Screenshots of a series of tweets from user Owys663 are spreading social media that appear to show the user threatening the Manchester Arena before the bomb attack that killed and injured dozens.
The user uses a variety of hashtags that include #manchesterarena. The posts were – according to the timestamp of the screenshots – posted at around half 6 in the evening, hours before the explosion took place. The Owys663 account has since been suspended by Twitter.
ARE YOU FORGET OUT THREAT?
THIS IS THE JUST TERROR
WE HAVE MORE……
The identity of the account owner Owys663 is not known and whether the user had any link to the Manchester attacks is not known.
However the claim that the user made the threatening posts before the Manchester attacks is questionable. The timestamp on the tweets above (6.32pm) is from whoever performed the screenshot.
If the person who did the screenshot of those tweets lives in – for example – North America – then it would mean that the tweets themselves were posted by Owys663 around an hour after the explosions due to the 5 hour time difference.
As such, it is entirely possible that those tweets were made after the explosions, not before them. However the exact time and identity of the Twitter user is not known, though we know that the offending tweets were indeed reported to the authorities.