Claims that crucial evidence was overlooked

THE Prime Minister has ruled out demands for a new inquiry into the July 7 bombings.

The demands followed claims that MI5 overlooked crucial evidence which could have prevented the attacks.

Tony Blair said a fresh inquiry would be a mistake and would undermine support for the security services in the fight against terrorism.

His comments came amid reports that MI5 did not show surveillance photos of the bombers' ringleader, Dewsbury's Mohammed Sidique Khan, to the original inquiry by the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

BBC TV's Panorama programme reported that although MI5 had six photos of Khan taken during the investigation of another terror plot only one was shown to the ISC.

Whitehall sources said today that while the committee did not see the photos it was told that they existed.

"The reason they were not shown them is because it didn't add to the facts.

"If they had felt the need to ask to see them they would have asked," one source said.

The sources said the ISC was given only one photo of Khan as it was the one used to show to a detainee to see if he could identify the man in the picture.

They strongly denied suggestions that the other photos were withheld from the ISC because they were taken by police rather than MI5.

Khan and his fellow suicide bombers - Huddersfield student Jermaine Lindsay, and Leeds pair Shehzad Tanweer and Habib Hussain - murdered 52 innocent people.

They set off rucksack bombs on three Tube trains and a London bus.

Mr Blair told the Commons that the ISC was shown all the relevant material.

The committee, chaired by former Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy, is to look at the evidence again in the wake of the disclosures in the fertiliser bomb plot trial, which ended this week at the Old Bailey with the convictions of five defendants.

It emerged that Khan and his right-hand man, Tanweer, were recorded by surveillance teams on several occasions with the ringleader of the fertiliser bomb plot, Omar Khyam.

Although Khan was heard discussing the prospect of going to Pakistan to fight with the militias neither man was identified until after the July 7 bombings in London more than a year later.

In the Commons Tory leader David Cameron said a "proper, independent inquiry" was now needed to "enhance public confidence" in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Cameron said the ISC, which is appointed by the Prime Minister and is made up of senior parliamentarians, lacked the necessary investigative powers to do the job.

But Mr Blair said a new inquiry would divert resources away from the fight against terrorism.

"It would be wrong to say that in some way or other the ISC didn't have the information they wanted.

"Any information they want to have they can," he said.

"If we end up now saying that the ISC was not an adequate inquiry and we have another inquiry, we will simply cause great anxiety and difficulty within the service.

"We won't get any more truth, because the truth is there in the ISC.

"But what we will do is undermine support for our security services.

"I am simply not prepared to do it," Mr Blair concluded.