‘Do not fail us again’
FAMILIES OF THOSE KILLED BY ARENA BOMB IN MESSAGE TO MI5
FAMILIES of those killed in the Manchester Arena bombing urged MI5 ‘do not fail us again’ – as the public inquiry into the atrocity prepares to move into three weeks of ‘closed’ sessions not open to them or the media.
John Cooper QC, who represents a number of bereaved families, read out a statement addressed to MI5 at the inquiry yesterday. In it they said it ‘seems clear’ there were ‘significant failings’ on the part of the service.
Together, the families urged MI5 to be ‘humble, accountable and fully open’ with the inquiry’s legal team during the closed hearings.
Mr Cooper said on behalf of the families: “From the limited information we have been able to see, hear and read, it seems clear to us, the families of those who were killed, that there have been significant failings by MI5 that need to be addressed.
“We are not able to be part of the closed session but we urge you, on behalf of those that were murdered on that night, to fully co-operate with the inquiry in those closed sessions, to be humble, accountable and fully open with the inquiry legal team. Do not fail us again.”
It’s understood more than a dozen witnesses will give evidence over three weeks from next Monday.
They include ‘Witness J’ – a senior MI5 officer – and other personnel from the service involved in the case of suicide bomber Salman Abedi.
Sir John Saunders, the chairman of the inquiry, said he would decide on whether there were any failings.
And he stressed the public should ‘bear in mind’ that if there weren’t
closed hearings, ‘that would be the end of it’ as protecting national security was paramount and certain issues could not be discussed in ‘open’ public hearings.
Sir John said the result of the closed hearings would be that questions the families want answered, would be answered.
Sir James Eadie QC, representing Witness J, who has given evidence over two days, said there has been full and complete cooperation from MI5 – and Witness J would answer any question put to him during the closed sessions.
MI5, Sir James added, was determined as anyone else to learn lessons.
Evidence concerning what MI5 and the police knew, or didn’t know, about Abedi, and others, is expected to come out at the closed hearings.
Sir John said an issue for the inquiry
to consider was whether Abedi should have been made an ‘SOI’ – a subject of interest – again months before the attack by MI5.
Witness J accepted earlier yesterday that Abedi could have been ‘deterred’ from carrying out his murderous attack had he been stopped when he flew back into the country from Libya, just days before he carried out the atrocity.
The officer said that at the time, the security services had only ‘fragments of what we now know to be the picture.’
Pete Weatherby QC, for some families of victims, suggested Abedi could have led MI5 or police directly to the bomb, had he been followed.
Stopping and detaining him at Manchester Airport on May 18, 2017, the QC suggested, would have alerted Abedi to the fact he was on the radar of police or MI5, and may have put him off carrying out the subsequent bombing.
‘Witness J’ – giving evidence anonymously – has previously accepted it was an error not to have asked police to question Abedi on his return to the UK through use of a ‘port stop.’
At the time, the inquiry was told Abedi was one of 20,000 MI5 ‘closed subjects of interest.’
He was a ‘subject of interest’ for MI5 between March and July 2014, before then being closed as an SOI.
The inquiry has previously heard intelligence about Abedi received by MI5 in the months before the bombing was ‘not fully appreciated’ by the service at the time, but was later classed as being ‘highly relevant’ to the attack.
The bomb attack on May 22, 2017 after an Ariana Grande concert claimed 22 lives and left hundreds more injured.