anti—terrorism hotline. no further action was taken. m15 twice classified abedi as a subject of interest, but he was regarded as low level and his case file was closed. in 2014, abdulraouf abdallah�*s phone was seized in a counter—terrorism raid on his manchesterflat. there was no attempt to track down his friend salman, who sent texts about martyrdom. when abdallah�*s phone was seized, erm... ..abedi's telephone number was on that phone. it was identified as a distinct phone number, but no further investigative work was done to figure out who that person was. for me, it is again another missed opportunity. m15 knew that he was visiting abdallah. does the detail of what was in those messages, had they been
11:51 pm
ascribed back to abedi, possibly change our view of the intensity of the contact that he was having and the nature of the contact he was having with abdallah? i think probably, yes. in 2015 and 2016, salman abedi's name cropped up during investigations into extremists in manchester. his case wasn't reopened. may 2016, and concerns were raised that he travelled from turkey into libya. he wasn't questioned on his return. in 2017, he returned from another trip to libya, days before the attack. again, he wasn't spoken to. that stop could have been useful. we don't know, but it could have been useful. it could have been useful for a number of reasons. first of all, it is possible that they would have gained intelligence from material that he would have had on him, like a phone, commonly. but secondly, it could have also
11:52 pm
acted as a disruption or deterrence. coming back from your route to libya, landing at heathrow or manchester, wherever it might be, and being stopped by the police under the terrorism act is probably going to say to you, you're being watched. and might that have affected his psyche? might that have changed his approach? we will never know. but the scale of the challenge faced by the security services can't be underestimated. in 2017, they were dealing with around 800 active investigations into potential terrorist attacks. there were 3,000 subjects of interest that were being monitored at some level. but there were more than 20,000 former or lapsed subjects of interest no longer being monitored. and salman abedi was in this category. for the families of the 22 victims and the survivors of the attack, the third volume of the arena report was the one they'd been waiting for. answers to the big question — could the security services have
11:53 pm
anticipated and stopped salman abedi's attack? there are plenty of mights and could haves in sirjohn saunders�* 200—page report, but he does conclude there were missed opportunities, two pieces of intelligence relating to abedi that may have led to the plot being uncovered. this, according to sirjohn, could have led police to the car where the bomb was being stored. the criticism of m15 prompted a rare public apology from the agency, but they refused to take questions. gathering covert intelligence is difficult, but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma. i am profoundly sorry that m15 did not prevent the attack. martyn hett was one
11:54 pm
of abedi's 22 victims. pr manager, coronation street superfan, described by his friends as a one—man hen party. he suffered unsurvivable injuries in the blast. for his mother, figen murray, sirjohn saunders�* findings weren't a surprise. turning the clock back, i'm sure things would have maybe been done differently with the benefit of hindsight, but hindsight wasn't there, and whatever went wrong went wrong and you can't turn the clock back. so this is the situation we are faced with. a lot of the families have got a real intense anger, as i'm sure you can understand. you haven't, have you? i have not been angry because anger to me is not a very useful emotion. i'd much rather channel my energy into proactivity and, and moving forward because, you know, martyn was such a fun—loving and people—loving guy. he was so full ofjoy.
11:55 pm
and i think if i was angry, depressed, sad all the time, i, erm, i'd do his very essence a disservice. the day after the anniversary, i remember coming downstairs and saying to my husband, the anniversary is over now. i now feel i need to go to schools because i felt that young people are so vulnerable to radicalisation and ijust wanted to give them the tools to know what to do if they feel they're being radicalised and also the knowledge to even know and recognise how they're being or if they're being radicalised. 0bviously, when the attack happened we didn't have the tv or radio on because we were all really upset, understandably. and yet somebody kept buying newspapers and putting them on the dining room table. and i remember on day three, walking past the table and going, "oh, my god!" and i saw the picture of him for the first time because i didn't
11:56 pm
know who did the attack. and there he was on the front page and the caption said he was 22 years old. so i was shocked at the young age of the guy. so i've forgiven salman abedi because, as far as i'm concerned, he wasn't the true monster. the true monster is the ideology who turns people into extremists and turns them into people who go and kill. so i feel that he was born innocent and, erm... therefore, i feel that on that day, 23 people died. not 22. people always mention 22, but actually the 23rd person lost their life as well. and that was salman abedi. and now you're at the end of that two—year process, do you feel that word "closure" or how do you feel now? no, no. you know, martyn died out of sequence. it should have been me dying before him.
11:57 pm
so he was ripped off out of our lives. and he was young and full of life and joy. so i've got a permanent, martyn—shaped hole in my soul that will always be there till the day i die. i'm... i feel very broken, but not destroyed. and the brokenness is, is something that will never allow me to have closure. you know, it can't be fixed.
11:58 pm
hello. it's springtime, and the season of showers — quite a few of them on the way for friday, some of them possibly with hail and thunder. indeed, the next few days are looking quite unsettled. and from sunday onwards, it's also going to turn quite a bit colder, but mostly across northern parts of the uk. so the forecast through the early hours admittedly shows quieter weather across england and wales, with some clear skies, thicker cloud across the northern half of the uk.
11:59 pm
and the early morning temperatures will be typically between 5—7 celsius. so starts off really bright, if not sunny across many areas of england and wales, but the clouds will soon build. as this area of low pressure reaches ireland, to the south of it, very strong winds, gales around coasts, and it will be very blustery inland, too. now the showers will be fast—moving, some of them will be brief, but with hail and thunder. further north, the winds are lighter across scotland and northern ireland, so the showers will be slow—moving, around 13 celsius.
12:00 am
welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm monica miller. the headlines.. the head of tiktok is grilled by us lawmakers as he tries to convince them the chinese—owned app is not a threat to us national security. issue whether the company, tiktok, would commit to selling its data to anyone and just using it for its own purposes internally. i can get back to you on the details. world athletics issues new guidance on transgender athletes saying they cannot compete in the female category at international events. a special report — just 700 metres from russian lines in eastern ukraine — where soldiers are engaged
50 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
BBC News Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on