MI5 tried to recruit Rigby's killer: Agents were courting Islamic fanatic just weeks before Woolwich horror

Michael Adebolajo was approached by agents courting him as an informer

He had been on the radar of domestic security services for over ten years

Three months before killing he had complained of harassment by agents



Targeted by MI5: Michael Adebolajo, Lee Rigby's killer, pictured just after the gruesome attack on Woolwich High Street, London, in May

The security services were in the dock last night for missing a decade of opportunities to stop the fanatical killers of Lee Rigby

Just three months before the appalling murder in Woolwich, MI5 was trying to recruit Michael Adebolajo as an informant.



He had been on their radar for ten years and in 2010 was even arrested with fellow Al Qaeda followers in Kenya.

Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, face dying behind bars after they were yesterday convicted of butchering Fusilier Rigby outside his barracks in South-East London.

The pair are feared to be part of a new wave of so-called ‘just do it’ terrorists who can explode into action without warning.

Yesterday Cressida Dick, the country’s most senior counter-terrorism chief, said police officers must be ready to protect their military colleagues.

‘We know that some people who have a completely perverted ideology do regard soldiers as a target,’ warned the Met assistant commissioner.

As senior Whitehall sources said they believed a number of the killers’ accomplices were still on the loose, it can be revealed that:

MI5 let Adebolajo go to Kenya where he had terror training and its agents failed to monitor him properly when he returned;

Kenyan police claimed the trip was financed by Samantha Lewthwaite, widow of one of the 7/7 bombers;

Spies approached Adebolajo’s father, brother and brother-in-law as he went ‘underground’;

Both killers were addicted to potent skunk cannabis and Adebolajo’s last address was a drugs farm;

Al-Shabaab is using footage of the murder, saying: ‘A simple knife from your local B&Q will do the job’.



Adebolajo kissed the Koran when he and Adebowale were convicted of murdering Fusilier Rigby at the end of an astonishing four-week Old Bailey trial.

The victim’s parents, estranged wife and fiancée were overcome with emotion as the jury of eight women and four men returned their verdicts in just 90 minutes.

His mother Lyn and sister Sara sobbed as others hugged. They had endured days of evidence detailing how Fusilier Rigby was almost beheaded by Adebolajo, who was allowed to espouse his twisted views from the witness box.

Mr Justice Sweeney told of his gratitude and admiration for the soldier’s family who, he said, had shown great dignity throughout the most harrowing of evidence. ‘I’m extremely grateful to them and can only sympathise with what has happened to them and its continued effect upon all their lives,’ he added.

Kissing the Koran: Adebolajo and his accomplice Michael Adebowale were convicted of murdering Fusilier Rigby yesterday after 90 minutes of deliberations at the end of an astonishing four-week Old Bailey trial

The full story of how the two men slipped through the fingers of Britain’s security services can now be told for the first time. MI5 is being investigated by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee and its chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has said it has serious questions to answer.

Adebolajo and Adebowale were brought up in lower middle-class Nigerian Christian families, with parents who dreamed of their going to university.

The path to Woolwich began in 2003 when Adebolajo joined high-profile extremist group al-Muhajiroun and changed his name to Mujahid, meaning ‘one who engages in jihad’.

Over the following years he cropped up again and again at Islamist events. But it was in 2010 that MI5 appears to have missed the most glaring opportunity to stop Adebolajo after he was caught trying to enter Somalia.



The arrest linked him to some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, including Lewthwaite. Yet, despite being openly accused of terrorism and being deported to London, he was given free rein to continue on his radical path. Mombasa’s anti-terror chief Elijah Rop said he warned the British not to allow his release.

He said: ‘We gave very honest advice but the High Commissioner ignored us.’

Adebowale pictured speaking at a demonstration associated with radical cleric Anjem Choudary: A week before the attack, Adebolajo was preaching that jihadis did not need to travel abroad to kill British soldiers

Thames House, headquarters of MI5: The agency is being investigated by Parliament¿s intelligence and security committee and its chairman, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has said it has serious questions to answer

MI5 focused on trying to recruit Adebolajo. He was offered money and mobile phones in repeated approaches by officers who asked him to spy on other Muslims. Three other members of his family, his elder brother Jeremiah, sister Christiana and brother-in-law James, were also approached.

By late 2012, just months before the Woolwich attack, Adebolajo was so fed up with MI5 that he complained to a lawyer.

Fusilier Lee Rigby poses in his ceremonial uniform: His family were overcome with emotion as the jury returned their verdicts at the Old Bailey yesterday

A week before the attack, Adebolajo preached that jihadis did not need to travel abroad to kill soldiers. A Muslim convert, who gave his name only as Abdullah, overheard him preaching outside Glyndan Community Centre in Woolwich after Friday prayers. He told BBC London News: ‘When we were speaking about the killing of soldiers or the Army he said, “We don’t need to go there, their boys are here, their boys are here”.

‘At that point I didn’t have clue what he was talking about. One of his last words he said was, “If I don’t see you now, God willing I’ll see you in the next life”.’

After Adebolajo was arrested for butchering Fusilier Rigby, he refused to tell counter-terrorism police where he lived. But in a telling remark, the Old Bailey was told he said ‘MI5 could provide the location because they had visited him earlier this year’.

Asked to elaborate on his contact with MI5 while in the witness box, Adebolajo said: ‘There is a lot more to come out on this.’

Adebolajo’s brother-in-law, James Thompson, who himself converted to Islam in 2005, said the interest of the security services was relentless.



He accused the agency of making his brother-in-law more extreme.