Why did a British intelligence agent take a very clear photo, left below, of London July 7 bombers a year before the attacks, and send American intelligence agencies the distorted, blurred, heavily cropped, all but unidentifiable, image on the right?



Why would a British intelligence agent purposely distort the identity of two suspected terrorists?

"...no record of his motives existed."

I'm sure the person who instructed the agent to do that had a motive.

But they don't usually get asked on-the-record questions, or even have to testify, in terror attack inquiries.

For some reason.

From the UK Guardian :

MI5 could have identified the ringleader of the 7 July attacks as a trained jihadist four months before the bombings, it has admitted, but for reasons that it refuses to disclose it decided not to investigate a crucial piece of intelligence.