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25/11/2014
Lee Rigby Murder Could Not Have Been Prevented - ICS Report
A parliamentary inquiry has found that the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby could not have been prevented, despite intelligence on the two men who killed the 25-year-old.
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament conducted the inquiry, in which it examined "in considerable detail the actions of the intelligence and security agencies in relation to the two men who killed Fusilier Rigby".
The committee said it inspected hundreds of highly classified documents and also questioned Ministers, the heads of the three agencies, and senior officers from the Metropolitan Police Service.
They said the resulting report is "the most detailed" they have ever published.
The report highlighted four keys findings:
• The two men appeared, between them, in seven different Agency investigations – for the most part as low-level Subjects of Interest (SoI). There were errors in these operations, where processes were not followed, decisions not recorded, or delays encountered. However, the report said that it did not consider any of these errors, taken individually, were significant enough to have made a difference.
• It considered whether, taken together, these errors may have affected the outcome. The report concluded that, given what the Agencies knew at the time, they were not in a position to prevent the murder of Fusilier Rigby.
• Michael Adebolajo was a high priority for MI5 during two operations: they put significant effort into investigating him and employed a broad range of intrusive techniques. None of these revealed any evidence of attack planning.
• By contrast, Michael Adebowale was never more than a low level SoI and the Agencies took appropriate action based on the rigorous threshold set down in law: they had not received any intelligence that Adebowale was planning an attack and, based on that evidence, more intrusive action would not have been justified.
Fusilier Rigby was murdered by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale on 22 May 2013, as he made his way back to Woolwich Barracks in London.
The Intelligence and Security Committee report can be read in full here.
(MH/JP)
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament conducted the inquiry, in which it examined "in considerable detail the actions of the intelligence and security agencies in relation to the two men who killed Fusilier Rigby".
The committee said it inspected hundreds of highly classified documents and also questioned Ministers, the heads of the three agencies, and senior officers from the Metropolitan Police Service.
They said the resulting report is "the most detailed" they have ever published.
The report highlighted four keys findings:
• The two men appeared, between them, in seven different Agency investigations – for the most part as low-level Subjects of Interest (SoI). There were errors in these operations, where processes were not followed, decisions not recorded, or delays encountered. However, the report said that it did not consider any of these errors, taken individually, were significant enough to have made a difference.
• It considered whether, taken together, these errors may have affected the outcome. The report concluded that, given what the Agencies knew at the time, they were not in a position to prevent the murder of Fusilier Rigby.
• Michael Adebolajo was a high priority for MI5 during two operations: they put significant effort into investigating him and employed a broad range of intrusive techniques. None of these revealed any evidence of attack planning.
• By contrast, Michael Adebowale was never more than a low level SoI and the Agencies took appropriate action based on the rigorous threshold set down in law: they had not received any intelligence that Adebowale was planning an attack and, based on that evidence, more intrusive action would not have been justified.
Fusilier Rigby was murdered by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale on 22 May 2013, as he made his way back to Woolwich Barracks in London.
The Intelligence and Security Committee report can be read in full here.
(MH/JP)
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