Manchester bomber was flagged up 18 times to MI5

‘Highly relevant’ evidence relating to the plot was twice dismissed as ‘nonnefarious’, inquiry hears

TERRORIST Salman Abedi came to MI5’S attention at least 18 times before the Manchester Arena massacre, an inquiry into the attack has heard.

Lawyers representing MI5 yesterday outlined numerous occasions the suicide bomber was on their radar, from December 2010 to March 2017.

Abedi, who killed 22 people with a homemade explosive in May 2017, was connected to six individuals – “subjects of interest” – being watched by MI5 over the seven-year period.

Twice, “highly relevant” intelligence was passed to the agency regarding his plot, but was dismissed in the months before as “non-nefarious”, Cathryn Mcgahey QC, for MI5, told the inquiry.

MI5 admitted it was aware of Abedi visiting a convicted terrorist, Abdalraouf Abdallah, in prison on three occasions. He was able to do so because Abdallah was a Category B prisoner, meaning no vetting process was in place.

Despite numerous tip-offs and red flags, the security service’s lawyers insisted its decision not to focus more attention on Abedi was “finely balanced, reasonable and understandable”.

The inquiry heard Abedi first came to the attention of the security services on Dec 30 2010, after he was linked to a formal subject of interest. Over the following five years, Abedi was linked to six more, one of whom had links to alQaeda and was under investigation for aiding travel to Syria. Abedi met him several times, the inquiry heard.

MI5 had a “long-standing” knowledge of another contact of Abedi’s, who “may have had some radicalising influence” on him. On multiple other occasions Abedi came to MI5’S attention, mainly over his pro-is comments, concerns that he planned to go to Syria and his trips to and from Libya.

In- depth detail on how and why Abedi was flagged to the security services will be heard behind closed doors to “protect national security,” something heavily criticised by families of the dead and injured.

The inquiry also heard there was a “missed opportunity” to put Abedi on port watch following his final trip to Libya in April 2017. He returned to the UK days before his attack on May 18 and, had MI5 flagged him to counter terror police at UK airports, it would have enabled them to question and search him.

Yesterday’s hearing also heard from Manchester fire chiefs, who apologised after it took two hours for them to deploy, despite some firefighters being close enough to hear the bombing.

Lawyers referred to a meeting between Peter O’reilly, Greater Manchester’s then chief fire officer, and Andy Burnham, its mayor, two days after the bombing. Mr O’reilly told him: “It would kill me to find out we could have saved more people by getting there quicker but I also think that the Fire Brigades’ Union and the Health and Safety Executive would have had me in the dock if firefighters had been sent to the scene and they had been killed.”