Intelligence

MI5 'let bomber slip through net'

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Michael Evans
The leader of the four London suicide bombers who killed 52 people on July 7 had been under surveillance by MI5 last year, the BBC has claimed.

Mohammad Siddique Khan, the teaching assistant from Leeds, was secretly filmed speaking to a UK-based terrorist suspect, according to a File on 4/Newsnight investigation.

The BBC said that new evidence showed the intelligence services had let the future ringleader slip through the net. MI5 acknowledged after the attacks that his name had cropped up in an another inquiry but security sources denied that he had ever been classed as a terrorist suspect, or that he had been under further surveillance.

The BBC claimed that Siddique Khan had been in contact with al-Qaeda for five years, and that in 2003 he visited a “fixer” in Pakistan.

The security sources said that investigations were continuing into his travels in the years leading up to July 7.

October 27, 2005 at 01:41 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home