7/7 CCTV has been released

After a three year Freedom of Information battle, the Press Association has got hold of the CCTV referred to in the 2006 Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005, which slim 38-page publication, authored by an anonymous civil servant, along with the 45 page utterly discredited ISC report released on the same day three years ago is all the government has so far produced to explain what happened and how it occurred.

The Information Commissioner wrote in his judgement

57. The 7 July 2005 attacks have been the subject of conspiracy theories and the official account of the attacks has also been questioned in other ways. Such questioning of what have been presented as the facts of the events of 7 July 2005 established through the investigation carried out by the public authority, is not in the public interest. Further this is more likely to occur in a situation where there is a perceived lack of transparency about how the official account was formed. That disclosure would presumably support the official account of the time line and basic facts of the attacks and reduce any perceived lack of transparency about how this account was formed, along with removing any suspicion of ‘spin’ or ‘cover up’, is a valid public interest factor in favour of disclosure.

You can read the full judgement here. The police finally got around to releasing it at going-home-time on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend, but at least it's out; whether it will stop the wild conspiracy theories I don't know, I think the horse has well and truly bolted on that one, with all the attendant damage done.

I keep thinking that I should get round to doing a post going through all the conspiracy theories
(such as 'there is no CCTV of the bombers in London - doh!) and explaining they are wrong, but it will only attract all the nutters to my blog, and what's the point?

Some of the footage and stills can be seen here, on the Mail website. The footage shows

0454 Shehzad Tanweer at Woodall Services on the M1, buying snacks, arguing over his change and looking straight at the camera;

0507 Jermaine Lindsay arriving at Luton railway station, waiting for 90 minutes and examining departure board;

0649 All four bombers putting on 'large and full' rucksacks outside Luton station;

0826 All four bombers at King's Cross, hugging on the concourse close to the Thameslink platform, heading towards the Underground;

0855 Hussain walking out of King's Cross on to Euston Road, demeanour appearing 'relaxed' and trying to make a call on mobile phone;

0900 Hussain back in King's Cross, walking through Boots into WH Smith on station concourse, and buying a 9-volt battery;

0906 Hussain going into McDonald's on Euston Road, leaving 10 minutes later.

You can see the links at http://www.met.police.uk/pressbureau/theseus-foi/

I don't know how long they will be up there. I wonder if any of the wack-jobs who have ranted on for three years about how 'there is no CCTV and 7/7 was an inside job' will apologise and admit they were wrong? I'm not holding my breath.

Sean O'Neill, Crime and Security Editor for the Times has a piece out today about the families wait for inquests and the continuing delay in publication of the ISC report which we are waiting for, and have paused our judicial review proceedings into the legality of the government's refusal to have an independent inquiry into the mass-murder of 52 people. It's also covered in the Guardian

He has also put up some thoughts on his excellent new crime blog. 'Time for the Whitehall foot-dragging to stop' Further stories will no doubt follow in due course.

It's been a hellishly busy week, juggling all the media stuff and my day job, and I have been helped magnificently by Oury Clark Solicitors, who have not only been acting for the 7/7 Inquiry campaign group pro bono, but have been also sending out press releases and spending hours on the phone helping, and thanks also to the wonderful Graham, Rob, Janine, Jacqui, and all the other members of the 7/7 Inquiry Campaign Group who have been talking to the media as well and putting across the message and lending support. To everyone who has emailed me and not had a reply yet, big apologies - I'll be catching up over the weekend.

Here is a selection of news coverage of the week's events where we got our message across
The Standard
The BBC ( whole section of website)
The Guardian ( front page). Whole section here
The Times (front page)
The Times - 7/7 could have been prevented
The Herald - Inquiry Needed. More here
The Scotsman
The Standard
The Mail
The Express
The Financial Times
The Independent and comment piece by Rob
The Telegraph
There's lots more if you go and look on Google news

Thank God I've got three days off - I've worked through the last 15 days straight on all the campaigning stuff. This weekend I WILL get out and look for wild bluebells and I WILL have an early night.

No justice, no truth...yet

The jury at Kingston Crown Court has today returned a verdict of not guilty in the retrial of three men accused of conspiring with the London bombers to cause explosions. Two of the men were found guilty of attempting to go to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

I respect the jury's decision, and having watched much of this trial the first time around, it was clear that this was always a circumstantial case and a hard one to build. The police have done an enormous amount of work in investigating this matter, for which they are to be congratulated and it was only during this trial that some of their work could be shown in public for the first time. I am sure many police have felt just as frustrated as I have, knowing that much of their discoveries could not be shown until this trial was over.

Chilling personal videos made by Mohammed Siddique Khan as he said goodbye to his baby daughter, in front of Tanweer and Hussein, his fellow bombers, before he set off to Pakistan. Film footage of the bombers driving in their car, then the men caught on CCTV at Luton station, teenage suicide bomber Hasib Hussein at King's Cross, entering shops, and then walking through the streets of London, on his way to catch a bus, then another bus, which he bombed, less than an hour after his three friends had set off their bombs on three tube trains. Details of the mixes used for the explosions. There is so much we now know about that day, yet so many questions remain.

52 families still wait for inquests, four years on. All of us wait for M15's watchdog, the Intelligence and Security Committee to publish their second report into 7/7 - their first one, published in May 2006 had the bombers as 'not named or listed' as terrorists likely to attack the UK, and only 'on the periphery' of another investigation, petty fraudsters, not threats to the UK. It seems that the security service thought of Mohammed Siddique and his friends as men planning to kill themselves (and presumably British troops in Afghanistan) - but not on their patch, not in the UK. If that was what they thought then, how wrong they were.

And yet from this trial, and the Operation Crevice fertiliser bomb trial in May 2007, we now know that the 7/7 bombers were very far indeed from being the 'clean skins' who 'came out of the blue' which is how they were described by the then-Home Secretary Charles Clarke (who was presumably briefed thus by the security service and police he presided over at the time).

We now know that the lead bomber, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was followed home by M15 in a car registered to his wife, to his home, where he lived, at least twice. He was filmed and photographed on several other occasions, taped talking about jihad, his plans for 'ripping the country apart economically as well', before going on a 'one-way' mission. He was bugged having meetings with terrorists weeks away from planning to detonate a huge fertiliser bomb. He was known to have committed a GBP 20,ooo fraud against Jewsons, a British company. He was no unknown: he should have been flagging code red, with his history of attending terrorist training camps, his terrorist friends, his plans for economic criminality and one-way tickets to jihadi missions. Especially as by then, it was known that UK men were training abroad and then going on suicide missions, and that some UK men, trained abroad, were returning to their homeland and planning to bomb the UK. They knew all that, the security service. The police had even undergone Operation Kratos training to kill suicide bombers on the UK's streets. So yes, whether MSK could have been arrested prior to 7/7 is painful to contemplate.

They knew who he was, I am sure of it - if I had your car registration number and followed you to your home, I could find out your name, and I am not a security service officer - they knew what he was, who his friends were - yet he was seen as a 'desirable' but not essential target and he was not arrested, though time and time again there were chances to do just that. How is it possible for M15 to say to the ISC in 2005 that he was 'not named or listed' as a threat? How it is possible for the Intelligence and Security Committee not to have known that there were tapes and footage of this man, with these Operation Crevice terrorists, known to be planning these attacks at that stage, when he had been photographed and filmed and bugged - I am looking at the film of him now, walking about in London with his terrorist friends who were later jailed for 40 years? How is it right that nine months after the second ISC report examining what should have been picked up the first time, it is still sitting in Number 10, with no word as to the date it will be released? How is it fair that four years on, the families and survivors are still waiting for answers to these terrible questions: could the bombers have been stopped? Did communication and intelligence fail? And have the lessons been learned that will stop the wrong men being arrested and the right men slipping through the cracks? The recent arrests and release of Pakistani students in Manchester and Liverpool raise worrying questions in this regard - four years after the bombings.

No, there will never be justice in the matter of the London bombings of 2005, because the four men who bombed London chose to never face a judge or jury, but to deliberately kill themselves by their own hand, on a day of their own choosing: I saw film of them going to their deaths; they looked determined, even happy as they walked, shouldering their heavy rucksacks of home-made explosive mixtures. It was devastating.

So there will never be justice, but there can be the other thing so badly wanted and needed by the victims; the truth to be told, and the best way for that to happen - for the complex picture of what was known, by whom and when, what decisions were made, such as deciding not to prioritise the men who became the 7/7 bombers as investigative targets and so on - is to have an independent inquiry.

An inquiry independent of the government and the security services and the police, with the power to compel and cross examine witnesses, go through evidence in detail, and write a report and recommendations which will be acted upon and so, we hope, save lives and spare suffering in future. This is what we have asked for, for over three years now. We have been prevented from having one because of the legal processes - the trials that have followed 7/7, as a result of which some men have been jailed for planning terror offences and others have been acquitted. Now those trials are completed, we are still waiting.

The families still wait for inquests - unsure still when they will happen and whether they will be held in secret or not - under the terms of the Coroners and Justice Bill legislation.

The survivors and families wait - along with the British public - for the ISC report, to see if this time it answers our questions about what was known about the bombers before they struck. And all of us wait, not for justice, nor for 'closure' - this is not therapy, this is thankless hard and sad work, especially today, when it is my wedding anniversary and I have cancelled the celebrations to go and talk about this yet again on the news and Newsnight - but I wait, we wait for the truth to finally be told, in the hope that, one day soon, it will.

And in being told, we hope the truth will help to prevent another summer morning of screaming and smoke and sirens, and the terrible loss of innocent travellers who never come home.

The '7/7 conspiracy to cause explosions' retrial starts 13th January 2009

Just in case anyone was wondering.

MSK on video

The BBC has a link to what was shown in court again today, the farewell video of Mohammed Siddique Khan ( MSK) to his daughter. I saw some of it when I was in court for the prosecution's opening speech.

Yesterday the court was shown police surveillance footage ( see BBC link) of MSK, Tanweer ( two of the 7/7 suicide bombers), walking in East London with a man the jury was told was a ''committed terrorist'' ( Ausman is what he is referred to in court) and Waheed Ali, one of the defendants, plus others walking about in East London. It was in colour, perfectly clear and shot in March 2004.

There is a lot I want to say about this but I can't, until the trial is over.

7/7 conspiracy trial stops for technical reasons (again)

The 'Conspiracy to cause explosions' trial of three men alleged to have conspired with the 7/7 bombers report: technical problems with a key witness in a different country meant nothing happened today because whilst we could see and hear the witness, he could only hear, not see us.
Back on tomorrow from 1.00pm with the witness in a new location where the video link will (hopefully) work properly.

UPDATE: So we all left the annexe where the trial was being shown at 3pm, and now it appears they did get the camera working after all and the witness, Mohammed Juanaid Barbar, did appear for a while. Drat. BBC report

Off to Kingston for day 2 of the trial

...the prosecution's opening speech continues so I will report back when I return, which won't be 'til late afternoon/early evening.

UPDATE: The morning consisted of Neil Flewitt ( Prosecution) going through mobile phone data relating to the three defendant's trip to London on 16-17 December in the company of Hasib Hussein, who went on to bomb the number 30 bus and kill 13 people, plus himself on 7/7/05. The prosecution explained that 'due to the passage of time we don't have complete records' ( or CCTV) to present, and that 'mobile phone network cell site analysis can't pin point the exact location where calls where made'. However it is a 'useful tool' and an expert witness and a police analyst had provided data (maps and tables) to show the jury.

Later on we were told of evidence concerning the DNA of the defendants which was found at the bomb factory, the nature of the bombs used on 7/7. We watched CCTV of three of the 7/7 bombers doing a four-hour reconnaissance trip on 28 Jne 2005, less than a week before the bombings.

The Times , Telegraph, BBC and Express have covered this part of the trial and saved me the work. I will note without comment what the defence said after the prosecution opening speech ended ended. (I only comment on things which are not disputed and I only report on what was said in court. And if you want to comment, please be aware of the usual contempt of court laws - otherwise I will have to start moderating comments.)

Mr Wolfkind said about Waheed Ali that he was '24, Muslim, not guilty', that he 'didn't set off the 7/7 bombs, enter the bomb factory, touch, carry, handle or see a device'. He made 'an innocent visit' went on a 'small adventure' to London to see tourist attractions and his sister. 7th July was the 'awful background' to the trial and he acknowledged the 'deaths and devastated lives', but said to the jury that they were not called to make judgment on that day and the 'terrible films'
[ i.e: the CCTV of the explosions and the bombers final journey to London] we had seen were 'not relevant to this case'. He said the prosecution had 'gathered up political opinions, books, activities far away from London'. That this was not a 'popularity contest' and whilst the jury might feel 'hostile' to some of the CPS discoveries, the prosecution are selling... make-believe'. 'Mindset is a substitute for absent evidence' and 'only plotting to cause explosions equals guilt. The jury were urged to 'ignore the noise of easy prejudice and listen for the evidence....Listen carefully - you won't hear a sound'

Mt Hall (representing Sadir Saleem) said that the case was 'not about guilt by association.' 'Association is one thing, association with the plan to bomb London is different'. Because the 7/7 bombings were suicide attacks they 'led to no prosecutions' and there was 'pressure on the authorities to bring someone to trial.' After the 7/7 bombings, Tony Blair had said that 'the rules of the game had changed'.
'Anyone close to the bombers was a potential suspect.' This had had a 'significant impact on Muslims - and Beeston' There had been lots of arrests, raids, searches, theorising about who knew of the plot'. It was 'common ground' that the defendants were known to the 4 bombers. They came from a 'tightly knit community' - the 'same schools, mosques... families knew each other'. The defendants 'participated in political views, especially regarding Iraq' which 'some of you may disagree with or find offensive' The defendants were 'not on trial for being the bombers friends or associates' and their 'views on Iraq' were 'miles away from evidence regarding the London bombs'.

He said that a visit eight months before the bombings couldn't be reconnaissance'. He said (of the London bombers) that 'four men bent on carnage, determined to kill, to make bombs - had they any need of these men ( the defendants) to tell them tube trains are crowded?' [and that many people could be killed at rush hour] And of Sadir Saleem - he queried whether he was 'the calibre of man anyone would choose for a bombing campaign'

Mr Bennathan talked about evidence [re.7/7 ie the CCTV] being like a magicians 'sleight of hand' - a distraction, then said the prosecution were not trying to trick the jury - the 'evidence[of 7/7's atrocities] can distract all of us. He queried whether his client Shakeel was still close to Mohammed Sidique Khan in December 2004 ( Khan and Tanweer were by then in Pakistan, having flown out on November 18th 2004). He said that his client had attended a camp in Pakistan which was 'the opposite' of the 'big training camps' that people may have heard about on the news - that he spent 'two days in tents' in the 'beautiful countryside', attended Islamic lectures and 'at the end they got to go into a field and fire guns'. Regarding books and literature that the CPS say his client may have 'touched', he commented that 'young Muslims in West Yorkshire' were 'reading about the war on terror' and wanted to read about 'both sides'. 'Does his reading change an innocent rip into a guilty one?' Bennathan queried, adding concerns about whether Hasib Hussein was recruited in February 2005 to be a suicide bomber[MSK and Tanweer returned from Pakistan in February 2005] and raised the point that he had rung the college he was attending to make excuses for no-attendance on the day of the alleged reconnaissance trip to London in December 2004

Like I said - no comment.

update 2: some extra added. I have to work today and tomorrow so will not be back watching the trial until Thursday.

'I have to do this thing for our future'

"Sweetheart, not long to go now. And I'm going to really, really miss you a lot.

"I'm thinking about it already. Look, I absolutely love you to bits and you have been the happiest thing in my life. You and your mum, absolutely brilliant.

"I don't know what else to say. I just wish I could have been part of your life, especially these growing up – these next months, they're really special with you learning to walk and things.

"I just so much wanted to be with you but I have to do this thing for our future and it will be for the best, inshallah, in the long run.

"That's the most important thing.

"You make plenty of Dua for you guys and you've got loads of people to look after you and keep an eye on you.

"But most importantly I entrust you to Allah and let Allah take care of you.

"And I'm doing what I'm doing for the sake of Islam, not, you know, it's not for materialist or worldly benefits."

The video shows a doting young father, kissing the head of his brown-eyed two-year-old baby girl, nestling in his arms in a pink dress. She is reaching for the camera with her chubby hands and kicking her legs with happiness. Her smiling 'uncles' laugh as the father records his farewell on a home-made video. One 'uncle picks her up, doffs his cap and places it on the baby's head, another flexes his biceps and grins for the camera.

'What's your words of wisdom?', the father asks the men.

' A few words of wisdom - kill everyone there is', another man replies. Smiling broadly.

I could barely make it out, but there it was. The video of a man going to Pakistan ,who at that point, in November 2004, did not expect to come back. The tapes were handed over by his wife to a friend, who passed it to the police after four bombs killed 52 innocent passengers and injured hundreds more.

The loving father was Mohammed Siddique Khan, the 'uncles', his fellow-suicide-bombers Hasib Hussein and Shehzad Tanweer. The other uncle, his alleged close friend and conspirator Wahid Ali.

I watched the video in an annexe to Kingston Crown Court with some of the bereaved families and it made me want to weep, because there was such love, and such hate, which became such murderous poison, as he cradled a sweet pink rose of a child, amongst his laughing friends.

It was one of the last videos shown after a day of the CPS's careful presentation in their opening speeches. We saw CCTV footage - never seen in public before - of the 7/7 bombers sky blue Nissan Micra, hired from a Leeds car rental firm, leaving for London in the early hours of 7 July 2005, departing from 18 Alexander Grove, (the bomb factory address.)

Stopping at Woodall Services on the westbound M1 at 4.53am, Shehzad Tanweer in white trousers and white branded sports top with a black coat stopping to put petrol in at 4.51am, then entering the petrol station shop at 4.54am, returning with a carrier bag of goods, ( sandwiches and snacks) - and the car driving away at 5.14am.

Then, fellow-bomber Germaine Lindsey, who bombed my train and killed 26 fellow-passengers, waiting at Luton station. Walking from the car park where he parked his burgundy Fiat Bravo near to the entrance of Luton station at 6.41am. Moving about, sometimes off-camera in the ticket hall for three minutes. Walking to the exit again, his mobile in his left hand, at 6.44am. Getting back in his car and repositioning the Fiat nearer the ticket hall.

At 6.51am the Micra arriving containing his three companions, his fellow shahid - and parking next to the Fiat in the wet, puddly car park. At 6.53 there is movement between the two vehicles and the boot is opened and closed several times. At 7.14am Lindsey goes back into the ticket hall, a minute later, he returns to the group and at 7.16am the men put on their rucksacks and leave the car park for the station. At 7.25 the men are on the concourse, getting onto a Thameslink train bound for London. At 8.25am the men arrive at Kings Cross station, move to the London Underground network and separate at 8.26am.

They apparently believe that the next time they see each other will be less than an hour later in the gardens of Paradise.

Next we saw footage of the exploded train at Edgware Rd. We saw footage of the Aldgate train explosion, seen from the Liverpool St platform it departed from. Passengers crouching in shock, smoke pluming and billowing, two police officers going to the platform. Then the same platform again from a different angle. Then stills of the exploded carriage are shown. Torn apart, as lives of the living and dead were torn apart.

Next, we are shown stills of the Piccadilly line train, the one I was on. I have seen the pictures of the inside of my carriage, but these were from the outside, and they were worse, because I could see how close I was to the bomb, and the debris on the tracks. Not bodies, just clothes. They had carried the broken bodies away. But I saw what I thought were clothes on the day; they were not piles of clothes, they were people. I remembered.

Then we saw the CCTV of teenager Hasib Hussein, who did not detonate his bomb at 8.50/8.51am as his 'brothers' had done.

We heard how witnesses saw Hussein waiting on a bench on the Northern line platform at 8.45am, exiting the Northern/Victoria line escalator,

We then saw CCTV of him exiting Kings Cross Underground station at 8.54am, then heading through Boots at 8.59am. Moving across the main railway station concourse at 9am, bending over outside next door shop WH Smiths where I have stopped so many times, and fiddling with his rucksack. Making a purchase, something that looks like a battery at 9.04am. (The woman serving him reaches down to the side of where the cigarettes are sold and hands him a small item; from memory, that is exactly where the batteries are. I cannot see what else it could be)

At 9.05, Hussein leaves the King's Cross concourse, heading out of the railway station, and by 9.07am he is out of the station, crossing York Way and heading into McDonalds at 9.15am , as rain falls. Two minutes later he is out of McDonalds and heading up Gray's Inn Rd, towards Euston Rd, making calls on his mobile. By 9.20am he is in Euston Rd, having slipped on a pair of sunglasses.

He took the 91 bus to Euston Square, where the driver told the passengers to get off. Hussein boards the number 30 bus, heading for Tavistock Square.

Then we saw CCTV footage of the exploding bus shot from inside the reception of the British Medical Association. The man at the desk, a woman in reception, ducking for cover, as the explosion happens, then the receptionist man going to the door, where the red bus, torn apart is smoking outside. Thirteen more people are dead. Next we saw the footage from the bus in front of the No.30, the passengers jerking in shock as the bus explodes behind them.

For two years, conspiracy theorists have been saying there is no CCTV of the 77/ bombers save one grainy shot, (which they say is faked). There is, I have seen it played in a public court. They could have seen it too, if they had bothered to come. It is real, it was always real. Why do they peddle their lies about it?

The defence are not contesting it; they are not contesting these facts - that Khan, Tanweer, Lindsey and Hussein set off with home made bombs and met up at Luton and took the bombs in rucksacks to London where they split up and detonated them as you have heard and people have seen. And felt, and died as a result of them.

I hope that this will be an end to this filthy lie. That the 7/7 bombers did not do it. I am weary of these lies after over two years of hearing them and seeing them spread on the internet.

And we saw many other things presented by the prosecution, which the court was told helped to show the 'mindset' of the men who claim that their friendship with the 7/7 bombers was innocent, their reconnaissance trip to London a tourist trip, one of their number's association with a known terrorist merely a coincidence, their trips to Pakistan ...more on that next week.

The trial continues on Monday. I will be there.

There is more I could write, but I am so tired, and this is long enough for now.

The '7/7 conspiracy to cause explosions' trial starts

Spent the afternoon in an annexe with other people directly affected by the events of 7/7 waiting for the prosecution's opening speech. Unfortunately, the video-link technology connecting us to the Kingston court kept failing, so nothing happened and we're all going back tomorrow.

I did however have a very interesting coversation with a senior police officer who has been involved with the case right from the beginning. I will be able to say more about what he said when the CPS case is heard. I will make one comment only: it's bad news for the conspiracy theorists.