An inquiry into the 2017 Manchester Arena attack, in which 22 people were killed, found that Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, did not act promptly enough on crucial information, missing a significant opportunity to prevent the suicide bombing.
According to retired judge John Saunders, who led the inquiry, a MI5 officer had considered the intelligence regarding the suicide bomber to be a possible national security concern but did not communicate it quickly enough with colleagues.
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum publicly apologized for the agency’s failure to prevent the attack.
The inquiry revealed that if MI5 had acted on the intelligence it received, it could have led to action, including possibly stopping the attacker at Manchester Airport four days before the attack.
Abedi’s brother, Hashem Abedi, was convicted of helping to plan and carry out the attack in 2020. The inquiry also found that MI5 had closed Abedi’s case in 2014, shortly after he was deemed low-risk, and authorities failed to refer him to the government’s counterterrorism program, known as Prevent.
