U.K. Suspect Had Ties to Somali Islamists

By IDIL ABSHIR and CASSELL BRYAN-LOW

Adebolajo Recruited for al-Shabaab During Stay in Kenya, Cleric Says 

 

Reuters

Tributes to Lee Rigby at the site of his killing.

During a 2010 journey to Kenya, a primary suspect in the killing of a British soldier in London last week associated with people connected with violent Islamist group al-Shabaab and helped recruit for the group, according to people familiar with his visit.

Michael Adebolajo, the suspect, was himself headed to Somalia when he and seven others were arrested by Kenyan counterterror police on Nov. 22, 2010, said Aggrey Adoli, the police chief in Mombasa, Kenya's principal port city. Mr. Adebolajo and his fellow travelers had made it to Pate Island, 40 miles from the Somali border, and were looking for a boat to ferry them into the country, Mr. Adoli said.

                              Michael Adebolajo

Mr. Adebolajo, who is British, was ultimately deported back to the U.K. A Kenyan government spokesman said Sunday that he was turned over to British authorities after his arrest.

The U.K. Foreign Office said it had "provided consular assistance" to a British national arrested in Kenya in 2010.

The details of Mr. Adebolajo's sojourn in Kenya, and the possible association with al-Shabaab, have raised questions from politicians and in British media about the response of British intelligence services. Officials familiar with the matter have said that Mr. Adebolajo and the other key suspect, 22-year-old Michael Adebowale, were known to security services prior to the attack.

According to a Mombasa cleric, Mr. Adebolajo worked closely with Aboud Rogo, a preacher and outspoken al-Shabaab supporter who was shot and killed by Kenyan police in 2012.

In an appearance on British Broadcasting Corp. television on Sunday, U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May declined to discuss the specifics of the case or media reports that intelligence officers had previously approached one of the suspects potentially to recruit him as an informant. She said that security services gather intelligence in a variety of ways and "they will approach individuals from time to time."

The U.K. overhauled its counterterror strategy after the 2005 bomb attacks on London public transit, which killed dozens. Late Saturday, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a new task force focused on halting radicalization.

Malcolm Rifkind, the head of the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee, an independent parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence agencies, said the panel plans to probe what officials at U.K. intelligence agency MI5 knew, what action they took and any additional steps that should have been taken. The committee, which has the power to access classified material, plans to conduct "the fullest investigation possible," he said.

Mr. Rifkind said he received a preliminary briefing from the head of MI5 on Friday and that the intelligence agency will submit an initial written report to the committee in the next day or so. The panel plans to submit one report to the prime minister and another public report to Parliament, though Mr. Rifkind declined to say when.

Intelligence officials have helped prevent at least one terrorist attack in the U.K. each year in recent years, Mr. Rifkind noted. He said the intelligence agency can be proud of that but that "doesn't alter the need to investigate the facts."

Witnesses said two men attacked 25-year-old Lee Rigby, who was serving with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, not far from a military barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, killing him with knives and a cleaver. Police who responded shot and wounded two men, who were arrested and remain hospitalized.

People familiar with the matter have identified the two men as Messrs. Adebolajo and Adebowale.

Since the killing, police have arrested eight other people on suspicion of conspiracy to murder; the most recent arrest came Monday in southeast London. Police have released scant details on the other arrests, though as of Monday four had been released on bail and two released without charge.

The Mombasa cleric said Mr. Adebolajo had been in Kenya eight months before he was arrested there in 2010. He said Mr. Adebolajo worked closely with the Muslim Youth Center, or MYC, of which Mr. Rogo was the ideological leader. According to reports by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia, MYC used to mobilize resources and recruits for al-Shabaab's activities in Kenya and Somalia. Mr. Adebolajo, the cleric said, would frequently go to hear Mr. Rogo preach and became a kind of neighborhood recruiter.

The cleric's account couldn't be entirely verified. Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a Nairobi-based think tank, who was with the U.N. Monitoring Group at the time of Mr. Adebolajo's trip, also said in an interview Sunday that Mr. Adebolajo had met with associates of Mr. Rogo. Mr. Bryden, however, said Mr. Adebolajo arrived in Kenya the same month he was deported. The cleric describes a more extended stay.

Mr. Adebolajo "was attending most of the sermons, and he was amongst the people who used to recruit young Kenyans. Rogo was coordinating through him," said the cleric, who met Mr. Adebolajo in Mombasa. "After having recruited people to go to Somalia, [Adebolajo] was ready to go and join those that he knew."

The cleric said he believed Mr. Adebolajo was already radical by the time he arrived in Mombasa. "But before Mombasa he was concealing his radicalization," the cleric said. "Here he could wear Muslim attire and blend in."

Mr. Adoli, the Mombasa police chief, said Mr. Adebolajo and the others arrested with him were questioned but not brought to trial since there wasn't evidence of a crime.

"There was no offense disclosed except that they were going to Somalia, and that is not an offense unless they were armed, but they weren't armed," Mr. Adoli said.

Mr. Adoli denied allegations made by Mr. Adebolajo's brother-in-law that the suspect had been tortured while in custody in Kenya.

"Kenyan police do not torture anybody, that is just an allegation without any basis," he said. "You can't just come up with an allegation three years later; he could have reported it then, there is a police station at the airport, he could have lodged a complaint on his way out."

—Charles Forelle contributed to this article.

Write to Cassell Bryan-Low at cassell.bryan-low@wsj.com

Source: Wall Street Journal