SG•PA Salman Abedi

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Speaking from Libyan capital Tripol, Ramadan Abedi said: "We don't believe in killing innocents. This is not us." He said the 22-year-old sounded "normal" when the pair spoke five days ago and claims he was preparing to visit Saudi Arabia. Ramadan Abedi was later detained by masked gunmen while recording television interviews, according to ITV News. Salman Abedi killed 22 people when he detonated a suspected nail bomb after a concert at Manchester Arena on Monday night. His youngest victim was an eight-year-old girl, while a serving police officer was also among the dead.

GETTY Heavily armed police carry out anti-terror raids in Chorlton, Manchester

Ramadan Abedi fled Tripoli in 1993 after Moammar Gadhafi's security authorities issued an arrest warrant and eventually sought political asylum in Britain before settling in Manchester. He is the administrative manager of the Central Security force in Tripoli. His son is believed to have travelled to Syria and become radicalised before returning to the UK to cause carnage at a gig in the city where he was born. He is thought to have come back to Britain from Libya just days before the massacre. He was registered as living at Elsmore Road as recently as last year, where police raided a downstairs red-bricked semi-detached property on Tuesday. He has "proven" links with Islamic State, according to France's interior minister. Gerard Collomb told French television that both British and French intelligence services had information that Abedi had been in Syria. Mr Collomb said: "All of a sudden he travelled to Libya and then most likely to Syria, became radicalised and decided to commit this attack."

GETTY Forensics officers examine a house in Manchester

Professor Hamid El-Sa'id, who advises the UN on extremism and radicalisation, told the BBC he had spoken to a family friend of the terrorist. The academic said the friend, a fellow Muslim who also lives in Manchester, told him the killer was a "very typical disaffected" youth. He said the contact described British Libyan Abedi as a "troubled" individual who had poor grades at school, dropped out of university and smoked cannabis.

Prof El-Sa'id said: "He has not got a very good relationship with his family. "His parents are in and outside the country most of the time, trying to move back to Libya. "They have tried to take him back to Libya several times and that was not really very successful. "They are very worried about his future. He really seemed to have no future. He wasn't succeeding in most of the things he was doing. "They were very concerned about that.

GETTY Police and forensics experts examine a house in Elsmore Road, Manchester

"They never really thought he was radicalised. He certainly didn't really show radical tendencies. "They knew he was taking cannabis. He wasn't really very religious. He didn't seem to be a very very religious individual. "Terror is a very social thing. This individual somehow got involved with a group of individuals who have led him to what he did.

Sickening images reveal what's left of the Manchester bomb backpack Wed, May 24, 2017 The remains of the backpack that killed at least 22 people, with more than 60 injured after Salman Abedi detonated a bomb in the Manchester Arena, at 10:30pm Monday, 22 May 2017 Play slideshow PH 1 of 8 12-volt battery that was possible power source

"They could have met at school or university or in the neighbourhood. They radicalise one another. "That is precisely, to my mind, what happened to this individual. "The family is totally devastated. They are terrified at the moment and they really don't know what to do. "Obviously this has come as a shock to them."