Date:02/05/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/02/stories/2007050200891600.htm

International

Fresh calls for inquiry into London bombings

Hasan Suroor

Links between plotters, 7/7 attackers

LONDON: The British Government has come under renewed pressure to order an independent inquiry into alleged intelligence failures over the July 7 London bombings after new facts emerged during the trial of the five men, who on Monday were jailed for life for planning terror attacks using fertilizer bombs.

The year-long trial, one of the most widely publicised terror cases, revealed links between the "fertilizer bomb'' plotters and the 7/7 suicide bombers though this was not revealed to the jurors so as not to prejudice their minds.

Photographs taken by MI5 a year before the London bombings showed two of the July 7 bombers — Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer — with Omar Khyam, one of the five convicted in the fertiliser bomb plot.

More damaging for the MI5 was the revelation that although it had Khan and Tanweer under surveillance months before the 7/7 attacks, it did not pursue them as they were judged not to pose a threat.

Suspicious activities

At the time, they were described as "clean skin'', meaning that they had no previous criminal record and were harmless. It has been alleged that despite their suspicious activities, MI5 neither took any action itself nor alerted the local police.

The revelations triggered nationwide fury with the 7/7 victims and the Opposition demanding a public inquiry into the MI5's handling of intelligence, which they argued, could have averted the 7/7 tragedy. Dismissing the report of a parliamentary committee, which gave a clean chit to the intelligence agencies as a "whitewash'', they insisted that only an independent probe could bring out the truth.

The survivors of the 7/7 attacks and families of the victims delivered a letter to Home Secretary John Reid, calling for an "impartial'' inquiry into issues "aimed at saving lives, minimising suffering and improving the response of Government agencies to the continuing threat of terrorist attacks.

"This is about finding out how this could be allowed to happen and how nobody could stop it. That needs to be investigated and to totally dismiss a public inquiry is shameful," said Danny Biddle, one of the signatories.

However, the Government ruled out another inquiry, saying that it would divert the attention of intelligence agencies.