The families of victims of the 2017 Manchester Islamist suicide bombing at an Arianna Grande concert that killed 22 will be able to travel to the trial of the bomber’s brother for free after British rail companies agreed to waive the fares.
The trial of the younger brother of bomber Salman Abedi, Hashem Abedi, began on Monday and is expected to last six months or more. While the older sibling Salman carried the device that detonated at the Manchester Arena on May 22 2017, exploding in the atrium as concert-goers left an Ariana Grande concert, younger brother Hashem is alleged to have been involved in planning the attack.
He fled Britain and was subsequently arrested in Libya before being extradited back to the United Kingdom, reports ITV News. He is being tried for 22 counts of murder and a charge of attempted murder for those injured in the blast, reported to be over 800 people.
Given the nature of the concert where the bomb was detonated, many of the victims of the explosion were children. The youngest victim of Salman Abedi was eight-year-old Saffie Roussos.
Although the attack took place in Manchester, the trial will take place in England’s highest criminal court in London, as is normal for terrorism cases. This could have meant significant cost for those attending the case from the Manchester area — but railway companies have stepped in and agreed to cooperate on waiving the fares.
An internal railway document seen by Breitbart London distributed among railway companies illustrates the special exemption to fares available to the families of victims to travel to and from their home station — anywhere in the United Kingdom — into central London, to the closest subway stations to the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.
Breitbart London approached Transport for Greater Manchester and the Rail Delivery Group for comment on the gesture for victim’s families but they had, by the time of publishing, declined to respond.
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