Did MI5 recruit al-Queda Sympathisers?
Patrick Mercer a Conservative Party MP questions whether post 7/7, MI5 recruited AQ sympathisers into MI5. About that time, a substantial increase in MI5 took place and many Muslims were brought in to handle contacts in the Pakistani community and to translate intercepts and documents. Mercer’s questions to the Home Secretary (the person responsible for the police and security services) centre around the fact that a number of recruits were thrown out when some were found to have problematic past histories such as two who had been to terrorist training camps and four who had unexplained gaps of three months in their CV. On the face of it, this looks extremely damaging, except that they were probably thrown out during the vetting process during training, long before they ever got to actually work for MI5. There is no way a three month gap in a yong Muslim’s work record would go un-noticed during vetting. Mercer is a Conservative and is flying a kite here to damage the government. I’m hap
