One of the attackers, Michael Adebolajo, had also been detained and tortured in 2010 in Kenya with the likely complicity of Her Majesty's Government. The brutal attack on Rigby was instantly branded "terrorism" (despite its targeting of a soldier of a nation at war) and caused intense and virtually universal indignation in the UK.

In response, the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee resolved to investigate why the attack happened and whether it could have been prevented. Ensuring that nothing undesirable would occur, the investigation was led by the Committee's chair, the long-time conservative government functionary Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Yesterday, Sir Malcolm's Committee issued its findings in a 191-page report. It contains some highly predictable conclusions, but also some quite remarkable ones.

Predictably, the report, while offering some criticisms, completely cleared the British intelligence agencies of any responsibility for the attack. It concluded: "we do not consider that any of the Agencies' errors, when taken individually, were significant enough to have affected the outcome," and "we do not consider that, given what the Agencies knew at the time, they were in the position to prevent the murder."