MAY AT WAR WITH TRUMP OVER LEAKS Police fury as US shows vital evidence to New York Times
A ROW between UK and US officials erupted last night after evidence from the suicide bombing crime scene was leaked by America.
Highly sensitive images of the blood-smeared remnants of attacker Salman Abedi’s backpack and a diagram showing precisely where his victims died were handed to a US newspaper.
It is understood American law enforcement agencies had the pictures for only a matter of hours before they were leaked to a journalist from the New York Times.
Whitehall sources said there was an investigation into who was behind the leaks after another US media outlet had been told the name of the killer hours before British police had raided his home. A spokesman for Counter Terrorism Policing, the body that includes the police, security and intelligence agencies, tweeted: ‘Unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major investigation undermines our work.’
Last night there were concerns the leaks are threatening to damage one of the closest intelligence-sharing relationships in the world. Prime Minister Theresa May, who will attend a Nato summit in Brussels today, is expected to raise the issue with US President Donald Trump.
In an unprecedented move, the British Attorney General, National Security Adviser and senior security officials and police officers have all raised their fury with their US counterparts. Strong concerns were raised that leaks risk compromising the investigation.
A senior Whitehall source said: ‘These leaks from inside the US system are likely to deeply distress the victims, their families and the wider public. Information has also been leaked which risks compromising the investigation into this appalling crime.
‘Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our US counterparts. They are in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue. It is unacceptable.’
The photographs, published in the New York Times last night, came just hours after the Government warned the US authorities not to leak details of the Manchester terror investigation.
The US newspaper said they showed a blood-stained silver detonator, said to have been held in the bomber’s left hand, with wires trailing from one end lying on the floor. There were also images of torn scraps from a blue Karrimor rucksack as well as screws and nuts used as shrapnel.
The paper described them as ‘law enforcement images’ but did not make clear how they had been obtained.
The nature of the photographs left no doubt that they were taken as part of the forensic investigation of the scene, and were not snapshots taken by members of the public. The paper also published a map showing the location of the victims of the bombing, positioned in a circle around the presumed site of the explosion in the arena foyer, as well as what is thought to be Abedi’s torso some distance away.
The leak came after Home Secretary Amber Rudd blasted American security officials for disclosing sensitive intelligence. In a rare public slapdown, she said it was ‘irritating’ that facts including the identity of Abedi and death toll had been made public to US media ahead of its release in the UK.
Miss Rudd said the British police had wanted to control the flow of information so Abedi’s accomplices were not tipped off – and warned Washington that ‘it should not happen again’.
Miss Rudd told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she intends to look again at the issue of information-sharing if it works against the wishes of the police.