MI5: WE WERE TOO SLOW OVER ARENA BOMBER
Victims’ anger over failings before killer blast
MI5 last night admitted for the first time that it should have been tracking Manchester bomber Salman Abedi, who killed 22 people at a pop concert last year.
Victims of the blast said they had been let down by the security services after a damning report found they missed potential opportunities to stop the attack.
The report by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee said MI5 had acted ‘too slowly’ in reviewing the threat posed by Abedi.
The 22-year-old came to the attention of MI5 in December 2010 and was briefly investigated by the agency in 2014. His file was closed – but had been flagged for review – when he blew himself up. The highly critical report found that:
MI5 admitted it was wrong not to monitor Abedi, meaning he was able to slip back into the UK from Libya days before the attack;
The bombing took place nine days before a scheduled meeting to discuss putting the bomber back under investigation;
Abedi visited an extremist contact in prison more than once but no action was taken;
The Government had failed to learn lessons from attacks dating back 13 years;
Measures to control access to chemicals needed to make bombs were ‘hopelessly out of date’.
Committee chairman Dominic Grieve said: ‘There were a number of failures in the handling of Abedi’s case. While it is impossible to say whether these would have prevented the devastating attack, we have concluded that, as a result of the failings, potential opportunities to prevent it were missed.’
Abedi blew himself up in the foyer of Manchester Arena, where thousands of youngsters had been watching American singer Ariana Grande perform. They included 14-year-old Eilidh MacLeod, from Barra in the Outer Hebrides and her friend Laura MacIntyre, 15.
Eilidh was the only Scot killed in the bombing, while Laura suffered serious hand and leg injuries.
Robby Potter, who was injured by shrapnel when he went to collect his daughter, said: ‘I don’t want any more people saying “I’m sorry” – now we need to make sure something like the arena attack never happens again. I feel let down.
‘MI5 have admitted they made mistakes. This could have been stopped, and we’re finding out now that it should have been stopped.’
The 48-year-old from the Wirral added: ‘The next time I go to collect my daughter from a concert, I want to remember the excitement on her face, not wake up three weeks later in hospital because a
terrorist who should have been stopped has detonated a bomb.’
Sean Gardner, 52, of Tarporley, Cheshire, who suffered trauma after tending to a dying woman in the foyer, said: ‘I am disappointed. My attitude in life is anyone can make a mistake once. But the committee say they had raised the very same issues in a previous report to MI5, so that’s potentially negligence.’
Before the bombing, Abedi had travelled to Libya. The report said it was ‘highly surprising’ that his movements were not tracked, adding: ‘MI5 have since admitted that, given the information they had on Abedi, they should have done so, and they have now revisited their policies in this respect.’
Abedi was due to be reconsidered for investigation to identify if he had re-engaged in Islamist extremist activity, but the report said MI5 ‘moved too slowly’.
The attack happened nine days before a scheduled meeting to discuss his case. MI5 told the committee that ‘the plot then moved faster than the process’.
The report also recommended closer monitoring of visits to known extremists in prison.
In June last year, the Mail revealed Abedi had repeatedly visited Abdalraouf Abdallah, who was jailed after trying to help other Manchester fanatics join extremists in Syria. The security committee – which has access to top-level security officials and classified material – reviewed all five attacks in Britain last year.
In total, 36 innocent people were killed. In addition to the Manchester fatalities, five died in the Westminster attack in March, eight at London Bridge in June, and one at Finsbury Park in the same month. In September, a bomb partially exploded on a Tube train at Parsons Green, injuring 51 people.
The events prompted scrutiny of Britain’s counter-terrorism apparatus after it emerged that in several cases, the perpetrators had appeared on the radar of agencies. Mr Grieve said it was ‘striking’ how many similar concerns had been raised by the committee in its reports on the 7/7 attacks and the killing of Lee Rigby in 2013.
He added: ‘We have previously made recommendations in all of these areas, yet the Government failed to act on them.’
Last night, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said: ‘Following the attacks, the Government, police and MI5 undertook a series of rigorous reviews to ensure we are all doing everything we can to tackle the evolving threat of terrorism.’
National head of counter-terror policing, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, said: ‘We would like to reassure the public that ever since the attacks of last year, we have sought to learn from what happened before, during and afterwards.’
‘Government failed to act’