Killer plotted terror knife attack in play he wrote in prison
FISHMONGERS’ Hall killer Usman Khan wrote a play about an inmate in a secure unit who knives people to death after being freed.
MI5 officers who read it passed it off as a piece of creative writing.
But the jihadist went on to carry out the atrocity, killing Cambridge graduates Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23.
Khan, 28, was chased to London Bridge and shot dead by police.
A senior MI5 officer yesterday told the inquest the security service could not have foiled Khan, despite an earlier tip-off that he wanted to die and go to paradise.
She said there was no intelligence he should have been banned from attending the Learning Together prisoner education event at the hall on November 29, 2019.
The terror expert said MI5’s review after the attack concluded it “could not have taken any actions or materially changed the outcomes of this case” and the decisions made were “sound”. Khan was freed from jail on licence in 2018 after serving a sentence over plots to blow up the London Stock Exchange and set up a jihadist training camp.
The MI5 officer – known as Witness A – said MI5 received a “steady stream of intelligence” about Khan while he was in jail, including information at least a year before his murderous attack that he wanted to “die and go to paradise”.
He kept in contact with codefendants and other terrorists outside and the agency knew he was involved in prison violence.
But MI5 closed its file on Khan in 2015 after officers concluded there were no “activities of national security concern”. Witness A told the inquest: “We cannot investigate people forever.”
Asked whether, with hindsight, she felt that was the right decision, she said: “I do.”
She added: “We saw no activities of national security concern.”
But the hearing was told a new probe was launched in August 2018, four months before Khan’s release.
MI5 shared prison intelligence with police; that he was preparing “to return to his old ways” and aspired to carry out an attack.
Both strands were uncorroborated, but details about any apparent intention to commit an atrocity were not passed on to meetings of the multi-agency group dealing with public protection arrangements.
Witness A said Khan’s play – featuring a character freed from a secure unit who killed people with a knife – was passed to MI5 in early 2019. It was read by officers who decided it was simply creative writing – a course Khan took in jail.
Witness A added: “It didn’t give them cause for concern or add
or detract from the united picture – that Khan may re-engage in terrorist activity.”
Security services were considering stopping their investigation into Khan at the time of the Fishmongers’ Hall atrocity.
Witness A said a joint operations team (JOT) – MI5, Staffordshire Police Special Branch and West Midlands Police anti-terror unit – met days before the attack.
Concern
It came after its 11-month investigation into Khan following his release from jail failed to yield any real cause for concern.
Witness A said JOT panel members saw the Fishmongers’ Hall visit as “an opportunity to get information” on Khan before deciding whether to close their investigation into him. But the resources, not disclosed at the inquest, were not provided and no decision was made on shutting down the investigation.
The hearing continues.