MI5 will be questioned ‘without fear or favour’ at Arena bomb inquiry

QUESTIONS to MI5 and counter-terror policing witnesses will be asked – and their evidence challenged – ‘without fear or favour’ when behind closed doors hearings of the Manchester Arena public inquiry start next week.

The ‘closed’ hearings – not open to the press or the families of bombing victims – will see 14 witnesses give evidence over three weeks: four from MI5 and 10 from counter-terror policing, together with two inquiry-instructed experts.

The inquiry has moved to consider ‘preventability’ on the part of suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

The hearings, being held to protect national security, are likely to assess what was, or wasn’t, known about him, and others, and how intelligence was acted on. The inquiry has heard intelligence about Abedi received by MI5 in the months before the bombing was ‘not fully appreciated’ at the time, but was later classed as being ‘highly relevant’ to the attack. It also emerged MI5 didn’t tell counter-terror police about that intelligence.

Paul Greaney QC, counsel to the inquiry, said: “The evidence of the witnesses will address the decision making in relation to the handling of information received on two separate occasions in the months prior to the attack, and other topics.”

Mr Greaney said he recognised there were ‘concerns’ about the closed hearings - and some people would be ‘sceptical.’

But he stressed all associated with the inquiry were ‘committed’ to seeking out the truth.

It’s understood it will be the first time such sessions will be held at a public inquiry or an inquest since 9/11.

The QC said: “The inquiry legal team does recognise that when the bright light of public scrutiny is not brought to bear on some parts of the evidence, there may be a perfectly natural adverse reaction from those to who this process means so much.

“For each of those following the inquiry, this reaction may be different.

“But we acknowledge that there will inevitably be some who are worried that the level of scrutiny which has been brought to bear to date will lessen. We will, we assure everyone, without fear or favour, ask the questions we consider need to be asked of the witnesses and we will follow the evidence wherever it leads.”

It’s possible that certain evidence, Mr Greaney added, might be ‘broken out’ of the closed hearings and revealed publicly later.

He said the inquiry legal team would be ‘constantly vigilant’ for evidence possibly falling into that category.

And the QC said the inquiry’s chairman, Sir John Saunders, has a ‘determination to ensure that the maximum information that can be publicly known, will be publicly known.’

Sir John called the closed hearings ‘necessary’ and said had he decided to hear all the evidence in ‘open’ – that decision would have been reviewed by ‘courts higher up the chain than I am.’

MI5 admitted last year, in an opening statement, that Abedi had come across its radar 18 times in the seven years before the attack.

The public inquiry will not sit in open session again until November 22.