Ajit Karn
London: An official inquiry released Thursday found that the Manchester attack who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 could have been stopped if Britain’s MI5 security service had acted on important information.
In his report, the head of the inquiry, John Saunders, said that delays with one of two pieces of information meant that “an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action was lost.”
As people were leaving the show at the Manchester Arena in northern England, 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester but had Libyan roots, carried out the attack.
Inspired by the Islamic State group, he went after crowds of mostly young people at the US pop star’s concert.
The eight-year-old casualty was the smallest. Some of the other people were parents who had come to get their kids.
Saunders, who was a high court judge before he retired, gave his third and last report about what happened.
“Based on what the Security Service (MI5) knew or should have known, I am sure that such an investigation would have been a fair and reasonable step to take.
“This should have happened,” he said, referring to the fact that a report on one of the pieces of intelligence had not been written up right away.
“I agree that Salman Abedi showed some concern for security, and that this may have hurt the effectiveness of the investigation I’ve suggested, but there was a real chance that it would have led to actionable intelligence.”
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Richard Scorer, a lawyer who stood up for 11 of the families at the inquiry, said that Saunders had shown how painfully many chances were lost.
“Because of these mistakes, at the very least, there was no real chance of stopping this attack. “This is a terrible way to end things for us,” he said.
“The mistakes that this report shows are not acceptable.”
