By PRESS ASSOCIATION
An email address bearing the words “we have come to slaughter” in Arabic was used to buy chemicals on Amazon before the Manchester Arena bombing, a court has heard.
Handwritten scraps of paper bearing the email address bedab7jeana@gmail.com were found, torn into pieces, at the family home of Salman and Hashem Abedi in the aftermath of the attack on May 22 2017, which killed 22 and injured hundreds of others, the Old Bailey was told.
Hashem Abedi, the younger brother, is accused of plotting with 22-year-old Salman, who died in the suicide bombing as concert-goers left the Ariana Grande gig.
The defendant, also now 22, denies prosecution allegations that he is “equally guilty” of the atrocity by stockpiling chemicals at a makeshift bomb-making base in north Manchester, sourcing screws and nails for shrapnel.
On Thursday, prosecutor Duncan Penny QC said the bedab7 email address was created on March 20 2017, two months before the blast, while connected to publicly available wifi in the Hulme Market area of south Manchester.
Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) data placed a Toyota car linked to Hashem Abedi to
the scene, it was alleged.
Mr Penny said: “After the explosion, the same email address was found on handwritten torn-up pieces of paper in one of the bins at the Elsmore Road address.
“Translated, ‘bedabjeana’ means ‘To slaughter we have come’, or ‘We have come to slaughter’.”
On April 3, the email address was provided to Amazon to buy 30 litres of hydrogen peroxide – one of the three ingredients needed for the homemade explosive TATP, the court heard.
Jurors were told Hashem Abedi had previously approached friends and acquaintances for help to buy chemicals online using their Amazon accounts with varying success.
On March 15 2017, an Amazon account belonging to his friend Mohammed Younis Soliman was used to order 10 litres of sulphuric acid, jurors heard.
Mr Penny said £140 in cash was later paid into Mr Soliman’s account.On March 23, Mr Soliman’s phone was examined and digitally downloaded when he was stopped at Manchester Airport, jurors heard.