Security service told to tighten up procedures

MI5’s failure to show a clear photograph of the 7/7 ringleader to a key informant was criticised by coroner Lady Justice Hallett who recommended security services tightened up procedures.

The coroner singled out MI5’s “dreadful” editing of a sharp colour photograph of 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan and his number two Shehzad Tanweer, taken by an undercover surveillance team at a motorway service station in February 2004.

At the time MI5 did not know who the pair were, although they had been seen meeting a known terrorist plotting a fertiliser bomb atrocity.

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The cropped blurry black-and-white image of Khan was meant to be shown to al-Qaida supergrass Mohammed Junaid Babar, who met the British jihadist at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

But the picture was never put before Babar, apparently because its quality was so poor.

Lady Justice Hallett said there was “no satisfactory explanation” for the badly-cropped pictures being used but found they had “little or no practical effect” because the informant did not recognise Khan when later shown a different picture of him.

She said she was “troubled” that it was still not MI5’s normal practice for older photographs to be shown to new sources and recommended a review of the security agency’s procedures to ensure informants are shown the best possible images.

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The coroner highlighted the bereaved families’ concerns about the limited records kept by MI5 about decisions on prioritising suspects and warned of the “possibly dire consequences of a flawed decision which cannot be properly supervised”. The inquest evidence contrasted with the Government’s claims the bombers were “clean skins” shortly after the bombings in July 2005. Police had contact with all four men in the years leading up to the attacks, and the security services had enough clues between them to identify the ringleader, Mohammed Sidique Khan.

But due to missed opportunities, separate strands of intelligence about Khan were not brought together.

Khan was photographed by West Yorkshire Police officers in January 2001 when he attended a terror training camp in the Lake District run by two known extremists, although he was not identified until after the 7/7 attacks.

Two years later, undercover officers from West Yorkshire watched a known Islamist extremist, Martin McDaid, as he took a short lift in Leeds in a BMW registered to “Sidique Khan” of Gregory Street in Batley.

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The detail was entered into a computer system, but for some reason it did not come up in June 2004 when MI5 asked the force for information on a “Sidique Khan” of Gregory Street, Batley.

Separately, intelligence services were aware of calls made in 2003 by a Luton-based suspected al Qaida backer to an Islamic bookshop in Beeston, Leeds, of which Khan was a trustee.

In February and March 2004, MI5 had watched Khan and another of the 7/7 bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, meeting Omar Khyam, who would later be jailed for life for plotting to kill hundreds with a giant fertiliser bomb.

Khan was also bugged in Khyam’s car, discussing travelling to Pakistan to fight for jihad, although it was only after 7/7 that police established it was his voice.

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After the fertiliser bomb plot was uncovered, MI5 assigned one officer to investigate Khyam’s associates but intelligence officials did not prioritise Khan and Tanweer, believing they were merely fraudsters.

Khan and Tanweer had been followed twice as they drove back to Leeds from meetings with Khyam in Sussex but, although they were photographed at Toddington services on the M1 in Bedfordshire, MI5 failed to identify them until after the bombings.

A chance was missed in April 2004 when the Toddington photograph was not shown to American jihadist Mohammed Junaid Babar, under interrogation by the FBI.

Babar told investigators he had met two men from West Yorkshire, named “Ibrahim” and “Zubair”, at a terror training camp in Pakistan the previous year.

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The Toddington photograph was in colour and was the best picture of Khan and Tanweer held by the British intelligence services, but it was never handed to the FBI interrogators.

Instead, MI5 provided only a blurry and badly-cropped black-and-white image of Tanweer. An edited photograph of Khan was apparently deemed to be of such poor quality that it was not sent.