British media and politicos are chiding Prime Minister David Cameron for heading out on a family vacation in the midst of a terrorist investigation that just led to the arrest of a ninth suspect.
Counterterrorism police arrested on Sunday a 22-year-old man who’s yet to be named but was identified by investigators as a suspect in last week’s grisly street stabbing of soldier Lee Rigby. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, police said, United Press International reported. That arrest came on the heels of three others on Saturday for the same charges, UPI said.
Mr. Cameron, in the days after the attack, vowed a full investigation of both terror plot and his nation’s intelligence after it surfaced that MI-5 agents may have ignored or dismissed the danger element of one of the arrested suspects — Michael Adebolajo, shown via video waving bloody hands and knives in the minutes following the attack. But now Mr. Cameron’s commitment to the investigation is under question.
He’s on vacation with his family. They’re at an exclusive villa on the island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean, UPI said.
British newspapers are showing photos of Mr. Cameron kicked back with his wife on the sandy beach, and politicians hostile to his conservative party are expressing outrage.
“People expect him to be at his desk leading from the front,” said John Mann, a British Labor parliamentarian, in The Telegraph. “It is inappropriate that he is away. It suggests that he thinks he can run the country from a beach in Spain.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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