7/7 bombers attended lecture in Dudley

Three terrorists who carried out the London 7/7 bombings attended a lecture by a radical preacher in Dudley months before the mass suicide killings, a jihadist turned MI5 spy has revealed.

The three men, Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay were part of the four-man terror cell which carried out the attack in the capital in July 2005.

Fifty two people were killed and more than 700 were injured when four bombs were detonated on London Underground trains a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square.

But new revelations have come from MI5 spy Aimen Dean who met the men while they attended a lecture at a flat in Dudley in the winter of 2003.

The lecture was by Anwar al-Awlaki, who it has emerged was involved in planning terrorist operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda before his death in a US drone attack in Yeman in 2011.

In an interview Mr Dean, a founder member of al-Qaeda who became a double agent for Britain's security and intelligence services, said he had attended the event held by the American.

Around 30 to 40 people met in the converted flat on the first floor of a building to hear the lecture also attended by the undercover agent.

Mr Dean says he was invited to the eight-session course of lectures by someone who was being watched by MI5 at that time due to concerns he was involved in terrorist activity.

He said he shook hands with the three men who said they had driven down from Leeds. They introduced themselves as Mohammad, Shehzad and Abu Abdullah.

"I shook hands with everyone there but I was really extremely surprised when I have seen their faces as the 7/7 bombers but then the surprise wore off minutes later when I realised yes I remember they were in al-Awlaki's circle," he said.

It is understood that MI5 were interested enough in the lectures to mount a surveillance operation outside the venue, photographing people coming and going.

But no images of the three men who later carried out the bombings were taken.

Mr Dean told reporters that he had reported to his MI5 handler that all of those in the room could potentially become suicide bombers.

But he said that he could never have foreseen that the three men would go onto carry out the attack.