One of the London Bridge attackers was free to carry out the atrocity despite working for a man accused of helping to train the July 7 bombing ringleader and being under investigation by police and MI5, The Times can reveal.
Khuram Butt, 27, was deemed a “low priority” although he had links to a key contact of Mohammed Siddique Khan, the eldest of four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in 2005, and Anjem Choudary, Europe’s most notorious hate preacher.
Scotland Yard said yesterday that the Pakistani-born Butt, who carried out a van and knife rampage on Saturday night with two other men — one from north Africa — was the subject of an active inquiry but had slipped down in priority because there was no intelligence that he was planning an attack.
He was one of the 3,000 jihadists in Britain who are the subject of about 500 investigations but was moved to the “lower echelon”. His extremist links will pile pressure on police and MI5, who are already facing scrutiny over their failure to prevent three atrocities in Britain in ten weeks.
Butt, a married father of two young children, worked as an attendant at an all-Muslim gym in east London run by Sajeel Shahid, 41, a member of Choudary’s network who allegedly helped to set up weapons training in Pakistan for the bombers who attacked three Tube trains and a bus on July 7, 2005.
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Mr Shahid was named by an FBI supergrass in a New York court case as having established the Pakistani branch of Choudary’s proscribed group al-Muhajiroun, and setting up an al-Qaeda training camp there.
The Times understands that Mr Shahid was close friends with Butt, who worked a few hours a week at Ummah Fitness helping to run high-octane mixed martial arts. Butt would use the gym to approach young pupils for radicalisation, a source said.
Butt was a supporter of al-Muhajiroun, which has been linked to scores of terrorist plots. Choudary is in jail for pledging support for Isis. Butt appeared in a Channel 4 documentary last year called The Jihadis Next Door, alongside other Choudary followers. He was seen praying in front of a black flag unfurled in Regent’s Park by a group of young men wearing Middle Eastern-style clothing.
Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police’s head of counterterrorism, said that the investigation into Butt began in 2015. He refused to say whether Butt had ever been arrested by the force.
Police named a second attacker as Rachid Redouane, 30, who also lived in east London. He had used an alias and claimed to come from both Morocco and Libya. The third attacker is believed to have had international connections.
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It is understood that the rented van used by the terrorists made a “dry run”, crossing from north to south London Bridge at 9.58pm before going back over the bridge and turning again to launch the attack at 10.07pm. Detectives are investigating whether it was a last-minute reconnaissance exercise.
Police carried out further raids, dragging a family of six from their beds in Newham, east London. All suspects were released without charge last night before another raid in Ilford, east London. No one has been detained in the search, which began in the early hours.
The developments came as Theresa May was forced to defend her record as a former home secretary, with Jeremy Corbyn saying that she should resign.
Mr Rowley confirmed that police received a call from a member of the public warning of concerns over Butt a few months after the launch of the police inquiry into him in summer 2015. Police moved the investigation down the priority list and he had seen “nothing to show that a poor decision has been made”, he said.
Butt’s links to Mr Shahid will raise further concerns. The gym boss was named with two of his brothers in a New York court in 2004 by Mohammed Junaid Babar, a US terrorist who turned supergrass. Babar said: “I set up a jihad training camp where those who wanted to go to Afghanistan, where they could learn how to use weapons, and . . . any explosive devices that they wanted to test out over there. And I also provided lodging and transportation in Pakistan for them, and I transported them to and from the training camp.”
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Babar’s trial was told how Mr Shahid went to Malakand in Pakistan in March 2003 to make contact with an al-Qaeda commander and organise the camp. Babar, who gave information linking the July 7 bombers and the failed July 21 plot, said that Mr Shahid, who was expelled from Pakistan in 2005 after three months in detention, ran an office for al-Muhajiroun in Lahore in 2003. He also allegedly used a computer business run by his older brother as cover for setting up offices for his group.