UK’s MI5 spy chief to step down

LONDON - Reuters

The MI5 spy chief Evans will quit after 33-years in the security services. AP photo

The MI5 spy chief, who oversaw a safe Olympics and helped transform the Security Service’s counter-terrorism operations in the wake of the 2005 London bombings, will step down next month.

Sir Jonathan Evans, appointed director general of the domestic intelligence service less than two years after the July 7 bombings, presided over an expansion anti-terrorism operations. There were no major attacks on his five-year watch. A successor was not announced though local media have reported one of Evans’s deputies who commands counter-terrorism operations could be appointed. MI5 chiefs, who were not publicly named until the 1990s, typically serve for about 5 years.