Forget Cash For Honours, What About Passports For Terrorists?

In July 2005, just weeks after the 7/7 bombings that left 52 people dead, four men attempted a second wave of bombings across London. One of the four, Muktar Said Ibrahim, had been known to MI5 after being spotted at a suspected terror training camp in the Lake District in Spring 2004. Before that, he had been to the Sudan to learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades.

And yet, despite being known by the security forces; despite having come to Scotland Yard’s attention three times in a year; and despite being charged under the Public Order Act for distributing extremist Islamic material, he was granted a British passport and allowed to travel to Pakistan (at the same time as two of the July 7th bombers) where he received more training for his coming jihad.