MI5 ‘failed to tell cops about relevant Abedi intelligence’
MI5 DIDN’T tell police about intelligence ‘highly relevant to the planned attack’ just months before the Manchester Arena bombing, the public inquiry was told.
At the time, suicide bomber Salman Abedi was a ‘closed subject of interest’ but ‘continued to be referenced from time to time’ in intelligence reports, an official report into the terror attacks in the UK in 2017 stated.
The inquiry heard yesterday that on two separate occasions in the months before the attack, intelligence on Abedi was received by MI5 which was not ‘fully appreciated’ at the time.
It was assessed to ‘relate not to terrorism, but to possible non-nefarious activity or to criminality on the part of Salman Abedi.’
But the inquiry was told the two items of intelligence were later, in retrospect, said to have been ‘highly relevant to the planned attack.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Dominic Scally, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said in evidence they were not told of the intelligence by MI5 prior to the attack.
“The first of those we did not receive before May 22, 2017,” he said.
Nicholas de la Poer QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked him: “So far as Counter Terrorism Policing North West is concerned, did MI5 tell it about the second piece of intelligence prior to the attack?”
Det Chief Supt Scally replied: “No.” ‘Closed’ inquiry hearings to discuss the issue of ‘preventability’ on the part of Salman Abedi start next week – three weeks of hearings not open to the press or the victims’ families.
Mr de la Poer said he would be exploring with Det Chief Supt Scally – in the closed sessions – his view on ‘whether that should have been communicated and the degree, if any, that you assess it was capable of making a difference’ in preventing the attack.
Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds more injured when Abedi detonated a bomb after an Ariana Grande concert at the venue on May 22, 2017.
Sir John Saunders, the inquiry’s chairman, said he would consider whether further details could eventually be revealed publicly.
The ‘closed’ sessions are being held for issues of national security.
The exact nature of the intelligence hasn’t been revealed.
Post-2017 reports ‘raised concerns as to how well MI5 and counter-terror policing worked together’ and ‘problems around the sharing of MI5 information with counter-terror policing,’ the inquiry was told.
But Mr Scally said it wasn’t his ‘experience’ that there was an ‘imbalance in the relationship’ between them. Previously, referencing a period between 2010 and 2017, Mr Scally described the relationship as ‘excellent.’