The Manchester Arena suicide bombing in 2017—which killed 22 people and injured hundreds more—may have been prevented if MI5 had not missed a “significant” opportunity, the third and final report from the public inquiry has announced.
Salman Abedi, 22, detonated a device on May 22, 2017 in the foyer of Manchester Arena, known as the City Room, a few minutes after the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people.
None of Abedi’s relatives cooperated with the public inquiry and his older brother, Ismail, was allowed to flee the country and is believed to be in Libya.
Saunders said that did not present an “accurate picture.”
One MI5 officer admitted they considered raising one of the pieces of intelligence as a national security concern but did not discuss it with colleagues immediately and did not write it up that day.
Saunders said, “The delay in providing the report led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action.”
He concluded: “Based on everything the security service knew or should have known, I am satisfied that such an investigative action would have been a proportionate and justified step to take. This should have happened.”
Saunders went on, “Although I accept that Salman Abedi demonstrated some security consciousness and that this might have affected the efficacy of the investigative action that I have identified, there was the real possibility that it would have produced actionable intelligence.”
Saunders did not go into detail about what the pieces of intelligence were, on the grounds of national security.
MI5 ‘Not Fit for Purpose’ Says Victim’s Father
Referring to Abedi, Roussos said, “In my view the fact that MI5 failed to stop him despite all of the red flags available demonstrates they are not fit to keep us safe and therefore not fit for purpose.”Thursday’s report also covered the question of whether the attack could have been predicted and stopped by the security services and also examined the reasons why Abedi went from being a drug-taking, hard-partying student drop-out to a jihadist suicide bomber.
The inquiry heard Abedi began a business and management course in 2014 but dropped out during the third year.
Saunders’s report says: “Overall, none of the educational establishments that Salman Abedi attended was at fault in failing to identify him as being at risk of being radicalised or drawn into terrorism. No single institution had a comprehensive-enough view of Salman Abedi’s behaviour, family situation or potential risk factors, over a sufficiently long period of time, to recognise his descent into violent Islamist extremism.”
The Abedi family were originally from Libya but had settled in Manchester.
Abedi’s father, Ramadan Abedi, and his mother, Samia Tabbal, have returned to Libya and have never cooperated with the police’s investigation into their sons.
Abedi’s Father Criticised Imam’s Anti-Terrorist Sermon
Saunders said El-Saeiti, who he regarded as a “generally truthful and reliable witness,” said he gave a sermon at the mosque in October 2014 in which he sought to criticise the actions of terrorist groups such as ISIS and al‑Qaeda in Libya.Saunders said: “A section of the congregation reacted badly to the sermon and something of a campaign developed against Mohammed El-Saeiti. As part of that campaign, Ramadan Abedi posted a critical message on social media and Hashem Abedi and Ismail Abedi signed a petition calling upon Mohammed El-Saeiti to be sacked.”
El-Saeiti left his role at the mosque amid considerable “rancour” in 2020.
Saunders said another witness, Fawzi Haffar—who has been chairman of Didsbury mosque since 2018—was “unreliable” and parts of his evidence “lacked credibility.”
The report says, “He [Haffar] denied that the mosque had strong ties to Libya, stating, ‘We have no ties to Libya, no ties to Libyan groups,’ and said that the mosque had, prior to the time of the attack, no knowledge of any attendee going to Libya to fight in the conflict there.”
“The thrust of his evidence was that the mosque deprecated the use of its premises for political purposes, whether by the imams or by groups and did what it could to prevent that happening,” the report concluded.
Saunders said Haffar’s evidence on this point lacked credibility and he pointed out that in 2011 the leadership of the mosque had been faced with a situation in which one of the imams, Mustafa Graf, had been detained in Libya amid claims he had been involved in the civil war and an image of him in military fatigues had emerged.
“Subsequently, the leadership of the mosque had to deal with a controversial sermon delivered by Mustafa Graf which which in one view, although not the only view, encouraged support for armed jihad in Syria and other parts of the Muslim world,” said the report.
Saunders said, “Overall, I accept that the leadership of Didsbury mosque had no positive wish for its premises to be used for political purposes, let alone for the support of violent Islamist factions fighting in Libya or elsewhere.”
But he said there was evidence members of the congregation supported different factions in Libya and attempts to avoid offending them, “led to a form of wilful blindness in respect of the activities that occurred at the mosque.”
“That was weak leadership,” he added.
The first report, issued in June 2021, highlighted mistakes by security staff at the venue that could have identified Abedi as a threat before he detonated his device in the foyer of the City Room.
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