|
Bomber 'allowed to slip away'
26/10/2005 14:33 - (SA)
London - Britain's intelligence services monitored and secretly filmed one of the July 7 terrorists who bombed the London transport system, but allowed him to "slip away", the BBC reported on Wednesday.
Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, one of four Britons who detonated bombs claiming the lives of 52 people as well as the four bombers, had been filmed speaking to a British-based terrorist suspect, the public broadcaster said, citing a "well-placed source".
Previous indications have been that the four men were completely unknown to the intelligence services, and the new information suggested a "serious failure", the BBC said.
If true, the information "would show the intelligence services had him well in their sights but allowed him to slip away", the BBC reported on its website.
Extremist
It said Khan had met the extremist in the northern English city of Leeds in 2003. The unnamed extremist is reported to be a US citizen from a Pakistani family from New York who travelled to Pakistan a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
A BBC investigation suggested Sidique Khan had been in contact with al-Qaeda activists over the past five years.
The report said a detainee held in Indonesia in connection with the Bali bombings had alleged that Sidique Khan had travelled to Malaysia and the Philippines in 2001 to meet terrorist leader Hambali.
The intelligence services had missed "a number of clues to his extremism", the report said.
Khan, a learning mentor at a Leeds primary school, is seen as the leading figure among the July 7 bombers.
Neither police nor the Home Office would comment on the report.
Police are holding one man in connection with the July 7 bombings.
|
News
