7/7 inquiry will look into MI5 failings
By politics.co.uk staff
MI5’s failure to prevent the 7/7 London bombings will be investigated in an inquest, it has been confirmed.
Lady Justice Hallett told the Royal Courts of Justice said the information available to security services in 2005 was not too remote for an inquiry to take place.
She also ruled that the inquest into the four bombers would be conducted at a different time to that of the victims.
Victims’ groups welcomed that move, and the investigation of MI5, but many were angry at the decision only grant ‘interested person’ status to families of victims and the emergency services, but not actual survivors.
Lady Hallett will sit without a jury so sensitive intelligence can be examined effectively.
“Alleged intelligence failings and the immediate aftermath of the bombings” will be examined in the inquest.
“To my mind it is not too remote to investigate what was known in the year or two before the alleged bombings,” Lady Hallett said.
She stressed she would endeavour to make sure that survivors would play an important role in the process, despite not being granted ‘interested person’ status.
“I will do all I can to make sure their interests are properly taken into account,” she said.
The decision to include information on MI5 comes follows an investigation into alleged British collusion in torture, which was announced by William Hague last night.
