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MI5 seeks to give Manchester Arena evidence anonymously

Intelligence agency MI5 has asked to give evidence to the public inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing anonymously and from behind a curtain.

Lawyers representing the families of the victims have complained that the agency had an ‘obsessive focus on secrecy’ and called on the inquiry chair to insist that its evidence be heard openly.

The testimony of MI5 is expected to be critical to the inquiry, especially given recent revelations that the suicide bomber Salman Abedi was briefly an MI5 subject of interest in 2014 – and was associated with six others in the two years following.

Currently, MI5 has offered to put up a single witness, a senior officer known only as Witness J, seeking for him to remain anonymous and give evidence from behind a screen visible only to the judge.

Such a method has been used at previous inquiries following a terror attack, such as the London Bridge inquests, where the Security Service put up a senior officer to give evidence on behalf of the whole agency anonymously and from behind a curtain or screen, in part reflecting the fact that MI5 officers largely operate in secret.

Pete Weatherby QC, representing some of the bereaved families, said: “Allowing him to remain a mystery in the shadows in these hearings does shake the confidence of the families and no doubt the wider community, including many other survivors.”

It has also been reported that MI5 wants to be given six weeks’ advance notice of questions for Witness J from the principal counsel to the inquiry and four weeks’ notice of questions from victims’ families – far longer than the usual 14 days and seven days respectively.

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