Description
The third and final report of a public inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing will be published later today. Twenty-two people died and hundreds were injured in a suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande concert on May 22, 2017. Evidence about the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the atrocity was heard in the city between September 7, 2020 and February 15, 2022.
On Thursday, Manchester Arena Inquiry chairman Sir John Saunders will publish his findings on whether MI5 and anti-terror police could have prevented Salman Abedi's terror attack.
The report will also focus on the radicalization of Abedi, 22, born in Manchester and of Libyan descent, as well as the planning and preparation of the attack.
In March 2014, Abedi became a subject of interest (SOI) to MI5 through telephone contact with another SOI, but his case was closed four months later when it was deemed "low risk".
The investigation was told that from December 2013 to January 2017, Abedi was identified as being in direct contact with three SOIs: one suspected of planning a trip to Syria, another linked to Al-Qaeda, and the third linked to extremists. Libyans.
And between April 2016 and April 2017, he was identified as a second-level contact (a contact of a contact) with three other SOIs, all suspected of having ties to the so-called Islamic State terrorist group.
In the months leading up to the attack, MI5 received two pieces of intelligence on Abedi, but these were assessed at the time to be related to possible non-terrorist crime.
Both pieces of information were not turned over to police and a subsequent review revealed in hindsight that they could be considered highly relevant to the planned attack.
Abedi's name also hit a "priority flag" in a separate "data laundering exercise" as one of a small number of old SOIs that deserved further consideration.
A meeting to review the results was scheduled for May 31, 2017, nine days after the attack.
During the investigation, several MI5 witnesses, including a senior officer known as Witness J, and North West Anti-Terror Police detectives gave testimony behind closed doors.
The secret sessions were held so as not to compromise national security and the internal workings of MI5 and the anti-terrorist police.
A summary of some of the evidence was later made public, but "the gist" did not reveal any additional intelligence received by the M15 in the months leading up to the attack.
Retired High Court Judge Sir John's first inquiry report, published in June 2021, focused on security arrangements at the site. He highlighted a series of "missed opportunities" to identify Abedi as a threat before running through the City Room lobby and detonating his shrapnel-laden device.
Sir John's second report last November scathingly criticized the response of the emergency services to the bombing.
He ruled that caretaker John Atkinson, 28, likely would have survived had it not been for the night's failures, while there was a "long shot" that the youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, could have lived with different treatment. and beware.
Sir John's conclusions and recommendations on radicalization and avoidance will be published at 2pm on the inquiry website.
The report will be sent to the Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman.
PA wire
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