The man at the centre of the failed Detroit airliner bomb plot had been banned from entering Britain, it has been disclosed.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been placed on a watch list earlier this year after UK authorities refused to renew his student visa.

Mr Johnson also said he did not believe that Abdulmutallab was acting alone, and that police and security services were examining whether he was radicalised while at University College London (UCL) between 2005 and 2008.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, Mr Johnson confirmed the 23-year-old had been refused a new visa and placed on a watch list last May after applying for a bogus course.

“If you are on our watch list then you do not come into this country,” Mr Johnson said. “You can come through this country if you are in transit to another country but you cannot come into this country.”

The Home Secretary said US authorities should theoretically have been informed, and he doubted there had been a “hiccup” in procedures. American officials have said Abdulmutallab was on one of their “long” watch lists, but was not banned from travelling.

The issues being investigated by police and security services in this country included “what happened when he was in this country, was he radicalised in this country, was there any association with whoever may have been behind this plot”, according to Mr Johnson. “We don’t know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were) other people behind it – I suspect it’s the latter rather than the former,” he added.

Abdulmutallab’s family later released a statement saying he disappeared while studying abroad. It said they approached Nigerian security agencies after he stopped communication and then contacted foreign security agencies for “their assistance to find and return him home”. The family said: “It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day.”

Meanwhile, thousands of British air passengers were facing lengthy delays amid security tensions in the wake of the botched Detroit airliner bomb plot.

In Britain, passengers waiting to fly to America for New Year were hit by delays of up to three and a half hours while urgent investigations took place to find out how Abdulmutallab was able to take explosives on board a transatlantic airliner carrying 278 passengers.

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