US Edition A catalogue of blunders, errors and delays by MI5 and the police hampered the monitoring of the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby, a parliamentary investigation found.
The Intelligence and Security Committee concluded the Security Service could not have prevented the gruesome, random killing by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale on May 22 last year.
Andrew Parker, the Director General of MI5, told the committee that his agency “threw the kitchen sink” at Adebolajo from an investigation point of view over the five years they monitored him but no clues as to his intentions came to light.
But the report highlighted a series of missed opportunities and mistakes, some of which may have resulted in one or both of the men being seen has a higher security risk or put under greater surveillance.
It emerged that surveillance was cancelled on Adebolajo just weeks before the killing and a request for surveillance on Adebowale was submitted to the Home Office the day before the murder.
An opportunity to have Adebolajo arrested for drug dealing was missed in March 2013 when an MI5 tip off to the police had his house number missing by the time it reached local officers.
The ISC stressed that none of the errors, with the exception of the Facebook issue, would have prevented the killing of Fusilier Rigby.
The investigations
Between them, Adebolajo and Adebowale were subject to seven investigations by MI5 over a period of five years, varying in degrees of seriousness.
Adebolajo was looked at during five investigations, including three where he was considered a “high priority”.
He was first brought to the attention of the spy agency in 2008 amid suspicion he was part of a network that was trying to acquire items for terror purposes. It was closed later that year after the main target was disrupted and Adebolajo was only now seen as a contact of that suspect.
There was occasional coverage of him throughout 2009 and 2010 and he was reclassified as a category 3 suspect in July 2010.
In early 2011 Adebolajo was investigated after returning from Kenya where he had been caught trying to cross the border to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabaab – but he was only categorised as a low risk.
In late 2011, however, he was a high priority suspect in an investigation into possible attack planning linked with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap).
But despite intensive surveillance for a number of months, no evidence of a possible attack emerged.
However, interest in Adebolajo continued for another 12 months from November 2011 as a possible contact of two other extremists the spy agency was watching.
By October 2012, surveillance on him was about to be cancelled when new information came to light suggesting he may be acting as a contact for al-Shabaab.
But that surveillance was cancelled on April 11 – just weeks before the Rigby murder.
Adebowale came to the attention of intelligence agencies in 2011 when GCHQ began looking at an individual who was posting extremist material online, although he was not formally identified until the following year.
No evidence of involvement in terrorist activity could be found and the investigation was closed in June 2012.
However, in January 2013 Adebowale’s online activities were reviewed and revealed he had been in contact with another suspected extremist and may again be trying to spread material online.
An investigation was started up but delays in obtaining more intensive surveillance meant it was not signed off until the day of Mr Rigby’s death.
Four missed opportunities
: In January 2010, GCHQ drew up a list of historic contacts of a terror suspect who would later become a senior operative of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap).
In 2011, it was discovered by MI5 that Adebolajo was one of the contacts on that list but no effort was made to examine the content of the old communications.
When checked after the murder of Mr Rigby, it emerged the content made a possible reference to martyrdom.
: In April 2012, GCHQ failed to report an item of intelligence that might have had a bearing on the investigation into Adebowale.
It revealed contact between an unidentified individual – later identified as Adebowale – and an Aqap extremist known as SOI Charlie – but an intelligence report was not issued.
MI5 said had they seen this report at the time they would have been able to link the intelligence to Adebowale and would have increased levels of intrusive surveillance on him.
: In January 2013, MI5 requested details on the mobile phone records of Adebowale but not his landline as part of an investigation in to extremist comments he had made online.
Had they done so they would have discovered contact with a Yemen-based Aqap figure during 2012 in which Adebowale expressed admiration for Aqap and potential extremist activity.
: The report lists four key events that it concluded were missed opportunities during the various investigations of Adebolajo and Adebowale.
The most significant was the failure by an Internet company – now identified as Facebook – to flag up an online conversation between Adebowale and a mystery Yemen-based al-Qaeda fanatic – identified in the report only as Foxtrot.
In late 2012, Adebowale spoke of wanting to “kill a soldier” in a graphic and emotive manner" due to UK military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He and Foxtrot discussed targeting someone in a less secure location, and possibly with a knife, in a chilling echo of the murder of Drummer Rigby who was killed on a public road as he returned to his barracks.
The Internet company was not aware of the message but it’s automated vetting system had previously closed down seven of Adebowale’s accounts, many for suspected terrorism-related reasons.
But the pattern was never flagged up to MI5 or the British authorities.
Surveillance
Intrusive MI5 surveillance of Adebolajo was cancelled on April 11, 2013, just weeks before the attack.
In the latest operation, he had been placed under watch the previous December amid concerns he may have been acting as a contact for the Somali-terror group al-Shabaab.
But he was demoted to a third tier priority in February after it was considered he was not a national security risk and was more interested in drug dealing.
It was even believed his “security conscious” efforts to conceal his activities were due to drug dealing rather than extremism.
The surveillance was then stopped altogether. Andrew Parker, the Director General of MI5, told the committee that by March 2013 his officers had “run out of bases completely” which was “timing-wise unfortunate”.
A request for intrusive surveillance on Adebowale was submitted to the Home Office the day before the Woolwich attack. The Home Secretary even signed the application after Mr Rigby had been killed.
The application had been drawn up amid concerns that he had sought to spread extremist material online.
Kenya
Both MI5 and MI6 were criticised for “unsatisfactory” action on Adebolajo after he was caught in Kenya trying to cross the border to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabaab.
He was arrested by the Kenyans in November 2010 but despite the British authorities being alerted, MI6 made no effort to interview him or feed questions to be put to him, the report said.
The agency took no further action and considered Adebolajo's own voluntary return from the country after his release without charge as a “sufficient solution”.
The report concluded that the Secret Intelligence Service’s (SIS) “apparent lack of interest in Adebolajo’s arrest deeply unsatisfactory”.
“SIS’s role in countering ‘jihadi tourism’ does not appear to have extended to any practical action being taken.”
Adebolajo was questioned by counter-terrorism police when he first arrived back in the UK but MI5 was criticised for then taking four months before deciding to open an investigation in to him again.
“Where an individual is believed to have been seeking to join a terrorist organisation overseas, there should be no such delays,” the report concluded.
Delays in acting
The committee also criticised a series of delays in taking action against the two fanatics.
After the intelligence services first started examining an individual suspected of spreading extremism online in August 2011 it took three months before he was identified as Adebowale, the report said.
And it then took another five months before a decision was taken by MI5 to launch an active investigation.
The report said the delays were “unacceptable”.
It also criticised the length of time it took for MI5 to look at Adebolajo after he had returned from Kenya – some four months later.
Drug dealing opportunity
A potential opportunity to have Adebolajo arrested over drug dealing two months before the murder was missed because of a blunder over an address.
In March 2013, MI5 passed on information to the counter-terrorism police that Adebolajo “engages in drug dealing activity”, the report found.
That information was passed down to police in Romford, where Adebolajo was living but during the process the house number was accidentally omitted.
As a result the police officer tasked with looking at it took no further action reporting “cannot find (house) number and this is a long road. For info at this stage”.
The police later said that even if an accurate address had been given it was unlikely to have been taken much further without more evidence of drug offences.
The report criticised “insufficient co-ordination” between MI5 and police because “disruption based on criminal activities offers a potential opportunity to reduce the threat posed by extremists”.