Associated Press
London (AP) – Two prison officers allegedly stabbed by one of the conspirators of a bomb attack in an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, eight years ago, are in stable condition in the hospital, the union that represents them reported Sunday.
Hashem Abedi, who in August 2020 was sentenced by 22 positions of murder and sentenced to at least 55 years in prison for helping to plan the 2017 attack, threw hot cooking oil on three officers on Saturday before stabbing them with “homemade weapons”, according to the prison officers association.
Two male officers suffered wounds that threatened their life, including burns, scalds and white weapon wounds in the attack “not caused” and “brutal” in Frankland prison, in the northeast of England, he added.
An officer was discharged from the hospital on Saturday.
The national president of the union, Mark Fairhurst, said the attack was carried out in a separation center where inmates are allowed to use cooking facilities.
These specialized units within the prison were introduced in 2017 after a series of terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, including in Manchester, and were designed to isolate inmates considered with extremist political or religious opinions and prevent them from disturbing the prison system, supporting acts of terrorism or radicalize other inmates.
“Allowing this type of prisoner to access the kitchen and use utensils that can be used as weapons against staff, and that can inflict serious damage to the staff, that needs to be immediately eliminated,” Fairhurst told the BBC. “Now we are concerned about the domino effect of this and imitating incidents.”
Abedi was convicted of attending the Manchester terrorist plot, in which his Suicida Salman Abedi brother killed 22 people by detonating a hidden bomb in a backpack while fans left Ariana Grande’s concert. In addition to the deceased, more than 260 people were injured and hundreds more were left with psychological injuries.
The Secretary of Justice, Shabana Mahmood, said in the social network X that he will be “pressing for the most severe possible punishment. Violence against our staff will never tolerate.”
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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