If this recent story about how vital information about the Bearded Savage who committed terrorist murders at Fishmonger’s Hall in London is to be believed, then the answer could be ‘not very’.
According to an LBC report, the Security Service, MI5, had vital information about the Usman Khan, the Bearded Savage killer, that might had prevented his killing spree or even prevented his release from prison early, had it been passed on to other agencies.
LBC said that at a pre-inquest hearing the Coroner was asked by counsel for the one of those killed by Khan to call the relevant officers of MI5 rather than only call a senior member of MI5 staff to represent the agency. The family as asking this in order that as full an account as possible of how evidence of Khan’s continued adherence to radical Islam was not noticed or passed on or may even have been ignored by the Metropolitan Police?
LBC, quoting the counsel for the family of Jack Merrit who was killed at Fishmonger’s Hall, said:
Nick Armstrong, for the Merritt family, said: “We do not want an overarching narrative, we want the facts, the detailed facts.
“This is about the level of risk Mr Khan represented and the level of unknowns about the risk.
“And the decisions that were taken, despite those unknowns, to let him go to Fishmongers’ Hall.
“The fact he was in a high-risk category A shortly before release is significant.
“He spent much of his detention in special units and went straight out into the community without proper scrutiny.
“It would not have taken much in the way of information-sharing or concern to have changed the outcome of this.”
I’m shocked to read that this savage was still held as a category A prisoner before release. This category is really meant to be for the most dangerous of prisoners. Surely if he was the ‘reformed character’ that we were led to believe that he was then he would be in a lower prison category maybe B or C? I find it amazing that Khan was released from prison direct from being Category A and without any pre-release time in a lower category prison.
This revelation is by itself bad, but it gets worse, much worse.
LBC added:
Speaking by videolink to the Old Bailey, Mr Armstrong went on: “MI5 had intelligence before release he was planning a post-release attack.
“That is a matter of obviously great significance.”
There was also evidence he had been radicalising other inmates and encouraging violence, the court heard.
The lawyer added that Khan was suspected of “false compliance” and was considering relocating to Pakistan and giving up his nationality.
In response, Jonathan Hough QC, counsel for the coroner, confirmed police and probation service officers would give evidence on the decision-making in Khan’s case.
If there was information not disclosed to decision-makers then Witness A could talk about that, he said.
Mr Hough went on: “Decision-makers can be asked what they would have done if that was brought to their attention.
“MI5 had intelligence shortly before his release he might return to his old ways on the outside, ways of terrorist offending.”
That intelligence was not particular to security services and was in the records of other agencies, who could give evidence, Mr Hough said.
The big question for me about this is this: If MI5, the Prison Service and the Metropolitan Police all had relevant evidence that Khan was pretending to be de-radicalised and was still a potential danger then why was he still released early? The Coroner’s counsel has said that the information that MI5 had about Khan was not kept within MI5 but shared around with relevant agencies. If this statement is correct then we have a security breach of monstrous proportions. This breach tells us that all the relevant agencies knew that Khan was a potential danger, who had not given up on Jihadism, but released him anyway. What’s worse is that they released him to mix with somewhat naive criminal rehabilitation activists two of whom Khan subsequently murdered.
I find it difficult to comprehend just how many cock ups have seemingly been made in this case. MI5 knew he was dangerous but didn’t vehemently object to his release, the Prison administrators had information that he was radicalising other prisoners and the Metropolitan Police appears to have been in receipt of MI5’s concerns about Khan. Despite knowing all that these agencies knew about Khan he was still allowed to return to the community and return to his murderous ways. We have been unforgivably endangered by the decisions that these security agencies and the prison services have made regarding Khan. My worry is that Khan may not have been the only Jihadist prisoner who has been released into the community despite there being ample concerns about whether or not these jihadist prisoners have really reformed or not? We rely on these security agencies to protect us from Bearded Savages like Khan and we should be very concerned that they have not only failed with Khan himself, but may also have failed on other occasions as well.
Good points F211.
On the other hand MI5 etc. have no power to incarcerate somebody, so it’s quite possible that they did, in fact, pass this information onto the probation panel.
But let us not forget that Khan was a “poster boy” for reform, so it is also quite possible that the information from MI5 (a hub of male, pale and stale white people) was dismissed in the usual fashion as “racism” and “Islamophobia” by those who really (thought they) knew Khan.
We all know that leftists – and the probation service has plenty of those (as a good friend of mine who worked for them can attest) – always KNOW they are right and so anyone who disagrees is wrong (and a nasty, evil -ist or -phobe or both as well).
Do our security services slip up and make mistakes? Of course they do. But by and large they also have a good record of catching most terror plots before they happen. And they have to get it right all the time to stop the attacks, the “bearded savages” only have to get it right occasionally to carry one out.
Thank you. I concur with you that MI5 relies on the Met (mostly) to pick up and put forward for charging those Bearded Savages who’ve gone ‘full Islam’. The information from the counsel for the Coroner, who may merely be putting forward MI5’s ‘line’ on this issue, is that the information was in the hands of other agencies which would no doubt include the Met, prison service, parole board etc. MI5 may be at fault for not stressing how dangerous Khan was but it could also be the place that the Met and other agencies didn’t take the information already given seriously enough.
You make a very good point that any proffered information from either Thames House or other agencies might have been ignored by those, especially those on the political Left, with a vested interest in proving that deradicalisation actually works or by those who are too well disposed towards Islam. I’m with you that by and large MI5 does perform well when you consider that there are at least 40k of these violent Islamic nutcases to monitor. With so many Bearded Savages to keep an eye on it would be almost inevitable that some slip through the net, unfortunately it only takes one to slip through the net to cause carnage. It could be the case that what maybe needs to happen is MI5 become more proactive in dishing out the information about dangerous Bearded Savages not just to the police but also to any agency that may possibly come into contact with said Bearded Savage. Whether this would or could happen is difficult to say as it would mean that intel information may have to be shared wider than normal and this may compromise MI5’s activities when it comes to monitoring Islamic extremists and preventing them from going kinetic.
Cat A is officially defined as “those whose escape would pose a serious threat to the public…”. But if they are released…
Cock-ups – for sheer, amazing, mind-boggling stupidity, it’s hard to top the story of the jihadi-wannabe whose passport was confiscated in a bid to prevent his joining his ISIS-member brother abroad: He joined him anyway simply by going down the Post Office and applying for a replacement, because the security services were so pathetically inept they apparently didn’t tell the Passport Office to red-flag his account.
That’s one to file alongside the story of the convicted muslim criminal who got a job working “air-side” at a British airport: While they waited for the necessary security checks to be carried-out on anyone working air-side, they let him fill in the time by – (wait for it…wait for it…) – working air-side !
With people like this in charge of our national security – what could possibly go wrong ???
Why am I completely unsurprised by this. While the cock ups are manifold by our faces of law and ordure, they are unbelievably quick to go after soft targets who won’t call them waaaycist or phobic, giving an illusion of activity without thecrisk 9f any blowback, with many innocents unfairly treated and with no chance of redress.
To say I distrust the Gestaplods would be an understatement and my contempt for councils and the fascist left, knows no bounds.
Having been lied about and targeted by the Gestaplods while real criminals get a free pass, you’ll understand my extreme reticence.
My trust in the Gestaplods is somewhere in the sub basement at the moment or possibly below.
The major problem is that so many of our agencies are infested with hand-wringing, leftist, reffooojeeeezz welcome, naive morons who still, despite the evidence, think that if you’re nice to these malignant bearded demons that they’ll reform. They won’t, it’s called hijrah, jihad by immigration and procreation and above all following the Koranic dictat to pretend to be friends with the infidel, until there are sufficient numbers to overwhelm them “using the infidels laws against themselves” There is no safe level of Islam in 8s current form and that cannot be changed.
There are some small groups with in Islam that have taken the sows ear of Mohammedanism and made something better out of it and I speak here specifically of some sub groups of the Ismailis who don’t treat women like cattle, but mainstream Islam and its promoters are a different story. I completely agree that a large degree of the Islam problems that the West has had are down to those Leftists who take the view that Islam as a whole is a ‘religion of peace’ who have embedded themselves in our public life. From what I’ve read however, the people at Thames House are less afflicted than others with this problem but it is a problem that profoundly affects Britain’s police forces.
One body has been omitted: Government
They set the rules, guidelines and standards MI5, MET, Probation etc must follow
I doubt MET want to deploy 3 shifts of 4-6 officers to follow a released terrorist 24/7 and not detain until he tries to kill again
Ultimately Government is to blame and as we’ve seen with illegal immigrants, they don’t care about cost and risk to public
Yes you are correct. The ultimate blame does lie with government, not just this government, but successive ones.