LONDON - The police and the security services will face inquiries into their previous handling of two men accused of hacking a British soldier to death on a busy London street, a government minister said Friday.
British security officials confirmed Thursday that the suspects were known to MI5, the domestic spy agency, in the years before the attack.
The Intelligence and Security Committee will review the work of MI5 in the wake of the attack “as is the normal practice in these sorts of cases,” Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday.
In Britain, security officials operate under the “principle of proportionality,” which means there needs to a compelling reason before they initiate any type of surveillance.
Surveillance can range from watching a person’s movements to intercepting phone calls and electronic communication. The greater the level of intrusion into a person’s privacy, the higher the level of required government approval.
The killing will prompt discussion about measures to forestall similar threats, Communities Minister Eric Pickles said Friday.
“I think it’s probably too soon to assess the powers we need,” Pickles said in a radio interview. “But once the investigation is through, both aspects of the security services and aspects of the policing of these two individuals will be thoroughly investigated, and no doubt recommendations will come out of that.”
Pickles was responding to a question about whether legislation to permit more intrusive electronic surveillance, known by its critics as the snoopers charter, might have prevented the attacks.
“I know of nothing that would suggest that provisions that were in that bill would have made any difference in this case or would have saved the life of the young member of the armed forces,” Pickles said.
The episode prompted fears of sectarian tensions that religious leaders sought Friday to avert with public appeals and condemnation of the killing. Standing with Christian and Muslim leaders, Most Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England, declared: “This is very much a time for communities to come together.”
The killing of the soldier is a “betrayal of Islam” and “a truly barbarous act” with no basis in the Muslim faith, said Ibrahim Mogra, the assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain.
The victim was identified as Lee Rigby, a 25-yearold army bandsman and machine-gunner who had served in Afghanistan and was the father of a 2-yearold son. He had left his barracks in plainclothes to visit his mother, authorities said.
In their first public remarks, members of Rigby’s family gave a wrenching and tearful news conference in the northern city of Manchester, his hometown.
“We would like to say goodnight, Lee, rest in peace, our fallen soldier, we love you loads and words cannot describe how loved and sadly missed you will be,” his stepfather, Ian Rigby, said as the soldier’s 30-year-old widow, Rebecca Rigby, and mother, Lyn Rigby, sobbed on either side of him.
His anguished widow spoke of her loss. “I love Lee and always will,” she said.
The suspects are radicalized British Muslims with family origins in Nigeria, security officials said. The attackers yelled “Allahu akbar,” meaning “God is great”in Arabic, Sky News television and the BBC reported.
One suspect was identified by the BBC as Michael Adebolajo, 28, who had been raised in a Christian family in Romford, east of London. He converted to Islam around 2001 and joined a radical Muslim group, Al Muhajiroun, that was banned in Britain in 2010 as an Islamic terrorist organization, notorious for its praise of those who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
The second suspect was identified in British news reports Friday as Michael Adebowale, 22.
The suspects were under police guard in separate London hospitals, being treated for gunshot wounds, officials said.
Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism unit mounted raids Thursday on six residential addresses investigators believe are linked to the attackers, including one in Romford, one in the London suburb of Greenwich, and a third in the village of Saxilby in Lincolnshire, 150 miles north of London, where neighbors said some of Adebolajo’s family members were living in a large modern home in a new subdivision.
Two women, ages 29 and 31, who were arrested Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder the soldier, had been released without charge but a fifth suspect, a 29-year-old man, was still being questioned, Scotland Yard said Friday.
“There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act,” Cameron said of the killing, during a visit to the barracks Thursday. He called the attack a “betrayal of Islam” and said the blame “lies purely with the sickening individuals who carried out this attack.”
Cameron warned Thursday against “knee-jerk responses” to the attack after members of the English Defence League, which campaigns against what it calls “militant Islam,” sparked unrest in the Woolwich area.
In the 48 hours after the killing, the number of people “liking” the Defence League’s Facebook page rose more than fivefold to 110,000.
The group describes itself as “peacefully protesting against militant Islam;” after the slaying, a Twitter feed from the group urged people: “Take to the streets ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”
That evening, the police dispersed marchers in Woolwich, a southeastern suburb where the soldier was killed.
In Gillingham, a man was arrested after a window and a bookcase at a mosque were smashed, police said. In Braintree, a man was arrested outside an Islamic prayer center on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and attempted arson, according to the Essex force.
In 2008, MI5, released a classified report to the Guardian newspaper saying there is no clear way to identify or profile those who become involved in British terrorism.
Drawing on case studies, it found the majority of those engaged in terrorist acts are British citizens and a higher-than-average number are religious converts.
The newspaper, which was allowed to read the classified report, said there is no more evidence of mental illness than in the general population. The majority of those engaged in acts are in their early to mid-twenties when they become radicalized and almost all hold low-grade jobs. Yet they are no more unintelligent or gullible than the rest of the population, the report said.
MI5 estimates that British citizens account for three quarters of prisoners jailed for terrorism offenses in Britain.
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Cowell and John F. Burns of The New York Times; by Robert Hutton, Ben Moshinsky, Thomas Penny, Kitty Donaldson, Lindsay Fortado, Thomas Penny and Jeremy Hodges of Bloomberg News; and by Paisley Dodds, Cassandra Vinograd, Gregory Katz, Denise Lavoie and Cara Rubinsky of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/25/2013