Westminster Attack: Security Services Face Big Investigation into How Attacker Slipped Through Net
Local Editor
The powerful watchdog that scrutinizes the British intelligence services is set to probe whether officials properly handled the case of Westminster attacker Khalid Masood.
Sources close to Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee told The Independent there would likely be a "big investigation" into whether the 52-year-old killer should have been better monitored after it emerged he was known to agents.
They added that there would be a particular focus on whether lessons have been learnt from errors found in the way security services operated in the run up to the brutal murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013.
Concerns were also raised as to whether parliamentary security is adequately staffed, following a sizeable drop in the number of firearm-trained officers employed by the Metropolitan Police.
It was reported that the officer who shot Masood, ending his rampage, was actually Defense Secretary Michael Fallon's personal bodyguard, who was only on the scene coincidentally.
Theresa May told MPs in the Commons on Thursday that while Masood was known to security services, his case was historic and that officers did not believe him to be "part of the current intelligence picture".
Later in the day Home Secretary Amber Rudd said it would be wrong to say there had been an intelligence failure.
However, an official close to the ISC said: "[Masood] had at one point been looked at by the intelligence and security services, but obviously it had gone dormant. That sometimes happens with these cases.
"There is going to be a big investigation on this. It is always a worry for the intelligence and security services, when it comes to dropping cases, but they can't follow them all up," he added.
"At the end of the day they have to take a decision on each one, and they will now want a proper investigation of who knew what and when."
Source: The Independent, Edited by website team
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