‘Different actions could have stopped plot’ says MI5

An unnamed senior MI5 officer has accepted that stopping and questioning the Manchester Arena terrorist when he returned to the UK from Libya could have led police to the bomb.

The inquiry into Salam Abedi’s actions in may 2017 has heard evidence evidence from an intelligence officer given the pseudonym Witness J. Visible only to lawyers and inquiry chair Sir John Saunders, Witness J said it was conceivable that different actions would have prevented Abedi carrying out the plot.

Abedi had left the UK with his family on a one way ticket to Libya on 15 April 2017. He returned five weeks later carrying only hand luggage, four days before carrying out the suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert.

The inquiry has been told that Abedi bought a new phone and sim card and took ‘anti-surveillance’ measures to stay ‘off grid’ by getting a bus and taxi to where he had left the bomb components. Pete Weatherby QC, representing some of the bereaved families, said ‘port action’, where someone is questioned and searched, could have revealed Abedi’s plans by something he said or something being uncovered on his phone.

On 25 October, Witness J had agreed that not stopping Abedi, taking a port action, had been a missed opportunity.