Man behind Manchester Arena bombing not radicalised in Didsbury Mosque, it insists
ITV Granada Reports presenter Lucy Meacock sat down with a senior trustee of the mosque who says politics has no place there and his heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones
A mosque has insisted the man behind the Manchester Arena bombing was not radicalised in its sermons.
Salman Abedi attended Didsbury Mosque, but the chair of trustees, Mohammad Khayat, says people did not know who he was.
"He would have come on certain occasions and prayed here," he said.
"There are about 1,200 to 1,500 people attending that Friday sermon now anybody can come.
"He was definitely not a regular attendee, people did not know him."
The inquiry concluded there were 'links of substance' between Abedi and Didsbury Mosque and that Abedi’s father also partook in sermons at the centre.
Mohammad Khayat insists it was not a place for the ideologies that led to the attack.
"We have no room for extremism," he said. "It’s against every value that we teach.
"So this is the shock, it is so sickening to know that this person whose family used to worship here, ten or twelve years ago and he was a kid at that time."
Evidence in the inquiry suggested that the Abedi family attended prayers at the mosque over a lengthy period with video evidence showing the father at meetings there.
It is also alleged that the sermon included the word 'jihad' which translates to ‘struggle’ or 'war' and has been used in connection with terrorism in the past.
Mr Khayat said: "We will never allow such a thing, that sermon is misinterpreted and that sermon was talking about charity donations.
"We ask the imam, when you want to use the word - we cannot tell him to stop using the word jihad because jihad concerns so many aspects of life.
"We work very hard to make sure that nothing escapes our nets at least within this mosque."
The report also concluded leadership of Didsbury mosque did not have an understanding of the strength of the Abedi family’s links to the mosque and that leadership did not pay enough 'sufficient attention' to what went on in its presence.
"We are not only preaching our values, but also saying what we think about what happened.
"How disgusted we are with this, how unislamic it is against the values of what we believe in and what we live for.
"But I don't think this radicalisation from what we learn takes a lot more than somebody coming to a mosque and hearing a sermon," said Mr Khayat.
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