May 12th, 2006

LONDON: The government was yesterday accused of a whitewash after two reports said no one was to blame for failing to stop the July 7 bombers. The findings came despite new evidence that several opportunities to pick up the four terrorists before they struck were missed by the intelligence services.

The most glaring was that an MI5 photograph of ringleader Mohamed Sidique Khan was not shown to a terrorist detainee who turned out to have known his face.

Last July Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay detonated bombs on three Tube trains and a bus killing 52 commuters and injuring hundreds. Among the missed chances to identify the bombers as a possible threat were:

• Last February a spy report said that a man with extremist views travelled to Afghanistan – that man was Khan but he was not identified.

• In 2004 Khan was referred to under a pseudonym by detainees as someone who had sought meetings with Al Qaeda figures – MI5 tried to establish his true identity but failed.

• In 2003, Khan and Tanweer were photographed by MI5 during a surveillance of suspected terrorists but they were not identified or followed.

• A phone number registered to a ‘Sidique Khan’ was discovered in 2003 belonging to a terrorist suspect — but it was only after 7/7 that its significance was realised.

• MI5 also found out too late that it had a phone number belonging to Lindsay in its files.

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