21/7 bombers: Ringleader Slipped Through Police Net

Anti-terrorist police and MI5 were under pressure last night to explain how the ringleader of the July 21 suicide bomb plot slipped through their net despite being captured on surveillance photographs more than 12 months before the attempted attacks on London.

Renewed scrutiny of Britain’s intelligence services followed the conviction of Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, who was found guilty of conspiracy to murder at Woolwich crown court. Three others, Hussain Osman, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Yassin Omar, 26, were found guilty on the same charge by unanimous verdicts.

Ibrahim, who was known to the others as the “emir”, was the brains behind the scheme to carry out a suicide mission on the capital’s transport network, the court heard. The jury was told that he may have attended the same training camp in Pakistan as Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7 attacks; the two were in the country at the same time in 2005.

The devices used by the 21/7 plotters were made of hydrogen peroxide, as were those used in the July 7 attacks. Such bombs had never been seen before in Britain.

During the six-month trial, the jurors learned that the security services and the police had the ringleader on their radar at least a year before the failed bombings.

· The court heard that in May 2004, Ibrahim encouraged his three friends to join him at a jihadi training camp in the Lake District which was subject to surveillance by anti-terrorist police. The men were captured in the surveillance photographs but there was no follow-up investigation.

· In August 2004, Ibrahim was captured on surveillance photographs taken outside Finsbury Park mosque in London.

· In October 2004 Ibrahim was arrested in Oxford Street after scuffling with a policeman who intervened as he was handing out extremist literature. He was charged with a public order offence and was due in court in December 2004. When he failed to turn up, an arrest warrant was issued which was outstanding in February 2005, five months before the July attacks.

· In December 2004 Special Branch officers stopped him at Heathrow and questioned him for three hours before allowing him to board a plane to Islamabad. He and two associates were carrying thousands of pounds in cash, a military first aid kit and a manual on ballistics. The other two men are missing believed dead fighting jihad.

According to prosecutors, at the time he should have been in court Ibrahim was at a training camp in Pakistan learning the skills to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Britain.

· In February 2005, police were seeking Ibrahim on an arrest warrant outstanding for the October public order offence and sent a letter to his London address saying: “Call us, before we call you.”

Although the four attempted to blow themselves up a fortnight after the July 7 suicide bombs in which 52 people died, their plot had been nearly a year in the making and was not simply a copycat attack, the court was told.

In their late teens and early 20s they came into contact with the radical cleric Abu Hamza, who is serving seven years in jail. Under Hamza’s guidance they honed their extremist views, reading radical literature, watching videos of beheadings, the September 11 attacks and the murder of Daniel Pearl to stoke their beliefs.

Ibrahim had also trained for jihad in Sudan in 2003 and boasted to a friend on his return that he had been taught how to use rocket-propelled grenades.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said yesterday: “This trial has revealed that the ringleader in the 21/7 plot was allowed to leave the country to train at a camp in Pakistan and return to plan and attempt the attack on 21/7. This was despite the fact that he was facing criminal charges for extremism. When will the government answer our call to establish a dedicated UK border police force to secure our porous borders?”

A Metropolitan police spokesman defended Ibrahim’s treatment, saying he was on bail and not a wanted man when he left for Pakistan.

He was facing a minor charge under the Public Order Act, which would not feature on the database for immigration checks, he said.

A security source told the Guardian that many lessons had been learned since the July 2005 attacks. He said figures who were peripheral to other investigations were constantly reassessed today.

“This just wouldn’t happen now,” he said, pointing to the system of control orders, the 2006 Terrorism Act, which covers activities alleged to be in preparation for attacks, and an increase in resources. “The understanding of the problem is better,” added a senior Whitehall official.

The jury is still deliberating on the two other defendants, Adel Yahya and Manfo Kwaku Asiedu.