The father of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber was a member of al-Qaeda linked militant group that attempted to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi in the 1990s, it was claimed on Wednesday.

Ramadan Abedi, the father of bomber Salman Abedi, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant group founded in 1995 to pursue the violent overthrow of Gaddafi’s military dictatorship, Abdel-Basit Haroun, a former Libyan security official claimed.

Mr Abedi, who lived in Britain for over a decade in the 1990s and 2000s but now lives in Libya with other members of the family, denied the allegation. ​