A Manchester Arena terrorist has ‘attacked three prison officers with cooking oil and makeshift weapons’, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA).

The officers received life-threatening injuries after being assaulted by Hashem Abedi at HMP Frankland, County Durham, the union said.

Abedi is serving life at the high-security prison for helping plot 22 murders in the Manchester Arena bombing. 

The officers suffered burns, scalds and stab wounds when Abedi threw hot cooking oil over them before using makeshift weapons to stab them in the ‘unprovoked’ and ‘vicious’ attack, the POA added.

Two of the officers were still being treated in hospital after the assault at the category A jail in Durham.

One of them was said to have been stabbed in the face and throat and had to be airlifted from the prison for emergency surgery at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesborough. 

The other officer was released after being treated following the attack on Saturday morning, prison service sources told The Telegraph.

There were unconfirmed reports that Abedi may have had a knife that could have been supplied via a drone into the high security jail. 

A Manchester Arena terrorist has allegedly ‘attacked three prison officers with cooking oil and makeshift weapons’ in a high security jail, according to the Prison Officers’ Association (POA). Pictured: Hashem Abedi 

Abedi is serving life at HMP Frankland in Durham for 22 murders in the Manchester Arena bombing. Pictured: The scene close to the Manchester Arena after the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert

A view of HMP Frankland in Durham, where the police officers were stabbed attacked earlier today

The incident comes five years after Abedi was convicted of a ‘vicious attack’ on a prison officer in the high security unit of Belmarsh prison in May 2020.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘Three prison officers have been treated in hospital after an attack by a prisoner at HMP Frankland,’ the service said.

‘Police are now investigating so it would be inappropriate to comment further.

‘Violence in prison will not be tolerated, and we will always push for the strongest punishment for attacks on our hard-working staff.’

The national chairman of the POA, Mark Fairhurst, said: ‘First and foremost, my thoughts are with the injured staff, their families and colleagues. No Officer should be subject to cowardly and vicious attacks at work.

‘The POA will support our members as much as we need during this traumatic time, this attack displays the dangers brave Prison Officers face on a daily basis.

‘Separation Centres hold the most dangerous terrorist offenders who simply do not wish to alter their ideology and as this event confirms, are determined to inflict violence on those who hold them securely.

Abedi was sentenced to life in jail after a jury found him guilty of 22 counts of murder in Britain’s biggest terror trial in 2020. Pictured: The aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing

Hashem (pictured posing with a gun) was in Libya at the time of the bombing, having left the UK weeks earlier

This picture shows police interviewing Hashem following the horrific 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack

‘We must now review the freedoms we allow separation centre prisoners have. I am of the opinion that allowing access to cooking facilities and items that can threaten the lives of staff should be removed immediately.’

‘These prisoners need only receive their basic entitlements and we should concentrate on control and containment instead of attempting to appease them. Things have to change.’

Abedi was sentenced to life in jail after a jury found him guilty of 22 counts of murder in Britain’s biggest terror trial in 2020.

He offered no defence to the charges that he had helped his brother plan the attack on the Manchester Arena in May 2017, killing children, teenagers and adults as they poured out of an Ariana Grande concert or waited for their loved ones, and critically injuring dozens more.

Abedi was charged with the murders in a bold move by the Crown Prosecution Service even though he was in Libya at the time of the suicide attack by his older brother, Salman who died in the attack.

Duncan Penny QC, prosecuting, told the jury Hashem Abedi was ‘just as responsible for this atrocity, as surely as if he had selected the target and detonated the bomb himself’. 

This is a breaking news story, more to follow.