MI5 missed “significant opportunities” to prevent the Manchester Arena bombing, a report into the atrocity has found.
Salman Abedi killed 22 people and injured hundreds more when he detonated his homemade device at an Ariana Grande concert in May 2017.
Manchester Arena Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders released his findings on Thursday, examining whether MI5 could have done more to stop bomber Salman Abedi, 22.
The report revealed that Abedi, of Libyan descent, was probably helped by other plotters who have never been caught.
Sir John, who led the probe, found he may have smuggled a detonator switch into the UK after MI5 officers failed to take appropriate action on two key pieces of intelligence received in the months before the attack.
He concluded: “There was a significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack.
“It is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probabilities or to any other evidential standard as to whether the attack would have been prevented.
The 7 key findings from today:
- There were two key pieces of intelligence received in the months before the attack
- An MI5 officer ‘Witness C’ failed to immediately report to colleagues after concluding intelligence may have been of ‘pressing national concern’
- Abedi may have smuggled a detonator switch into the UK after it was found to have been manufactured in Romania and supplied to Libya
- Abedi was not stopped and searched under terror laws when he returned to the UK as MI5 could have followed the Nissan Micra he used to store explosives
- Abedi probably had help from others in plotting the attack
- Abedi’s brothers, family and mother held extremist views
- Convicted terrorist Abdalraouf Abdallah played a key role in radicalising Abedi
(
PA)
“However, there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to actions preventing the attack.
“The reasons for this significant missed opportunity included a failure by a Security Services officer to act swiftly enough.”
Andrew Roussos, the father of the youngest victim, Saffie-Rose, eight, from Leyland, said on Thursday: “When you hold this information and look at the whole picture for MI5 to miss that – one of the world’s best known security services, and for me to lose my child… I’m sorry but yes, they have blood on their hands.”
The report was critical of a female MI5 officer, known as “Witness C”, who concluded that the second piece of intelligence might have been of “pressing national security concern”.
(
Joel Goodman/LNP)
But she did not immediately discuss it with colleagues or write up a report that day, Sir John found.
“The delay in providing the report led to the missing of an opportunity to take potentially important investigative action,” he concluded.
Abedi was in Libya at the time the information came in but was able to enter the UK four days before the attack without being stopped.
The report said that had adequate action been taken, his return would have been taken “extremely seriously”.
(
PA)
A Sistema 45910 switch used to detonate the bomb was manufactured in Romania and supplied to Libya.
Sir John found there was a “possibility” that it was obtained by Abedi while he was in the country and that he had it on him when he passed back through Manchester airport on May 18.
Had adequate action been taken, he might have been stopped and searched under terror laws and MI5 could have followed the Nissan Micra he used to store the explosive, Sir John found.
The report stated: “We cannot know what would have happened, but there is at least the material possibility that opportunities to intervene were missed.”
Sir John concluded that other suspects linked to Abedi, who have never been charged, probably helped him launch the attack.
He found: “It is more likely than not that there were others who were involved in plotting a bomb.”
Sir John examined how the brothers were radicalised and concluded that their father Ramadan Abedi, mother Samia Tabbal and elder brother Ismail Abedi, all held extremist views.
“Their views influenced the development of SA’s and HA’s worldviews. It is also likely that SA and HA fed off each other’s ideas and radicalised each other,” Sir John concluded.
He found convicted terrorist Abdalraouf Abdallah, who was a close friend of the bomber, played an “important role” in radicalising Abedi along with Raphael Hostey who was killed in Syria in 2016 while fighting for Islamic State.
The report also emphasised the challenges facing the security services, with 37 late-stage terror plots had been foiled since 2017
Evidence into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the atrocity was heard in Manchester between September 7 2020 and February 15 2022.
MI5 first obtained information about Abedi in 2010 and in March 2014, he became a Subject of Interest (SOI) over phone contact with another SOI but his case was closed four months later when he was deemed “low risk”.
The inquiry was told that from December 2013 to January 2017 Abedi was identified as being in direct contact with three SOIs – one suspected of planning travel to Syria, one with links to al Qaida and the third with links to Libyan extremists.
And between April 2016 and April 2017, he was identified as a second level contact (a contact of a contact) with three more SOIs, all with suspected links to the so-called Islamic State terror group.
During the inquiry, a number of MI5 witnesses – including a senior officer known as Witness J – and detectives from North West Counter Terrorism Police gave evidence behind closed doors.
A summary of some of the evidence was later made public, but the “gist” did not reveal any further details about the intelligence received by M15 in the months before the attack.
Lawyers for MI5 told the inquiry that the handling of Abedi had to be seen in the context of an “unprecedented” scale of terrorist threat in 2017.
A previous report found that two of the victims could have survived if they had received better medical care.
The report, published in November, also said 999 chiefs made mistakes because no one believed a terror attack could really happen.
Sir John, chair of the public inquiry, said the majority of those who died were so badly injured they could not have survived.
(
PA)
But he said two, John Atkinson, 28, and the youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, did have a chance.
Overall and objectively, the performance of the emergency services “was far below the standard it should have been”, he added.
In November, a district judge issued an arrest warrant for Abedi’s older brother after he refused to give evidence to the inquiry.
(
MEN MEDIA)
Ismail Abedi, 28 – who now calls himself Ishmale ben Romdhan – was aware of the hearing and had been given the opportunity to attend.
Abedi, an IT worker, left his flat in Manchester and is now thought to be with his parents and three youngest siblings in Libya.
His younger brother Hashem, 24, who was extradited from Libya, is serving life for helping him make the bomb.