The man believed to be the coordinator of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris had previously traveled undetected to Britain despite being named in an international arrest warrant for his role in a foiled plot in Belgium in early 2015, European law enforcement officials said Monday.
Officials
said they had recovered photos from the cellphone of the man,
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, that included snapshots of major London landmarks.
The confirmation that Mr. Abaaoud had been able to enter Britain,
reportedly through a ferry terminal at Dover, led the opposition Labour
Party on Monday to call for an “urgent review” of security at British
seaports.
Belgian
law enforcement officials confirmed that photographs of British
landmarks were on Mr. Abaaoud’s cellphone, which was captured by the
French police during a raid in the Paris suburb of St.-Denis five days
after the attacks. Mr. Abaaoud and two others were killed in the raid.
The
exact dates of Mr. Abaaoud’s trip and the full list of places he
visited remain unclear, as do his reasons for visiting Britain.
Mr. Abaaoud is the second person connected to the Paris attacks
who is believed to have visited Britain in the months leading up to the
attacks. According to French news media reports, Mohamed Abrini, who
disappeared after being seen traveling between Paris and Brussels with
one of the central figures in the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was seen near
Birmingham, in England’s Midlands region, in July.
Investigators
have not said how they think Mr. Abaaoud entered Britain, but it is
possible that he did so using either a false identity card or one
borrowed or stolen from another person.
Eric
Van der Sijpt, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor, said the
suspects in the Paris attacks “are known to travel through Europe using
false identity cards,” adding, “Our investigation has shown that they
have done so repeatedly.”
During
2015, Mr. Abaaoud’s ties to the Islamic State became increasingly
clear. After a foiled attack in Verviers, Belgium, the Belgian
authorities put out an international arrest warrant for him. In the
February issue of the Islamic State’s magazine, Dabiq, Mr. Abaaoud
boasted that he was able to travel freely to and from Europe. In July, a
Belgian judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison in absentia for being
part of a recruitment network in Europe for the Islamic State, also
known as ISIS or ISIL. The report of Mr. Abaaoud’s visit to Britain appeared in The Guardian.
The
claims increase pressure on the British government to take additional
security steps, especially at its ports. The home secretary, Theresa
May, was criticized last week after it emerged that the man many believe
to have been featured in the latest Islamic State video, Siddhartha
Dhar — also known as Abu Rumaysah — left Britain, also via the port of
Dover, while on police bail.
On
Monday, Andy Burnham, who speaks for the Labour Party on police and
security issues, said the latest reports added to “the growing questions
about border security at our seaports.”
“Not
only did we discover last week that a U.K. terror suspect on bail
waltzed out at the border, we now learn a terror suspect from the
Continent freely walked in through the same route,” he said in a
statement.
Mr.
Burnham described the ferry border as a “weak link” and urged the home
secretary to “conduct an urgent review of border security at ferry
terminals and provide urgent reassurance that passports are being
properly checked on exit and arrival in the U.K.”
The
Metropolitan Police and the West Midlands Police, which cover the two
areas that Mr. Abaaoud is reported to have visited in Britain, said they
could not confirm that he had been in the country.
The Home Office
declined to comment on Mr. Burnham’s statement, or on the reports that
Mr. Abaaoud had traveled to Britain.
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