MI5 is expected to be in the firing line when Sir John Saunders publishes his third and final report on the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017
The final volume of the report, which will be published on Thursday, will focus on how Abedi planned and prepared the attack and whether anything could have been done to prevent it.
It is expected that the report will say that the security services missed several red flag chance to apprehend Abedi before he detonated his bomb in the foyer of the arena killing twenty two people and injuring many more
It is believed that there were two separate occasions in the months before the attack that intelligence was received by MI5 about Abedi that was assessed at the time to be innocent activity or non-terrorist criminality but which – in retrospect – can be seen as “highly relevant” to the planned attack.
A document was also found which indicated that, several years before 2017, the bomber was considered for referral to the de-radicalisation scheme Prevent, but it was decided not to take any action.
While Abedi was also not stopped for questioning when he returned from Libya four days before the arena attack
It is also claimed that MI5 and the counterterrorism police’s judgment of Abedi was clouded because they dismissed him as having involvement in drugs, not terrorism.
The Security Service was according to reports, also aware that Abedi was in regular contact with the convicted terrorist, Abdalraouf Abdallah, who was serving a prison sentence for helping people travel to Syria to join Isil.
