The elder brother of Salman Abedi will be arrested and brought to the Manchester Arena Inquiry to give evidence if he comes back to the UK, a judge has ruled.

Ismail Abedi, 28, had been ordered to attend the public inquiry into the May 2017 terror attack but boarded a flight to Istanbul from Manchester Airport at the end of August and has not returned.

Bereaved families of the 22 people killed in the explosion labelled him a “coward” for refusing to attend in October and give an account as to how Salman Abedi, 22, had become radicalised.

They said they were “shocked” how he was allowed to leave a day after he missed a flight when he was stopped and questioned by police and told them he was going on a three-week break.

On Friday, Mr Justice Sweeney sitting at Manchester Civil Justice Centre granted an application from inquiry chair Sir John Saunders to issue a bench warrant against Abedi.

Paul Greaney QC, for the applicant, argued Abedi had “important” evidence to give on his younger brother’s path to extremism.

He said the inquiry heard this week that their father, Ramadan Abedi, was associated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militia that had links with terror organisation al-Qaeda.

Another Abedi brother, Hashem, 24, was jailed for life last year for the 22 murders by assisting the bomb plot.

Mr Greaney said: “The question that the inquiry would like to pose is was Ramadan Abedi a violent Islamist extremist and if so did that rub off on his sons.”

He said the inquiry also wants to know if Salman and Hashem had received military training in Libya after photographs of the pair holding weapons were found on Ismail’s phone.

Another area to probe would be to ask Ismail if it was “just a coincidence” that Salman spent increased time with mutual friend Abdalraouf Abdallah, 28 – later jailed for terrorism offences – in 2015 and 2016 when he was said to have eschewed his previous partying lifestyle and become more religious, said Mr Greaney.

Finally, Abedi has potential relevant evidence to give, said Mr Greaney, on the preparation of the bomb given his DNA was found on a hammer in a car used to store the explosives.

Rebecca Filletti, appearing for Abedi under his new name of Ben Romdhan, said he was held in custody for two weeks after the attack in 2017 and he was detained again in August this year when his phone was examined, with neither investigation resulting in any criminal charges.

She also pointed out her client aired caution over the issue of forensics as the court would be aware DNA is transferable and the hammer was a moveable object.

Last month, lawyers for Abedi issued a statement in which they said he was unwilling to give evidence and the questions asked by the inquiry are “essentially the same as he was asked by the police”.

He added requiring him to attend before the inquiry would place him and his family at risk.

It is understood Abedi’s wife and child flew out separately to join him.

At the time of the bombing, Ramadan Abedi was in his homeland of Libya where he remains and has not co-operated with the inquiry. Police still want to question him as a suspect.

Friday’s hearing was told Ismail Abedi could face criminal prosecution if he does not attend the inquiry before it ends.

A convicted terrorist accused of grooming Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi will not answer any questions if he is forced to attend the public inquiry into the atrocity, a court has heard.

The bereaved families of the 22 people killed in the explosion want Abdalraouf Abdallah, 28, to explain his links to Abedi and explore how the suicide attacker became radicalised.

The inquiry’s legal team served a notice on him this summer to attend the hearing in Manchester next Wednesday, but Abdallah’s lawyers argue that would infringe his human rights and violate his privilege against self-incrimination.

On Thursday, counsel to the inquiry Paul Greaney QC said: “Mr Abdallah has evidence of a high degree of potential relevance to give in relation to issues in relation to the radicalisation of Salman Abedi, and the planning and preparation for the Arena attack.

“As is publicly known, he is currently serving a sentence for terrorism offences and he was in contact with Salman Abedi both in person and electronically from 2014.

“Moreover he is regarded by the inquiry’s instructed expert on radicalisation, Dr Matthew Wilkinson, as responsible for, as he puts it, grooming Salman Abedi into the violent Islamist extremist worldview.”

In July 2016 Abdallah, from Moss Side, Manchester, was given a extended sentence of nine and half years, with a custodial term of five and a half years, after he was convicted of preparing and funding acts of terrorism by helping four others travel to Syria.

Abedi, 22, twice visited Abdallah in prison and was in contact via a mobile phone smuggled into jail in the months leading up to the Arena bombing on May 22 2017.

The inquiry has heard Abdallah was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after he became a paraplegic when injured in fighting in Libya in 2011 during the country’s uprising.

His barrister, Rajiv Menon QC, said that up to May 2020, when his client was first contacted by the inquiry, his medical records showed three incidents of self-harm in prison, but since then it had “markedly increased”, with 12 more self-harm incidents recorded, including, he said, an attempted suicide.

He submitted: “We say the evidence is clear, there is a real and objectively well-founded risk that Abdalrouf Abdallah will seriously and imminently self harm again if compelled to give evidence to the inquiry.”

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr John Kent, instructed by the inquiry to interview Abdallah last month, said his motivation for self-harm was varied and some had been linked to frustrations with the prison regime, including vaping on one occasion.

The doctor told Mr Greaney it was “very difficult” to assess whether the recent incidents could be manipulation by Abdallah, designed to avoid giving evidence.

A psychiatrist instructed by Abdallah’s legal team has said he is unfit to give evidence and making him do so could risk self-harm and suicide.

Addressing the issue of self-incrimination, Mr Menon said: “Forcing him to attend either in person or via CVP (videolink) and subjecting him to hours of questions that he will not be answering is, with all due respect, a pointless exercise and will serve no purpose other than to dehumanise and humiliate an already vulnerable man and frustrate all those who want him to answer questions.

“If there is a real and an appreciable risk that an answer that Mr Abdallah were to give may be used against him in criminal proceedings, he is entitled to refuse to answer that question.”

He said that counter-terrorism police had previously interviewed his client under caution as a suspect in the Arena attack and the following year, last summer, he was asked “similar if not identical questions” in prison by inquiry officials.

Mr Menon said: “In those circumstances he felt, and we say justifiably so, that he was being treated as a suspect both by the police and the inquiry.”

He said Dr Wilkinson’s expert report which concluded Abdallah groomed Abedi and was “effectively a co-conspirator” in the Arena attack was a “preposterous suggestion speculated at best without any proper evidential foundation”.

The inquiry also heard Abdallah told Dr Kent in one of his two interviews that he did intend to give evidence at his forthcoming parole board hearing, although Mr Menon said no date had been set for it yet and he had not given any legal advice to him over the matter.

Abdallah, who denies grooming Abedi or any involvement in the Arena attack, was released from jail in November on licence before being recalled in January – reportedly over a breach of a general condition requiring good behaviour.

Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders said he will make a ruling “as soon as possible” on whether Abdallah should be compelled to attend next week, either in person or by prison videolink.

The inquiry was adjourned until next Tuesday.

A jailed Islamist terrorist has invoked his human rights in a bid to block the disclosure of his psychiatric reports to the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena attack.

Abdalraouf Abdallah, 27, is refusing to co-operate with the inquiry, amid denials that he “groomed” the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

Lawyers for the families of the 22 victims murdered and counsel to the public inquiry want Abdallah to give evidence about his links to Abedi, particularly about how Abedi came to be radicalised.

Abdallah’s lawyer told the inquiry he denies grooming Abedi or having any prior knowledge of the bomb plot and should not be treated as a “sacrificial lamb”.

Last summer before the inquiry began Abdallah gave a “no comment” interview to inquiry lawyers, using his legal privilege not to incriminate himself.

The inquiry instructed a forensic psychiatrist Dr John Kent to interview Abdallah in prison but he refused and instead was interviewed by a psychiatrist suggested by his legal team, Dr Richard Latham, with his report then reviewed by Dr Kent.

Dr Latham’s report concluded Abdallah was unfit to give evidence and making him do so could risk self-harm and suicide.

Abdallah wants only a “gist” of both reports to be disclosed and his lawyers on Tuesday applied for the full report to be withheld.

Abedi twice visited Abdallah in prison, they had discussed martyrdom and were in contact via a mobile phone smuggled into jail in the months leading up to the Manchester bombing on May 22 2017, the inquiry has heard.

He was released from jail in November on licence, before being recalled in January. Abdallah, a paraplegic after being injured in fighting in Libya was described as a man “wholly committed to terrorist purposes” as he was jailed for terror offences in 2016.

But he had “no faith” that he would be treated “fairly and properly” were he to co-operate with the inquiry, his lawyer Rajiv Menon QC, told the inquiry.

And as Abdallah has been declared unfit to give evidence Mr Menon said it would be wrong and unlawful to compel a “vulnerable” witness to appear before the inquiry, which could increase the risk of self-harm or suicide and interfere with his rights under article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to a private life.

Mr Menon added: “He did not groom or radicalise Salman Abedi. He had no knowledge whatsoever of the planning and preparation of the terrorist attack at Manchester Arena.

“He heard about the attack for the very first time in prison after it had been reported in the press. He is unfit to give evidence.

“Mr Abdallah has been legally advised in the strongest possible terms that he should exercise his right to silence.”

Peter Weatherby QC, speaking for the bereaved families, said Abdallah was an “important” witness who should be called to give evidence and the medical reports were “central” to whether he should be excused from going into the witness box.

He added: “This is evidence (that) goes to the heart of some key matters – radicalisation has been referred to and whether the plot went further than the Abedi brothers themselves.”

Sir John Saunders, chairman of the inquiry, will rule on Abdallah’s application at a later date.

Abedi, 22, detonated a home-made shrapnel packed bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at the arena on May 22 2017, killing 22 bystanders and injuring hundreds more.

His brother Hashem, was jailed in 2020 for a minimum of 55 years before parole for his part in the bomb plot. The inquiry was adjourned until next Monday.

Read more: Arena Bomber’s Friend was ‘wholly committed to terrorist purposes’ court told

Abdalraouf Abdallah is a man “wholly committed to terrorist purposes”, a court heard.

His own father, Nagah Abdallah, as the father of Salman Abedi had done, came to the UK in 1993 as a refugee from the brutal regime of Colonel Gaddafi with his wife Samira Lalouche, a refugee from political oppression.

Abdallah’s uncle was among 1,300 people murdered by the dictator in a mass killing of political prisoners in 1996.

Although his parents are Libyan, Abdalraouf Abdallah was born in Pakistan but holds dual British and Libyan nationality.

The family, along with his elder brother Mohammed Abdallah, who was born in Algeria, lived at Westerling Way in south Manchester, home to a large Libyan community.

Abdallah became “at the centre of a jihadist network facilitating foreign fighters”, said Max Hill QC, who prosecuted him at his terror trial in 2016.

In 2010 the then student travelled to Libya for a gap year and was living there with relatives when the first of the Arab Spring protests engulfed neighbouring Tunisia.

As demonstrations spread to Libya’s capital Tripoli, he joined thousands calling for Gaddafi’s fall as the country descended into civil war.

Abdallah and his brother joined one of the most important rebel Islamist groups – the February 17th Martyrs Brigade.

Some of its members were considered to be potential enemies of the UK because of their former links to al Qaida.

Abdallah was shot, seriously wounded and left wheelchair-bound and paralysed from the waist down.

He was sent back to the UK in August 2011, rejoining family in Manchester where he became friends with Salman Abedi and began to help others carry out jihad.

His disabilities helped prosecutors in understanding his role in the events that related to his brother and others joining the so-called Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

In 2014 Abdallah’s brother Mohammed decided to travel to Syria to engage in the violence of the jihadists, travelling with a man named Nezar Khalifa and joining up with Islamic State fighters in July of that year, the court heard.

They intended to meet with two others, Raymond Matimba and Stephen Gray, the court heard.

Matimba was successful and eventually caught up with the elder Abdallah and Khalifa, all the while communicating with Abdalraouf Abdallah who arranged contacts, money, go-betweens and weapons, his trial heard.

While in Syria, Mohammed Abdallah was wired £2,000 in funds by his sibling, leaving Syria to collect the cash in Istanbul, the court heard.

Abdallah was in constant contact with his brother and his friends through social media apps.

On May 11 2016 Abdalraouf Abdallah was sentenced to an extended determinate sentence of nine years and six months, made up of a custodial element of five and a half years and an extended licence period of four years.

Stephen Mustafa Gray, of Whitnall Street, Moss Side, a former RAF serviceman and Iraq war veteran, who converted to Islam and tried to get to Syria, was jailed for five years for terror offences.

Raymond Matimba, of Bold Street, Moss Side, travelled with Gray to Syria but unlike him, was able to cross the border.

He reportedly became an IS sniper and appeared in footage with the so-called Beatles terror cell alongside “Jihadi John”.

Despite reports he was killed in combat his death has never been confirmed.

The current whereabouts of Khalifa are not known.

Read more: Manchester bomb-plotter held in jail with extremism separation unit