Tag: London bombings

  • London bombs inquest to investigate MI5

    London bombs inquest to investigate MI5

    MI5 and police failures under spotlight in London bomb inquests

    Allegations of flawed intelligence before 7/7 suicide attacks to be investigated by coroner without jury

    Richard Norton-Taylor

    london 7 july bomb
    52 people died when terrorists blew up a bus and three tube trains on 7 July 2005 Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/PA

    Inquests into the deaths of 52 people in the 7 July London suicide bombings will investigate alleged failings of MI5 and the police before the attacks, a coroner decided today in a ruling that received a mixed response from relatives.

    Lady Justice Hallett said the inquests, due to start in October, would include the “alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings” and would be heard without a jury. Survivors would have a limited role but the inquests into the deaths of the four bombers would not be held at the same time.

    She said: “It is not too remote to investigate what was known in the year or two before the alleged bombings. Plots of this kind are not developed overnight.” As far as the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) was concerned: “Whatever its good intentions, it could not fulfil the role of independent investigator.”

    She added: “There may be practical difficulties in doing more, it may take sometime, but it is a counsel of defeat to say the difficulties cannot be overcome before one has even embarked upon the task.”

    The coroner, who is also an appeal court judge, argued that because of the sensitivity of the intelligence surrounding the bombers, “my sitting with a lay jury without security clearance would inhibit a full and fearless investigation“.

    MI5’s lawyers argued that if its intelligence was disclosed, al-Qaida would be handed an “invaluable weapon”.

    MI5 told the ISC that though two of the suicide bombers – Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer – had been on its radar, specifically by talking to known terror suspects, their identities were not known at the time. The evidence was they may have been involved in fraud, not planning terror plots.

    MI5 also argued that they did not have enough resources to follow individuals considered less dangerous than others.

    Some of those affected by the attacks said they were disappointed not to be granted a special status to question witnesses. Instead, they or their lawyers could suggest lines of inquiry in what Hallett called a “valuable role”. Their solicitor Clifford Tibber said he would not rule out appealing against the coroner’s decision.

    Jacqui Putnam, who survived the attack at Edgware Road, said: “Our role now will be one of answering questions, which we will do, but our questions are not going to be answered.

    “Once again we have been shunted aside by officialdom and those questions may or may not be answered. They need to be answered because they involve the safety of everyone on public transport.”

    Janine Mitchell, whose husband Paul survived the King’s Cross explosion, said the inquests would be a chance to examine the work of MI5. She said: “We have been campaigning for a very long time now for an inquiry, we are just ordinary people caught up in an atrocity.”

    The bombers – Khan, 30, Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19 – met at Luton station and took a train to King’s Cross in London.

    Tanweer detonated his bomb at Aldgate, Khan at Edgware Road. Lindsay blew himself up between King’s Cross and Russell Square and Hussain detonated his device on a bus at Tavistock Square. As well as killing themselves and 52 others, they injured more than 700 people.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/21/mi5-police-failures-london-bomb, 21 May 2010

  • High court makes “historic” terrorism evidence ruling

    High court makes “historic” terrorism evidence ruling

    By Michael Holden

    Tue Dec 1, 2009

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    LONDON (Reuters) – London’s High Court ruled against the British government on Tuesday over the use of secret evidence to deny terrorism suspects bail in what campaigners called an “historic” judgement.

    The government expressed disappointment at the “unhelpful” verdict, handed down over the case brought by two men suspected of terrorism-related activities, saying it would make it harder to keep the country safe.

    The court ruled that a person could not be denied bail solely on the basis of secret evidence.

    The judges concluded such applications should be treated the same as “control order” cases, where terrorism suspects must be given an “irreducible minimum” of information about the case against them, the Press Association reported.

    The decision is another judicial defeat for ministers over security measures, beefed up after the September 11 attacks amid much criticism from human rights campaigners.

    “I am surprised and disappointed that the court has made this ruling. My sole objective is protecting the public and this judgement will make that job harder,” said Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

    He said the two suspects, a Pakistani student known as XC and an Algerian referred to as U who face deportation on the grounds they pose a risk to national security, would remain in custody while he sought permission to appeal the verdict.

    XC was one of 12 men arrested amid great publicity by counter-terrorism police in April this year but later released without charge as there was insufficient evidence. The men were then told they would be deported instead.

    “We will do everything possible to keep this country safe and are taking steps accordingly in the light of this unhelpful judgement,” he said.

    Tuesday’s verdict follows a judgement by Britain’s highest court in June that the government had to disclose secret evidence from its spies which it used against suspects to justify stringent home curfews known as control orders.

    The orders, introduced just before the 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people, allow terrorism suspects not charged with any crime to be kept under curfew for up to 16 hours a day, with tight restrictions on who they can communicate with or meet.

    Human rights and justice organisations argued they violated fundamental rights, with suspects placed under tight surveillance without knowing what they have done wrong, and Johnson said in September the system would now be reviewed.

    “Thanks to this historic judgement, the shadowy secret court system that has mushroomed under the War on Terror will now be exposed to the light of day,” said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the campaign group Liberty.

    “The hard lesson of recent years is that diluting Britain’s core values and abandoning justice makes us both less safe and free.”

    Reuters