THE LONDON  7/7 INQUESTS have heard that MI5 missed out on an opportunity to identify the attack organiser because an MI5 agent intentionally cropped the photos and reduced the quality beyond recognition.

The resulting grainy images could not be identified by an al-Qaeda informant in the US, the Telegraph reports.

Mohamed Sidique Khan was photographed a year before the attacks but the images had been altered by the British intelligence services before being sent for identification to someone who had spent time with Khan in an Afghan terror training camp.

However, MI5′s chief of staff said the security service did not bear any responsibility for the 7/7 attacks, the BBC reports.

Identified only as Witness G, the officer said he had spent months reviewing the information MI5 had before the attacks in preparation for the inquests and said the organisation had no idea of what was coming.

Witness G also rejected suggestions that there were significant intelligence failings in the lead-up to the attacks.

Fifty-two people were killed in the coordinated attacks on three Tube trains and a bus in London city in July 2005. Four people acting as suicide bombers are understood to have been involved