Did MI5 know about 7/7 bombers?
Posted by Jon King on May 21, 2010
Coroner rules alleged failings by British Intelligence in 7/7 London bombings to be investigated by inquest…
Inquests into the deaths of 56 people in London’s July 2005 suicide bombings will probe alleged failings by police and MI5 intelligence before the attacks, the coroner conducting the hearings said Friday.
Judge Heather Hallett also ruled that inquests into four suicide bombers will be held separately from those of the 52 victims, a relief to families who had protested plans to hold the inquests together.
The suicide bombers set off near-simultaneous explosions on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus on the morning of July 7, 2005, in what has become known as 7/7, nearly four years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
Hallett, giving details of arrangements for the inquests due to start in October, said they would probe what police and MI5 officers knew ahead of the shock attacks.
“The scope of the inquest into the 52 deaths will include the alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings,” she said.
“To my mind it is not too remote to investigate what was known in the year or two before the alleged bombings. Plots of this kind are not developed overnight,” she added.
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