MI5 bungle meant 7/7 ringleader was missed

MI5 missed an opportunity to identify the July 7, 2005, London bombing ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan as a terrorist by failing to show a key informant a clear photograph of him, the inquest into the 7/7 attacks heard yesterday.

Undercover surveillance officers took a sharp colour picture of Khan and his deputy Shehzad Tanweer at a motorway service station in February 2004.

But MI5 did not use this photograph of Khan and provided only a very badly cropped image of Tanweer to US investigators interrogating al-Qaida supergrass Mohammed Junaid Babar.