Woolwich London terror attack?

[David Guyatt]

Yet another unsafe inquiry where relevant witnesses were not interviewed in case they provided unwanted information...

Lee Rigby: inquiry into murder of fusilier failed to seek out witnesses'

Parliamentary report, which is set to clear security services of major errors, comes under attack

• Vikram Dodd
  
• The Guardian, Monday 24 November 2014
  

Lee Rigby was murdered in 2013. The report into his death is poised to clear the security services of major criticisms. Photograph: Henry Szymanski / Barcroft Media

The official inquiry into the jihadi-inspired murder of Lee Rigby in 2013 is poised to clear the security services of major criticisms but is facing claims that it failed to speak to witnesses who say the plot's leader was repeatedly contacted by the security services before the attack.
The report by parliament's intelligence and security committee (ISC), due out on Tuesday, will set out what the intelligence services knew before the attack. Fusilier Rigby, 25, was run over and then butchered by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale in May 2013 on a street in Woolwich, south-east London, in front of numerous witnesses. Both were sentenced in February to life imprisonment for the soldier's murder, with Adebolajo, the dominant of the pair, told he would never be released.
The Guardian understands that no individual will be criticised in the report into the security services' handling of the case and that MI5 itself will not be blamed for failing to stop the attack.
But the committee is alleged to have reached its conclusions without speaking to a number of witnesses, including a family member and lawyers, who claim Adebolajo complained a year before the attack of repeated approaches by the security services.
Those making the allegations say they raise concerns about MI5's conduct and offer a possible explanation of what contributed to his transformation from extremist into terrorist murderer.
Adebolajo has said he was repeatedly pressed by the security services to turn informant for three years before he and Adebowale murdered Rigby.
Any failure by the inquiry to speak to non-establishment witnesses raises the danger that while the report satisfies questions in Westminster it may lack credibility in communities outside, such as among British Muslims.
Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs committee, told the Guardian that the ISC could have sought testimony from witnesses even if they were in prison. Vaz said: "These people have to be talked to. It does not have to be in public it could be in private, to avoid the oxygen of publicity, or in writing. I would have thought anybody who could assist the committee would be relevant."
The ISC's chair, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, defended the committee, saying people were free to write to the inquiry if they wished and it was their responsibility if they chose not to.
Important parts of the ISC's full report will be denied to the public because they are deemed to contain sensitive information about the security services. The version to be released on Tuesday runs to more than 100 pages, but the full report has already gone to the prime minister. The ISC used its powers to read MI5 files about Adebolajo and Adebowale as well as to interview MI5 head Andrew Parker.
The report is understood to find that clues to Adebolajo's increased extremism were visible through his internet use, but this was unknown to MI5. The domestic security service had not assessed him as posing a sufficient danger to require full monitoring.
The ISC report is expected to feed into the debate this week about government plans for the police and security services to have greater powers, particularly online, to fight terrorism and serious and organised crime.
It also comes as Britain's top counter-terrorism police officer, Mark Rowley, launches on Monday a week of events by police aimed at raising public awareness of the threat and urging people to report anyone or anything they think suspicious.
Rowley will say: "The danger posed by violent extremists has evolved. They are no longer a problem solely stemming from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, far away in the minds of the public. Now, they are home-grown, in our communities, radicalised by images and messages they read on social media and prepared to kill for their cause. The tragic murder of Lee Rigby last year was a stark warning to us all about how real and local the threat is."
After Rigby's murder, several witnesses said Adebolajo had complained of his treatment by the security services. Adebolajo has alleged that there was British complicity in his ill-treatment after he was arrested in Kenya in 2010.
His brother, Jeremiah, who was working at a university in Saudi Arabia, claimed he had also been approached and pressed by MI6 for information.
Among those who say they were not spoken to by the ISC are lawyers for Adebolajo, a friend of his who spoke on television about the alleged harassment and a campaigning group to which Adebolajo complained, as well as his brother.
Adebolajo and Adebowale, both converts to Islam, had been known to the security services for up to eight years before the attack. Adebolajo went to Kenya in 2010, where he was arrested as he attempted to join extremists in Somalia, and was released in murky circumstances to return to the UK.
A friend of his, Abu Nusaybah, later went on television to claim Adebolajo had been tortured in Kenya and harassed by MI5 which asked him to spy for it on his return.
Nusaybah was arrested after making these claims and later convicted of terrorist offences.
After his arrest Nusaybah wrote from his cell to Rifkind: "I believe my arrest was ordered by the intelligence services because I made the information public."
Nusaybah said: "I implore you to investigate any connection between the UK and Kenyan authorities in the mistreatment of Michael Adebolajo … I am witness to the fact that the Michael I knew ceased to exist after his treatment in Kenya."
Nusaybah wrote to Rifkind that he had known Adebolajo since childhood and both attended talks by extremist groups.
Tasnime Akunjee, solicitor for Nusaybah, said: "They are precisely the kind of people you need to speak to.
"The security services spent a huge amount of effort trying to speak to them before they did crazy things the idea you don't speak to them now is nonsensical."
Rifkind told the Guardian there had been a general invitation for evidence: "It has been public knowledge for the last year that we have been conducting this inquiry.
"If anyone is complaining that they have not been involved … they had every opportunity to send evidence to the inquiry. If they did not, that has to be their responsibility."
Sir Malcolm added: "Our inquiry is about the role of the intelligence services in the months before Lee Rigby's murder."
Adebolajo told one organisation, CAGE, that MI5 had knowledge of his torture and of his being threatened with rape while held in Kenya in 2010. Close family members also complained to the campaigning group in April 2012 about the approaches they had received from both MI5 and MI6.
A note taken by a worker at the group who met Adebolajo said he had never "seen someone in such a state of paranoia".
Amandla Thomas-Johnson, of CAGE, said: "The rigour of the report is questionable: why weren't Adebolajo's family questioned? Why wasn't CAGE, who knew the details of his mistreatment in Kenya with alleged British complicity, consulted? This one-sided appeal for yet more state power is hardly worth the paper it is written on and should be rejected."