British officials knew for two years that London jihad murderer had ties to al-Qaeda

from Atlas

British officials knew for two years that London jihad murderer had ties to al-Qaeda

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/05/british-officials-knew-for-two-years-that-london-jihad-murderer-had-ties-to-al-qaeda.html

These Muslim terrorists were known to intel agencies, as were the Boston jihad bombers, but the same delusion, the same ignorance and the same absence of intel on the jihadic doctrine led to horrific bloodshed. The human cost of fantasist policy.

British officials knew for two years that London jihad murderer had ties to al-Qaeda

(thanks to Robert Spencer)

But don't be concerned: his rights weren't infringed upon. He was still able to roam London streets with a meat cleaver, looking for a kaffir to hack to death.
"British Officials Knew Suspect in Soldier’s Death Had Ties to Al Qaeda," by John F. Burns in the New York Times, May 26 (thanks to Kenneth):

LONDON — Britain’s security agencies appeared headed for a period of deeply uncomfortable scrutiny after the government said Sunday that it had been aware for more than two years that one of the two men suspected of hacking an off-duty British soldier to death on a London street had ties to Al Qaeda. 

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that the ministry had provided “consular assistance” in Kenya in 2010 to the man, Michael Adebolajo, 28, a British citizen of Nigerian descent. He had been arrested by the Kenyan police on suspicion of planning to join Al Shabab, an extremist group in Somalia that Britain has classified as a terrorist organization.
Mr. Adebolajo and the other suspect in the London attack — Michael Adebowale, 22, also of Nigerian origin — have been under armed police guard in separate London hospitals since the attack last Wednesday. The soldier — Lee Rigby, 25 — was run down by a car on the sidewalk outside an army barracks, then attacked with meat cleavers. Police officers arriving on the scene shot and wounded the two suspects.

The grisly brutality of the attack shocked Britain as few events have since the bombings on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 passengers and the four bombers. Sunday newspaper headlines about the case focused on what the government knew about Mr. Adebolajo and Mr. Adebowale and why no action was taken that might have prevented Mr. Rigby’s death.

In a statement on Sunday, the Foreign Office spokesman sought to tamp down the controversy, saying that the office’s role in the events in Kenya in November 2010 was limited to consular assistance to Mr. Adebolajo, “as normal for British nationals.” It did not address the Kenyan government’s statements that Mr. Adebolajo, using a false name, had been arrested near the Somali border with five Kenyan nationals while carrying Shabab literature.

The statement also did not address a claim made on BBC television on Friday night that Mr. Adebolajo spoke of rebuffing an attempt by MI5, the British domestic security agency, to recruit him. The claim was made by Ibrahim Hassan, a man who says he has links to Islamic extremist groups. Mr. Hassan said Mr. Adebolajo had told him that the recruitment attempt was made after he was deported from Kenya. British security officials quoted in the Sunday newspapers said that efforts to recruit Islamic extremists in such circumstances were common.

Mr. Hassan himself was arrested in the BBC studio immediately after the interview by Scotland Yard counterterrorism detectives, who said that the arrest was not connected to the killing of Mr. Rigby.

Mr. Hassan’s claims and his arrest added to a growing sense that inquiries into Mr. Rigby’s death are likely to delve into the murky world of the security agencies and their dealings with Islamic extremists.

A Parliamentary panel, the Intelligence and Security Committee, has said it expects to receive a preliminary report from the government on the attack this week.

Among the issues that the panel’s leading members have said they want to explore is whether MI5’s desire to penetrate groups with suspected terrorist ties had led to decisions not to prosecute people like Mr. Adebolajo under laws that bar Britons from engaging with terrorist organizations overseas. Security officials have said that MI5 viewed Mr. Adebolajo as posing a “low risk” of potential terrorism and did not think he needed close monitoring.
Security officials have also confirmed that Mr. Adebolajo, and to a more limited extent Mr. Adebowale, had been known to British security officials for several years because they took part in protests in Britain that were organized by extremist groups, some of which involved violent clashes with the police.

Newspapers in Britain have carried accounts saying that Mr. Adebolajo had been heard in mosques and community centers in south London calling for jihadist attacks in Britain....

Yet the mosques didn't report him to authorities.