A Manchester Arena terrorist has ‘attacked three prison officers with cooking oil and makeshift weapons’ in a high security jail, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA).
The officers received life-threatening injuries after being assaulted by Hashem Abedi, the union said.
Abedi is serving life at HMP Frankland in Durham for 22 murders in the Manchester Arena bombing.
The officers suffered burns and stab wounds when Abedi threw hot cooking oil over them before using makeshift weapons to stab them, the POA added.
Two of the officers were still being treated in hospital after the assault at the category A jail in Durham.
One of them was said to have been stabbed in the face and throat and had to be airlifted from the prison for emergency surgery at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesborough.
The other officer was released after being treated following the attack on Saturday morning, prison service sources told The Telegraph.
A Manchester Arena terrorist has allegedly ‘attacked three prison officers with cooking oil and makeshift weapons’ in a high security jail, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). Pictured: Hashem Abedi
Abedi is serving life at HMP Frankland in Durham for 22 murders in the Manchester Arena bombing. Pictured: The scene close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert
A view of HMP Frankland in Durham, where the police officers were stabbed attacked earlier today
There were unconfirmed reports that Abedi may have had a knife that could have been supplied via a drone into the high security jail.
The incident comes five years after Abedi was convicted of a ‘vicious attack’ on a prison officer in the high security unit of Belmarsh prison in May 2020.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘Three prison officers have been treated in hospital after an attack by a prisoner at HMP Frankland,’ the service said.
‘Police are now investigating so it would be inappropriate to comment further.
‘Violence in prison will not be tolerated, and we will always push for the strongest punishment for attacks on our hard-working staff.’
Abedi was sentenced to life in jail after a jury found him guilty of 22 counts of murder in Britain’s biggest terror trial in 2020.
He offered no defence to the charges that he had helped his brother plan the attack on the Manchester Arena in May 2017, killing children, teenagers and adults as they poured out of an Ariana Grande concert or waited for their loved ones, and critically injuring dozens more.
Abedi was charged with the 22 murders in a bold move by the Crown Prosecution Service even though he was in Libya at the time of the suicide attack by his older brother, Salman.
Duncan Penny QC, prosecuting, told the jury Hashem Abedi was ‘just as responsible for this atrocity, as surely as if he had selected the target and detonated the bomb himself’.
This is a breaking news story, more to follow.
