7/7 families still looking for answers

Coroner critical of MI5, but clears them of blame as families of 7/7 bombing victims call for overhaul of security services Families of the victims of the 7 July attacks have called on the government to overhaul Britain’s security services after the inquest coroner yesterday described their handling of a critical piece of intelligence as “dreadful” and suggested another failure could have had “dire consequences”. Returning verdicts of unlawful killing on each of the 52 victims of the attacks, Lady Justice Hallett also expressed concerns about MI5′s recordkeeping and about “confusion” in its system of assessing targets at the time of the attacks. But, crucially, she exonerated the domestic intelligence service of any blame in failing to prevent the 2005 bombings, stressing that the evidence she had heard over 75 days at the high court in London “does not justify the conclusion that any failings on the part of any organisation or individual caused or contributed to any of the deaths”. The coroner also found that the emergency services’ response to the bombings, which has been heavily criticised for being too slow at several of the sites, had not contributed to any of the deaths. “I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that each of [the victims] would have died whenever the emergency services reached them,” she said. She saw no grounds for any future public inquiry, she indicated. “I am not aware of our having left any reasonable stone unturned,” she said. “One would hope, therefore, that these proceedings will be an end to the investigation of what happened on 7/7.” Speaking after the verdicts, however, Graham Foulkes, whose son David was killed in the Edgware Road bombing, said the inquest “causes a lot more questions to be asked than it answers”. “It really must compel [the Home Secretary] Theresa May to review the whole operation of the security services in the UK, not just MI5.” He called for an independent inquiry into the killings, with a broader remit than the tightly constrained inquest. At an emotional press conference after the verdicts were returned, Ros Morley, widow of Edgware Road victim Colin Morley, called for an apology from MI5, saying: “In any other organisation, if huge mistakes were made and lives were lost, people feel there’s a duty to look into that, to have a degree of humility, which I feel has been lost.” June Taylor, the mother of Carrie Taylor, who died at Aldgate, was overcome by emotion and collapsed at the press conference after declaring that the family “still have no positive answers”. But other family members said they felt the conclusion of the inquest, which opened in October, should represent the end of the investigation into the events of 7 July, when four suicide bombers detonated devices on the London transport network. Grahame Russell, whose son Philip died in the bus bombing at Tavistock Square, said: “There are still issues. The problem I have is that if I continue to hold concerns about issues, then my life would become very bitter.” The coroner’s recommendations “can help people in the future, one would hope,” he said. “But they help me not at all. They do not bring my son back.” The coroner made nine recommendations which she believed could help prevent future deaths, encompassing improvements in training and communication for paramedics and other emergency responders, and a suggestion that Transport for London look at putting first aid equipment on underground trains. Two of the recommendations related directly to the security services. Hallett said MI5 must review its procedures on showing photographs to informants after poorly edited images of two of the bombers — “they were dreadful” — were shown by intelligence officers to a key Islamist informant in US custody. “Given the confusion that reigned within the Security Service about these photographs,” she added, “it was not clear to me what records were kept of the procedure.” Similarly, she was troubled, she said, that the MI5 spokesman Witness G gave evidence that it was not normal practice to revisit photographs when new sources became available. So poor were the records from the time of the investigation, she said, “Witness G himself had to visit retired desk officers at their homes to discover as best he could what they had done, and why.” She instructed the MI5 director general Sir Jonathan Evans to investigate the service’s documentary procedures, “given the possibly dire consequences of a flawed decision which cannot be properly supervised”. The coroner also expressed concern about MI5′s failure to investigate the 7 July ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan in detail after undercover teams observed him repeatedly meeting the fertiliser bomb plot mastermind Omar Khyam more than a year before the atrocities. “I am concerned about the fact that the Security Service’s other commitments prevented a more intense investigation of a possible terrorist, who made long and suspicious journeys to meet known terrorists at a time when they were obviously planning an attack.” The coroner also identified weaknesses involving the Intelligence and Security Committee of MPs and peers, which was shown to have been misled, albeit “inadvertently”, by MI5. She repeatedly emphasised there was no evidence that the attacks could have been prevented. Even the badly cropped photo, in the end, had “played no causative part in the failure to identify Khan or [Shehzad] Tanweer”. In a statement, the home secretary, Theresa May, said the inquest process had been “vitally important” and said she would “carefully consider” its recommendations. “I am pleased that the coroner has made clear there is simply no evidence that the Security Service knew of, and therefore failed to prevent, the bombings on 7/7.” The government and security services were “always looking to learn lessons”, she said. “This includes learning from the 7 July attacks and from other incidents, and there have been a considerable number of improvements put in place since 2005.” Her Labour opposite number, Yvette Cooper, said the ongoing terrorist threat that Britain faced “makes the lessons from the past even more important”. 7 July London attacks Richard Norton-Taylor Esther Addley guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 6, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.