Hashem Abedi: Manchester bomber’s brother extradited from Libya to face murder charges over 2017 attack that killed 22 people

LONDON—British police said the brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber had been extradited to the U.K. to face charges of murder in the 2017 terrorist attack that killed 22 people.

Hashem Abedi, 22 years old, was handed over to British police by Libyan authorities and flown Wednesday to the U.K., Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said in a statement.

He was formally arrested upon arrival on British soil and faces charges of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to cause an explosion related to the 2017 assault. He is expected to appear Thursday in court in London, police said.

It couldn’t be determined if Mr. Abedi had an attorney.

Salman Abedi, Mr. Abedi’s older brother, detonated a homemade bomb at an Ariana Grande pop concert in the northern English city of Manchester in May 2017, killing 22 mostly young concert goers and injuring more than 100 others, the deadliest of a spate of terror attacks that rocked the U.K. that year.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing, which it said was a response to Western aggression against Muslim countries. The militant group, which since has been largely chased out of the vast territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, described the suicide bomber as a “soldier of the caliphate.”

Hashem Abedi had since 2017 been held in Libya, first by a militia responsible for security in Tripoli then by the country’s United Nations-backed government. Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha told the British Broadcasting Corp. in May that the administration had agreed to a British request to extradite Mr. Abedi, but the handover was delayed by ongoing fighting in Libya. Mr. Abedi, like his suicide-bomber brother, is a British citizen of Libyan parents.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2017 that Hashem Adebi had been picked up by militia members in Tripoli in 2017 as he collected a wire transfer sent by Salman shortly before the Manchester attack.

The two brothers had since 2011 journeyed in and out of Libya to join their father in fighting in a militia dedicated to ousting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.