US failed to act on British suspicions over Christmas Day plane bomber
Britain passed on intelligence to America about the foiled Christmas Day Detroit airline bomber, Downing Street said today.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman stressed the US authorities were told about his "activities" which had aroused suspicions.
While he was in Britain between 2005 and 2008, studying at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been seen "reaching out" to extremists under surveillance by MI5.
The Standard understands that this information was passed to Washington but the decision to ban the 23-year-old Nigerian from Britain was not communicated The revelation will raise fresh questions over why the US authorities did not act to ban Abdulmutallab from flying to America, especially after his father had contacted the American embassy in Nigeria to raise concerns about his son's radicalism.
But the British government will also have to re-examine why it did not inform Washington about his visa restrictions.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "Clearly there was security information about this individual's activities and that was information that was shared with the US authorities and that's the key point."
He admitted that it was an "important and sensitive issue" whether Britain's security services should have identified Abdulmutallab as a terror threat.
But he added: "We are pretty sure that he was radicalised outside the UK when he left the UK in October 2008.
"It's also clear that while he was here he was attempting to make contact with people and that is the intelligence that we were able to secure through the intelligence services."
He stressed that Abdulmutallab had been banned from Britain because of his "visa situation and the bogus college".
But he added: "One of the lessons clearly that comes out of what could have been a terrible, terrible tragedy, was the whole question of how we continue to share intelligence about individuals who may have these kind of nefarious objectives in mind."
