13 October 2005. Fourth list provides 29 new names of MI6 officers:
http://cryptome.org/mi6-list4.htm

28 August 2005. See full list of 276 unique names of MI6 officers:
http://cryptome.org/mi6-list-276.htm

27 August 2006. Thanks to A2.

See also:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.british/browse_frm/thread/82c48e38b3fdca75/
3bf294a25a6e6d25?lnk=st&q=%22Ian+Nicholas+Anthony%22&rnum=1&hl=en#
3bf294a25a6e6d25

Previous lists of MI6 officers:
http://cryptome.org/mi6-list2.htm (21 August 2005)

http://cryptome.org/mi6-list.htm (13 May 1999)

See also HM Diplomatic Service Overseas Reference List, August 2005, which lists many of these persons and shows that their 2005 positions and stations match those listed here (*):
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/KFile/OverseasRefListJulyAug05.pdf (PDF) [Now dead]
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/KFile/OverseasRefListJulyAug05.doc (Word DOC) [Now dead]

List of MI6 Officers worldwide

Ian Nicholas Anthony: dob 1960; 88 Lisbon, 93 Brasilia, 97 London.*

Peter James Aron: dob 1946; 68 Bonn, 84 Singapore, 86 Washington, 97 Seoul,00 London.

Nigel Anthony Richard Backhouse: dob 1956; 84 Kabul,85 Kath-mandu, 89 Madrid,98 Paris, 01 London.

Nicholas Hilary Bates: dob 1949; 79 Geneva, 84 Cairo, 89 Muscat, 96 Kingston, 98 Kampala, 01 London.

Nicholas James Gilbert Beer: dob 1947; 77 Nairobi, 82 Madrid, 92 Hague, 99 Buenos Aires, 02 London.

Julliette Winsome Bird: dob 1963; 92 New Delhi, 01 Brussels, 03 London.

Timothy Gavin Bradley: dob 1959; 86 Kuwait, 96 Belgrade, 99 London.

Julian Nicholas Braithwaite: dob 1968; 95 Zagreb, 96 Belgrade, 02 Sarajevo, 04 Washington (Cllr).*

Jonathan Andrew Brewer: dob 1955; 86 Luanda, 91 Mexico, 98 Moscow, 02 London.

Richard Philip Bridge: dob 1959; 86 Warsaw, 89 Moscow, 98 New Delhi, 04 Geneva (Cllr).*

George Benedict Joseph Pascal Busby: dob 1960; 89 Bonn, 92 Belgrade, 00 Vienna, 04 London.

Nicholas Geoffrey Coombs: dob 1961; 87 Riyadh, 93 Amman, 00 Riyadh, 03 London.

Andrew George Tyndale Cooper: dob 1953; 84 Canberra, 88 Geneva, 95 Stockholm, 99 London.

John de Carteret Copleston: dob 1952; 75 Paris, 80 Islamabad, 87 Jakarta, 93 Lagos, 97 Canberra, 00 London.*

Anthony Evelyn Comrie Cowan: dob 1953; 78 Hong Kong, 80 Peking, 87 Brussels, 96 Hong Kong, 03 Hague (Cllr).*

Michael James Crawford: dob 1954; 83 Cairo, 85 Sanaa, 86 Riyadh, 92 Warsaw, 99 Islamabad, 01 London.

John Martin Jamie Darke: dob 1953; 88 Cairo, 96 Dubai, 03 Lisbon (Cllr).*

Nigel Kim Darroch: dob 1954; 80 Tokyo, 89 Rome, 97 Brussels, 03 London.

Elved Richard Malcolm Davies: dob 1951; 77 Jakarta, 84 Athens, 89 Nairobi, 91 Oslo, 00 Hong Kong, 04 London.

John Howard Davies: dob 1957; 83 Riyadh, 87 Damascus, 93 Riga, 99 Sofia, 03 London.

Peter Brian Davies: dob 1954; 80 Hong Kong, 83 Rome, 88 Peking, 96 Jakarta,03 Madrid (Cllr).*

John Paul Davison: dob 1950; 77 Abu Dhabi, 86 Dubai, 89 London.

Geoffrey Deane: dob 1950; 80 Nairobi, 88 East Berlin, 01 Munich (Consul).

Hugh Stephen Murray Elliot: dob 1965; 91 Madrid, 99 Buenos Aires, 02 Paris (Cllr).*

Julian Ascott Evans: dob 1957; 82 Moscow, 85 Zurich, 91 New York, 02 Islamabad, 03 Ottawa (DHC).*

Charles Blanford Farr: dob 1959; 87 Pretoria, 92 Amman, 95 London.

Robert Dominic Russell Fenn: dob 1962; 85 Hague, 88 Lagos, 92 New York, 97 Rome, 04 Nicosia (DHM).*

John Fisher: dob 1948; 76 Ankara, 82 Vienna, 93 Santiago, 99 Jakarta, 03 London.

Tarquin Simon Archer Folliss: dob 1957; 89 Jakarta, 95 Bucharest, 01 Copenhagen (Cllr).*

Nicholas John Foster: dob 1957; 86 Nicosia, 92 Moscow, 98 Athens, 03 London.

Cortland Lucas Fransella: dob 1948; 73 Hong Kong, 80 Kuala Lumpur, 82 Santiago, 91 Rome, 95 London.*

Steven Alan Frost: dob 1964; 92 Islamabad, 99 Stockholm, 02 London.

Michael Adrian Fulcher: dob 1958; 85 Athens, 93 Sofia, 99 Rome, 03 London.

Stephen Peter Garner-Winship: dob 1956; 91 Rio, 93 Lisbon, 94 London.

Kevin Andrew Garvey: dob 1960; 81 Bangkok, 85 Hanoi, 92 Phnom Penh, 93 Grand Turks, 01 Guatemala City (DHM).*

Roger James Adam Golland: dob 1955; 79 Ankara, 84 Budapest, 89 Buenos Aires, 98 Brussells, 01 London.

Paul Haggle: dob 1949; 76 Bangkok, 82 Islamabad, 89 Pretoria, 98 Bangkok, 01 London.

James William David Hall: dob 1965; 89 Lusaka, 91 New Delhi, 99 Vienna, 02 Pristina, 03 London.

William Alistair Harrison: dob 1954; 79 Warsaw, 87 New York, 95 Warsaw, 00 New York, 03 London.(* Possibly Alistair Harrison, HC, Lusaka, Zambia)

Dora Claire Sarah Healy: dob 1952; 87 Addis Ababa, 95 Nairobi, 98 London.

Steven John Hill: dob 1962, 88 Vienna, 96 New-York, 01 Washington (1 Sec).

Nigel Norman Inkster: dob 1952; 76 Kuala Lumpur, 79 Bangkok, 83 Peking, 85 Buenos Aires, 92 Athens, 94 Hong Kong, 98 London.

Anthony John Godwin Insall: dob 1949; 75 Lagos, 82 Hong Kong, 85 Peking, 92 Kuala Lumpur, 99 Oslo, 04 London.

Andrew Michael Jackson: dob 1958; 87 Bonn, 01 Rome (1 Sec).

William Lester Jackson-Houlston: dob 1952; 80 Brussels, 82 Buenos Aires, 90 Belgrade, 99 Hague, 03 Berne (Cllr).*

Neil Marius Jacobsen: dob 1957; 86 Athens, 92 Madrid, 00 Santiago, 03 London.

Denis Edward Peter Paul Keefe: dob 1958; 84 Prague, 92 Nairobi, 98 Prague, 04 London.

Sarah-Jill Lennard Kilroy: dob 1956; 82 Montevideo, 83 Brussels, 94 Budapest, 98 London.

Richard Jonathan Knowlton: dob 1950; 78 Helsinki, 84 Harare, 91 Dubai, 97 Bridgetown, 02 Caracas, 03 Helsinki (Cllr).

Michael Anthony Kyle: dob 1948; 72 Saigon, 78 Washington, 84 Accra, 88 Dar es Salaam, 95 Berlin, 98 London.

Ian Francis Millar Lancaster: dob 1947; 75 Hanoi, 78 Prague, 83 Brussels, 91 Ankara, 95 London.(* Algiers 05)

Jeremy John Legge: dob 1961; 87 Lusaka, 94 Vienna, 01 Paris (1 Sec).

Graham John Ley: dob 1961; 87 Cairo, 94 Nicosia, 99 Cairo, 03 London.

Gareth Geoffrey Lungley: dob 1971; 97 Tehran, 02 Zagreb (1 Sec).

Fiona MacCallum: dob 1962; 89 Moscow, 95 Riga, 00 Kiev, 04 Tallinn (1 Sec).

Kenneth John Alexander MacKenzie: dob 1949; 75 Brussels, 81 Buenos Aires,85 Bucharest, 92 Vienna, 97 Munich, 01 London.

John Bannerman Macpherson: dob 1951; 79 Khartoum, 80 Sanaa, 87 Sofia, 93 Cairo, 03 Stockholm (Cllr).*

Christine Ann MacQueen: dob 1959; 84 Brasilia, 89 New York, 90 Paris, 02 Brussels (Cllr).*

Keith Ian Malin: dob 1953; 78 Brussels, 84 Geneva, 90 Sofia, 96 Peking, 99 London.(* Helsinki 05)

Nicholas Marden: dob 1950; 77 Nicosia, 82 Warsaw, 88 Paris, 98 Tel-Aviv, 02 London.

Nicholas Jonathan Leigh Martin: dob 1948; 81 Nairobi, 87 Rome, 93 Jakarta, 00 Bridgetown (Cllr).

Patrick Joseph McGuinness: dob 1963; 88 Sanaa, 94 Abu Dhabi, 96 Cairo, 03 Rome (Cllr).*

Alasdair Morrell McNeill: dob 1967; 92 Istanbul, 97 Moscow, 99 London.

Peter James McQuibban: dob 1955; 82 Brasilia, 88 Warsaw, 96 Copenhagen,04 Paris (Cllr).*

Jonathan Kenneth Milton Mitchel: dob 1959; 89 Amman, 91 Harare, 98 Bucharest, 02 London.

Anthony Leopold Colyer Monckton: dob 1960; 90 Geneva, 96 Zagreb, 98 Banja Luka, 01 Belgrade, 04 London. (See: http://cryptome.org/mi6-monckton.htm)

Richard John Moon: dob 1959; 85 Jakarta, 93 Rome, 99 New York, 03 London.*

Mark Scott Thomas Morgan: dob 1958; 84 Geneva, 88 Aden, 94 Valletta, 01 Budapest (1 Sec).

Philip Raymond Nelson: dob 1950; 74 Budapest, 76 Paris, 80 Rome, 89 Manila, 91 Budapest, 94 London.

Clive Dare Newell: dob 1953; 79 Tehran, 82 Kabul, 86 Addis Ababa, 94 Ankara, 01 Moscow, 03 Ottawa (Cllr).*

Stephen Martin Noakes: dob 1957; 90 Luanda, 96 New York, 00 London.

Peter James Norris: dob 1955; 85 Lagos, 90 Guatemala City, 97 Jakarta, 00 London.

John Matthew O’Callaghan: dob 1966; 92 Santiago, 98 Moscow, 03 Stockholm,04 Belgrade (Cllr).*

Paul Vincent O’Connor: dob 1956; 77 Jedda, 80 Washington, 87 Istanbul, 91 Maseru, 99 St.Petersburg, 03 Berlin (1 Sec).

Stephen John O’Flaherty: dob 1951; 78 New Delhi, 81 Prague, 88 Vienna, 92 London.

Richard Lloyd Owen: dob 1948; 78 Abu Dhabi, 80 Beirut, 83 San Jose, 86 Berlin, 93 Copenhagen, 98 London.

Simon Graham Page: dob 1961; 83 Kuala Lumpur, 88 Dublin, 92 New Delhi, 98 Riyadh, 01 London.(* 1 Sec, Bahrain, 05)

Charles William Parton: dob 1956; 85 Peking, 90 Hong Kong, 03 Nicosia (Cllr).*

Hugh William Grant Patterson: dob 1950; 80 Berlin, 87 Guatemala City, 92 Caracas, 00 Berne, 04 London.

Martin Eric Penton-Voak: dob 1965; 95 Moscow, 01 Vienna (1 Sec).

Tom Richard Vaughan Phillips: dob 1950; 85 Harare, 90 Tel Aviv, 93 Washington, 00 Kampala, 02 London.

David Herbert Powell: dob 1952; 88 Tokyo, 97 Brussels, 02 London.

Timothy Ian Priest: dob 1947; 75 Vienna, 81 Helsinki, 89 Athens, 99 Helsinki, 03 London.

Clare Louise Rickitt: dob 1964; 93 Brasilia, 96 London.

Paul John Ritchie: dob 1962; 86 Nicosia, 91 New York, 99 Nicosia, 03 London.

David George Roberts: dob 1955; 77 Jakarta, 81 Havana, 88 Madrid, 91 Paris, 96 Santiago, 00 Berne (DHM, CG).

Philip John Barclay Roberts: dob 1949; 77 Islamabad, 82 Hanoi, 84 Tokyo,91 Lisbon, 94 Bogota, 97 Vienna, 99 London.

Elizabeth Carol Robson: dob 1955; 84 Moscow, 88 Geneva, 96 Stockholm, 02 Copenhagen (DHM).

Michael John Sanderson: dob 1948; 72 Cairo, 79 New York, 84 Oslo, 93 Hong Kong, 95 London.

John Donald William Saville: dob 1960; 83 Jakarta, 88 Warsaw, 95 Vienna, 00 Havana, 03 London. (* HC, Brunei, 05)

Michael William Seaman: dob 1955; 77 Jakarta, 81 Bombay, 88 Hague, 99 Athens, 02 Tbilisi (1 Sec). (* Cllr, Kabul, 05)

Paul Raymond Sizeland: dob 1952; 81 Brussels, 85 Doha, 88 Lagos, 96 Bangkok, 00 Shanghai, 03 London.

Patrick William Sprunt: dob 1952; 78 Tokyo, 82 Brussels, 83 Bonn, 87 Tokyo, 92 New York, 99 Tokyo, 04 London.

Andrew Jeremy Stafford: dob 1953; 77 Stockholm, 79 Accra, 84 Prague, 91 Brussels, 99 Stockholm, 03 London.

Arthur David Tandy: dob 1949; 87 Riyadh, 89 London.

Anthony James Nicholas Tansley: dob 1962; 88 Riyadh, 89 Baghdad, 94 Dublin,98 Muscat, 01 London.

Duncan John Rushworth Taylor: dob 1958; 83 Havana, 92 Budapest, 00 New York (DCG).

Owen John Traylor: dob 1955; 81 Tokyo, 90 Berlin, 00 Istanbul, 04 London.

Stuart Graham Turvill: dob 1971; 95 Islamabad, 00 Accra, 03 London.

Eric Simon Charles Wall: dob 1957; 88 Geneva, 94 Kampala, 98 Harare, 01 London.

Michael John Ward: dob 1958; 85 Istanbul, 88 Paris, 97 Brussels, 02 Budapest (DHM).*

Jonathan Michael Weldin: dob 1959; 86 Sanaa, 90 Tunis, 96 Athens, 01 London.

Andrew Ronald Whitecross: dob 1949; 81 Sanaa, 85 Baghdad, 98 Muscat, 01 London.

Andrew John Whiteside: dob 1968; 95 Budapest, 02 Rome (1 Sec).*

Timothy Andrew Willasey-Wilsey: dob 1953; 83 Luanda, 86 San Jose, 93 Islamabad, 99 Geneva, 02 London.

Simon Jules Wilson: dob 1966; 91 Athens, 93 Zagreb, 99 New York, 02 Budapest (1 Sec).*

David John Woods: dob 1951; 78 Vienna, 81 Bucharest, 92 Harare, 97 Pretoria, 02 Berlin (Cllr).*

Ian Alexander Woods: dob 1951; 77 New York, 84 Berlin, 86 Bonn, 95 Warsaw, 03 Sofia (Cllr).*
MI6 Officers – Her Majesty’s Ambassadors

Jeremy John Durham Ashdown (Paddy Ashdown): dob 1941; 74 Geneva (1 Sec).

Brian Maurice Bennett: dob 1948; 73 Prague, 77 Helsinki, 83 Bridgetown, 86 Vienna, 88 Hague, 97 Tunis, 03 Minsk.*

David Graeme Blunt: dob 1953; 79 Vienna, 83 Peking, 89 Canberra, 97 Oslo,02 Gibraltar (Dep.Gov.)

Robert Edward Brinkley: dob 1954; 78 Geneva, 79 Moscow, 88 Bonn, 96 Moscow, 02 Kiev.*

Peter Salmon Collecott: dob 1950; 85 Khartoum, 82 Canberra, 89 Jakarta, 94 Bonn, 04 Brasilia.*

Charles Graham Crawford: dob 1954; 81 Belgrade, 87 Cape Town, 93 Moscow, 96 Sarajevo, 01 Belgrade, 03 Warsaw. (* Warsaw, 05)

Richard Hugh Francis Jones: dob 1962; 86 Abu Dhabi, 94 Brussels, 03 Tirana.*

Hugh Roger Mortimer: dob 1949; 75 Rome, 78 Singapore, 83 New York, 91 Berlin, 97 Ankara, 01 Ljubljana. (* DHM, Berlin, 05)

Colin Andrew Munro: dob 1946; 71 Bonn, 73 Kuala Lumpur, 81 Bucharest, 87 East Berlin,90 Frankfurt, 97 Zagreb, 01 Mostar, 03 Vienna (OSCE, Head of UK Delegation).*

John Charles Josslyn Ramsden: dob 1950; 76 Dakar, 79 Vienna, 80 Hanoi, 90 Berlin, 96 Geneva, 04 Zagreb.*

Colin Roberts: dob 1959; 90 Tokyo, 97 Paris, 01 Tokyo, 04 Vilnius.*

Damian Roderic Todd: dob 1959; 81 Pretoria, 87 Prague, 91 Bonn, 01 Bratislava.

Bernard Gerrard Whiteside: dob 1954; 83 Moscow, 86 Geneva, 91 Bogota, 02 Chisinau.*

Find this story at 27 August 2006

The British ambassador to Georgia has complained about footage of him used in a TV hoax about a Russian invasion.

There was panic in Georgia on Saturday after a TV report that Russian tanks had invaded the capital and the country’s president was dead.

It included footage of ambassador Denis Keefe, which was edited to make it look like he was talking about the invasion.

Mr Keefe has asked the TV station to make it clear he knew nothing about the “irresponsible” programme.

The TV station – pro-government Imedi TV – said the aim had been to show how events might unfold if the president were killed. It later apologised.

Networks overwhelmed

It used archive footage of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia and imagined how opposition figures might seize power after an assassination of President Mikhail Saakashvili.

But many Georgians believed it to be a real news report – mobile phone networks were overwhelmed with calls and many people rushed on to the streets.

Mr Keefe, footage of whom was included in the report, has complained about the programme on the British Embassy in Georgia’s website.
I consider Imedi TV’s misuse of this footage to be a discourtesy to me as ambassador of the United Kingdom in Georgia

Denis Keefe

Georgians question un-reality TV

He said the use of archive footage of him speaking about “real events completely unrelated to the subject of the programme was deeply misleading”.

He also complained that there had been a suggestion that the president of Georgia and the British prime minister had spoken about the “non-existent events described”.

“I wish to make clear that neither I, nor the UK government had any involvement in or foreknowledge of an irresponsible programme that unnecessarily caused deep concern amongst the Georgian public,” Mr Keefe said.

“I consider Imedi TV’s misuse of this footage to be a discourtesy to me as ambassador of the United Kingdom in Georgia, reflecting badly on Georgia’s reputation for responsible and independent media.”

…

Page last updated at 14:03 GMT, Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Find this story at 16 March 2010

BBC © 2013

It follows the recommendation by the UK director of public prosecutions that Andrei Lugovoi be tried for the crime.

Mr Lugovoi denies the charges, and the Kremlin says Russia’s constitution does not allow it to hand him over.

Former KGB officer Mr Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

The British embassy in Moscow has confirmed that the formal extradition request has been handed over, and the Russian prosecutor’s office has confirmed that the documents have been received.

Attack ‘victim’

Mr Lugovoi maintained last week that he was innocent and described himself as a “victim not a perpetrator of a radiation attack” while in London. He has called the charges “politically motivated”.

Mr Lugovoi met Mr Litvinenko on the day he fell ill.

Polonium-210 was found in a string of places Mr Lugovoi visited in London, but he has insisted he is a witness not a suspect.

The UK’s director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald said Mr Lugovoi should be extradited to stand trial for the murder of Mr Litvinenko by “deliberate poisoning”.

But the Kremlin maintains Russia’s constitution does not allow it to hand over Mr Lugovoi, a position reaffirmed by the country’s justice minister Vladimir Ustinov last week.

“The Russian constitution will stay inviolable and it will be observed to the full,” the news agency Itar-Tass quoted him as saying.

…

Published: 2007/05/28 15:56:55 GMT

Find this story at 28 May 2007

© BBC 2013

Numerous notable journalists working for some of Britain’s most prestigious publications routinely collaborated with British intelligence during the Cold War, according to a BBC investigation. In 1968, Soviet newspaper Izvestia published the contents of an alleged British government memorandum entitled “Liaison Between the BBC and SIS”. SIS, which stands for Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, is Britain’s foremost external intelligence agency. The paper, which was the official organ of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, claimed that the foreign correspondents of most leading British newspapers secretly collaborated with the British intelligence community. It also alleged that the BBC’s world radio service had agreed with MI6 to broadcast preselected sentences or songs at prearranged times. These signals were used by British intelligence officers to demonstrate to foreign recruits in the Eastern Bloc that they were operating on behalf of the UK. At the time, the BBC virulently rejected the Izvestia’s claims, calling them “black propaganda” aimed at distracting world opinion from the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops, which had taken place some months earlier. But an investigation aired this week by the BBC Radio 4’s investigative Document program suggests that the memo published by the Soviet newspaper was probably genuine. The program says it discovered a memorandum in the BBC’s archives, which laments the embarrassment caused to MI6 by the Soviet claims. The memorandum, dated April 24, 1969, describes MI6 as “our friends”. The BBC program, which is available to listen to here, discusses the Soviets’ claims that several notable British journalists were MI6 agents. They include Edward Crankshaw and David Astor of The Observer, Lord Hartwell and Roy Pawley of The Daily Telegraph, Lord Arran of The Daily Mail, Henry Brandon of The Sunday Times, and even Mark Arnold-Foster of the left-leaning Guardian newspaper. Leading veteran security and intelligence correspondent Phillip Knightley told Document that he would not be surprised if Izvestia’s claims turned out to be true.

…

March 5, 2013 by Joseph Fitsanakis 11 Comments

Find this story at 5 March 2013

Jeremy Duns examines leaked documents which suggest close links between MI6 and the British press during the Cold War.

In December 1968, the British media was shaken by a series of secret documents leaked to Soviet state newspapers. The documents claimed a range of key Fleet Street correspondents and news chiefs were working for the intelligence services. Further papers alleged close links between the BBC and MI6.

…

Duration: 28 minutes
First broadcast: Monday 04 March 2013

Find this story at 4 March 2013

BBC © 2013

Cross-Taiwan Strait relations between China and Taiwan have thawed in recent years. China, who until the late 1970s was firing artillery shells toward the island nation, has supposedly taken a softer approach to what it considers a renegade or breakaway Chinese province.

Added to this uptick in recent bilateral relations is current Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou administration’s pro-China stance. However, beneath the surface the Sino-Taiwanese dynamic is more complicated than ever. Beijing, who still has not renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under Chinese control, is malevolent. The Middle Kingdom has stepped up its espionage efforts in Taiwan, to such an extent that Taiwan’s military defensive capabilities have been compromised and Taiwan’s relations with the US, the supplier of these defense systems, has been damaged.

Just in the last year, events have unfolded, rocking this island nation of nearly 24 million and throwing its military back on its heels. In March 2012, a Taiwanese captain who worked at a regional operations center north of Taipei was detained on suspicion that he gave intelligence to China. He had assistance from an uncle that ran a business on the mainland. Taiwan’s early-warning radar systems were compromised, the country’s air-defence command and control systems and also surveillance aircraft.

On January 4, a retired Taiwanese naval officer, Chian Ching-kuo was indicted for spying for China. Chian had served as chief of the missile section on a naval warship before retiring in 2009. He was accused of passing secret intelligence to China about Taiwan’s 2011 plan to send warships to Somalia to protect Taiwanese fishing boats from pirate attacks. However, the Taiwanese plan was aborted due to political concerns.

On February 5, according to the Taipei Times, Taiwan’s High Court sentenced retired air force Lieutenant Colonel Yuan Hsiao-feng to 12 life sentences for passing classified military information to China over a period of six years. And, last October, Chang Chih-hsin, a former chief officer in charge of the political warfare division at the Naval Meteorological and Oceanography (METOC) office, and two other Taiwanese military officers were arrested on suspicion of espionage. Chang reportedly leaked classified submarine nautical charts and information about waters around Taiwan.

The Chang case could turn out to be one of the biggest spy busts in Taiwan since 2011 when Taiwanese Army Major General Lo Hsien-Che was lured into spying for China during his time in Taiwan’s representative office in Thailand. The general was caught in what Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) called a “honey trap.” In other words, Lo gave up secrets for cash and sex.

Methods and modes

In an interview with me Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis, coordinator of the Security and Intelligence Studies program at King College in the US said that Lo got involved with a young Chinese woman that had an Australian passport.

Fitsanakis who teaches classes on espionage, intelligence, international terrorism, and covert actions, said this was a textbook example of China using real-life spies and sexual entrapment (one of the top methods used by Chinese spies) to gather intelligence.

Lo was sentenced to life in prison and bas been incarcerated since July 2011, however the Chang case is still playing out.

The Chang case intensifies

On February 4, news broke that a Taiwanese rear-admiral was questioned by military prosecutors in connection with an investigation into alleged leaks in the Chang investigation. The Ministry of National Defense (MND) did not disclose the admiral’s identity, however he is still on active duty and until this month served as commander of a fleet. Local media reports quoting military officials claim that the navy has reassigned another officer to take the rear admiral’s position.

Added to the fray is news that broke on February 15 that a Taiwanese army officer had been transferred after one of his relatives was also allegedly involved in the Chang case. This time it was Army Major Gen. Wu Chin-Chun, who originally headed the MND’s legislative liaison office and was an aide to Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu.

All of this brings up some poignant questions. What would motivate a career military officer to betray his country? How much damage has been caused by these recent security breaches? Since the US supplies much of Taiwanese military technology according to Fitsanakis, what fall out has these events had on US-Taiwanese relations? How does China’s spy network operate, why have they intensified its spy ring in Taiwan and what is Taiwan fighting back?

Selling Secrets to the Mainland: Military Espionage in Taiwan (part 2)

The question of why so many Taiwanese military officers would betray their country is a complicated one, as complicated as the six-decade plus relationship between China and Taiwan itself.

Professor Fitsanakis told me that as relations between China and Taiwan warmed in the last 10-15 years, more interaction has taken place. As this plays out, he said, it’s easier for China to find disgruntled employees to influence. In addition, China now has vast amounts of foreign currency at its disposal and finds it increasingly easy to use bribery.

A long-time Chinese watcher based in Taiwan, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that it was partly Taiwan’s fault.

“They [Taiwan] takes a military officer and basically sticks him in a concrete room or office with low pay and expects him to serve like that for years. It breads discontent, even anger,” he said.

He added that the spying problem in Taiwan is worse than what the media reports and that there are taxi-drivers, teachers and people across all stratum of society that are either gathering information for China or are open to the idea.

If so, it’s a chilling disclosure. The extent of the fall-out from these security breaches in Taiwan’s military apparatus depends on who you ask. Not surprisingly, the Taiwanese military negates the extent of the damage.

However, others disagree. Commenting on the General Lo case, J. Michael Cole, a former intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and deputy news editor at the Taipei Times wrote in October that it was hard to contain the damage, “especially as doubts remained over how much access he [Lo] had to the nation’s Command, Control, Communications, Computer Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, which Taiwan has been modernizing with US assistance for well over a decade.”

Fitsanakis said that recent military secret leaks in Taiwan, while significant in the short term, are not catastrophic.

“The major casualty of this is the relationship of trust between Taiwan and the US,” he said. “Many in Washington are increasingly hesitant to supply Taiwan with sensitive military technology because they fear penetration by the Chinese.”

Fitsanakis added that while nobody in the State Department would admit it publicaly, it’s subverting US-Taiwanese relations. Yet, to understand the problem that Taiwan is facing, more background information is needed on how China’s spy network began and how it operates. China’s main intelligence gathering agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), is the world’s most secret agency according to experts and engages in military intelligence and counterintelligence operations.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, the organizational structure of the MSS reflects the structure of the Russian KGB.

“In terms of personnel, the MSS favors non-professional intelligence agents such as travelers, businessmen, and academics with a special emphasis on the overseas Chinese students and high-tech Chinese professionals working abroad with access to sensitive technological material,” GlobalSecurity states.

Fitsanakis said that the MSS is not as technologically advanced as other intelligence gathering agencies but makes up for it in sheer size. For example, he said that reports indicated that the MSS has around 40,000 agents operating in Germany alone.

As a comparison, though the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) states that neither the number of its employees nor the size of the agency’s budget can be publicly disclosed, the CIA has around 60,000 agents in its ranks according to some analysts.

Going after Mei Guo

All of this beckons the question, if Sino-Taiwanese relations are improving, then why the increase in Chinese spying activity? The answer is simple: America (Mei Guo).

“China has been increasingly aggressive since the early 1990s in recruiting Taiwanese to spy,” Fitsanakis said. “Notably the need to spy on US military systems (early warning systems, missile systems) which are easier to access in Taiwan than in the US.” According to Fitsanakis both have been compromised in recent years.

He added that this would not change in the foreseeable future because weapons systems are the most coveted intel of any country. Beijing has also intensified its spying activities in recent years to confront what is sees as US encirclement in the Asia Pacific region as well as a safeguard to secure energy routes through the East China and South China Seas.

…

By Tim Daiss

Wednesday, 27 February 2013 at 3:29 pm

Find this story at 27 February 2013
And at 28 February 2013

©independent.co.uk

Last week I spoke about the current state of the espionage war between China and Taiwan with Tim Daiss, a Southeast Asia-based American journalist who has been covering the Asia-Pacific region for over a decade. Our discussion formed the basis of a comprehensive piece on the subject, published in British newspaper The Independent, in two parts (part one and part two). It told Daiss that the Ministry of State Security —China’s primary national intelligence agency— is not known for its technological prowess. However, the sheer size of Beijing’s intelligence apparatus is proving a good match for the more advanced automated systems used by its less populous regional rivals, including Taiwan. When it comes to traditional human intelligence, the Chinese have been known to employ time-tested methods such as sexual entrapment or blackmail, as was confirmed most recently in the case of Taiwanese Major-General Lo Hsien-che. Lo, who headed the Taiwanese military’s Office of Communications and Information, was convicted of sharing classified top-secret information with a female Chinese operative in her early 30s, who held an Australian passport. During his trial, which marked the culmination of Taiwan’s biggest spy scandal in over half a century, Lo admitted that the Chinese female spy “cajoled him with sex and money”. In addition to honey-trap techniques, Chinese spies collect intelligence by way of bribery, as do many of their foreign colleagues. In the case of China, however, a notable change in recent years has been the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of foreign currency, which make it easier for Chinese intelligence operatives to entice foreign assets, such as disgruntled or near-bankrupt state employees, to sell classified data.

In the case of Taiwan, China’s primary intelligence targets are weapons systems, especially those originating in the United States. The island-nation possesses export-versions of some of America’s most advanced weaponry, and it is far easier for Beijing to access such weapons in Taiwan than on US soil. Taiwan is both geographically and culturally familiar to Chinese intelligence operatives, who do not have to try too hard to blend into Taiwanese society. I told The Independent that, based on publicly available information about recent espionage cases, it would be safe to assume that Chinese intelligence has gained access to substantial classified information on some of Taiwan’s most advanced US-made defense systems. These include the Lockheed Martin/Raytheon-built Patriot missile defense system deployed on the island, as well as the Po Shen command and control system, which is designed to facilitate critical battlefield communications between Taiwan’s navy, army and air force.

I argue in the interview with the London-based paper that China’s success in penetrating Taiwan’s defense systems is having a significant impact on bilateral relations between Washington and Taipei. On the one hand, the United States is committed on preserving its alliance with Taiwan, for both geostrategic and symbolic purposes. But, on the other hand, American defense planners are weary of the damage caused to US military strategy by the exposure of some of Washington’s most coveted weapons systems to Chinese intelligence by way of Taiwan. As I told Daiss, while nobody at the US Pentagon or State Department would admit it publicly, “many in Washington are increasingly hesitant to supply Taiwan with sensitive military technology because they fear penetration by the Chinese”.

…

March 1, 2013 by Joseph Fitsanakis

Find this story at 1 March 2013

Andrei Lugovoy said he had ‘lost all faith in the opportunity of an unbiased investigation in Britain’

A former KGB officer suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko has announced he will not take part in the coroner’s inquest due to take place later this year and attacked the British police and courts as “politically motivated”.

Andrei Lugovoy, now a politician in Russia, told a hastily assembled press conference that he had lost faith in British justice and said he would take no further steps to clear his name.

It emerged last year that at the time of his death in 2006, after being poisoned with radioactive polonium, Mr Litvinenko had been a paid agent for MI6 and was dealt with by a handler known as “Martin”.

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has asked for unspecified evidence relating to the case to be heard in secret for national security reasons. The move has been opposed by Mr Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, but last month the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, ruled that he would hold a hearing behind closed doors to see the Government’s evidence. The inquest is due to formally open on 1 May.

Russia has refused to extradite Mr Lugovoy, who is wanted by the Metropolitan Police in connection with the killing of Mr Litvinenko, who died after an agonising ordeal in hospital. Doctors diagnosed his condition as polonium poisoning just before he died.

Mr Lugovoy said: “I lost all faith in the opportunity of an unbiased investigation in Britain. It’s not clear how I can defend myself and oppose arguments that are not going to be made public. Who will evaluate the truthfulness of secret facts?”

During the press conference, he held up a Scotland Yard report to the coroner, which he said had been provided to him by British authorities under a non-disclosure agreement. He said the few facts contained in the report proved his version of events, claiming it established that the polonium trail led from London back to Moscow, rather than the other way round. He said the rest was a mix of “politically motivated rumours and gossip” designed to smear him and Russia.

…

Shaun Walker

Moscow

Tuesday 12 March 2013

Find this story at 12 March 2013

© independent.co.uk

Andrei Lugovoi, who is now an elected official in Russia, says he won’t talk even by video to British investigators about the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London just over six years ago.

During a Tuesday press conference in Moscow, KGB-officer-turned-parliamentarian Andrei Lugovoi holds papers about the 2006 poisoning of former Russian agent turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London that he said he got from Scotland Yard,

The murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London just over six years ago, using what must be the world’s most exotic poison, radioactive polonium 210, has never been solved and remains the subject of conflicting narratives and still-deepening intrigue over who may have killed him and why.
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Now it appears that a British public inquest that aimed to find definitive answers to those questions, slated to open in May, may have virtually no chance of getting to the bottom of it.

On Tuesday, the main suspect in the case, Russian KGB-officer-turned-parliamentarian Andrei Lugovoi, said he will not travel to Britain to give testimony or even provide evidence via video link.

RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

“I have come to the conclusion that the British authorities will not give me an opportunity to prove my innocence and that I will not be able to find justice in Great Britain,” Mr. Lugovoi told a Moscow press conference.

“I have definitely lost my faith in the possibility of an unbiased investigation of this case in Great Britain. I have to state that I am withdrawing from the coroner’s investigation and will no longer participate in it,” he said.

No one denies that Lugovoi and his business partner Dmitry Kovtun met with Litvinenko in a London bar on the day he fell ill. British investigators later established that Litvinenko’s teacup at that meeting was contaminated with polonium-210, and thus was almost certainly the murder weapon. Traces of polonium, a substance that’s almost impossible to obtain except by governments, were later found in Mr. Kovtun’s apartment in Germany and on the clothes of both Kovtun and Lugovoi.

Britain demanded at the time that Lugovoi be returned to London to stand trial for murder. But Russia refused, saying the Russian Constitution prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens. Lugovoi was subsequently elected to the State Duma on the ticket of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, where he is still a member enjoying parliamentary immunity.

The upcoming inquest, where witnesses must testify under oath, has been regarded as the last chance to unravel all the conflicting stories and perhaps arrive at the truth.

But its prospects for success have already been under doubt due to the British government’s efforts to limit access to sensitive materials about the case which some critics claim it is doing as part of a deal with Russia aimed at improving ties between the two countries.

But, until today, Lugovoi had insisted that he was ready to cooperate with the investigation. And Russian authorities have repeatedly said they too want to see the truth revealed.
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The murder of Mr. Litvinenko led to a prolonged chill in Russian-British relations which has only recently begun to abate.

The main suspicion in the West all along has been that Litvinenko was killed on the order of Russian authorities because he had publicly disclosed secrets of the FSB security service and then defected to Britain in 2000, where he continued to make dark and sweeping allegations against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.

A good deal of the evidence since dredged up by Western investigative journalists points to Russia — if not the Kremlin directly — as the source of the polonium that killed him and probably the motive for doing so as well.

The Russians have countered with various theories, including that Litvinenko may have been murdered by his sponsor and friend, renegade Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, in a plot to blame Russia for poisoning an outspoken critic and blacken the reputation of Mr. Putin.

Lugovoi has argued that Litvinenko must have obtained the polonium on his own, and either killed himself with it or was murdered by someone else. Last year Lugovoi took a lie detector test in Moscow, widely covered by Russian media, which reportedly upheld his claim of noninvolvement in Litvinenko’s death.

Complicating the picture are persistent allegations that, after receiving asylum in Britain in 2001, Litvinenko went to work for the British intelligence service MI6, providing information about the FSB and the activities of the Russian mafia.

Though Litvinenko’s widow earlier denied that her husband had been working for British secret services, her lawyer recently told the Kremlin-funded RT network that “at the time of his death Litvinenko had been for a number of years a regular and paid agent and employee of MI6 with a dedicated handler whose pseudonym was Martin.”

…

By Fred Weir, Correspondent / March 12, 2013

Find this story at 12 March 2013

© The Christian Science Monitor

A coroner is to hold a private hearing to decide if an inquest into the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko should hear secret evidence from the intelligence services.

Lawyers for the dissident’s widow, Marina, will be excluded from the special session.

…

27 February 2013

Find this 27 February 2013

© 2012 Evening Standard Limited

LONDON — A lawyer for the family of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko accused the British and Russian governments Tuesday of trying to stymie a long-delayed inquest into his poisoning death.

Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence agent turned Kremlin critic, died in London in November 2006 after drinking tea laced with the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210.

The allegations of a cover-up came at a London court hearing where British media organizations challenged a government bid to hold parts of the inquest in secret for security reasons. In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies violently, unexpectedly or in disputed circumstances.

Ben Emmerson, the lawyer for Litvinenko’s widow Marina, said the government’s quest for secrecy was delaying proceedings and suggested that foreign policy — namely trade relations — could be at the heart of the matter.

“We know nothing about why these applications are being made, and we are dancing in the dark,” he told coroner Robert Owen. “This is beginning to look like you’re being steamrollered by two states acting in collaboration with each other.”

Lawyers for Litvinenko’s family say that at the time of his death he was working for the British intelligence services, and Britain accuses two Russians of the killing. Moscow authorities have refused to extradite them for trial.

British government lawyer Neil Sheldon said “the disclosure of the material in question would pose a real risk to the public interest.”

Emmerson, who said the inquest is “shaping up to be a stain on British justice,” called the government’s arguments for secrecy absurd.

Alex Bailin, the lawyer representing prominent British media organizations, insisted that at the very least the government must clarify what issues are at stake and what harm they could cause.

Failing to do so, he said, “would have the very serious effect of undermining the public’s confidence in this inquest.”

…

26 February 2013 | Issue 5077
The Associated Press

Find this story at 26 February 2013

© Copyright 1992-2013. The Moscow Times

The public may be excluded from part of a pre-inquest hearing into the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

A coroner was today considering an application from the government to keep some information secret at the forthcoming inquest.

Mr Litvinenko died at a London hospital in November 2006, three weeks after drinking tea which had been poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

…

26 February 2013

Find this story at 26 February 2013

© 2012 Evening Standard Limited

Media groups including Guardian will challenge government over attempt to conceal sensitive documents

Alexander Litvinenko pictured shortly before his death in 2006. Photograph: Natasja Weitsz/Getty Images

Media groups will on Tuesday challenge what they describe as a “deeply troubling” attempt by the government to withhold evidence from the inquest into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Guardian, the BBC, the Financial Times and other newspapers are challenging a submission by the foreign secretary, William Hague, to conceal sensitive documents. Hague argues the material could harm “national security”, as well as the UK’s “international relations”.

The government has refused to say what evidence it wants to hide. But it is likely to deal with revelations made at a hearing in December that at the time of his poisoning in November 2006 Litvinenko was actively working for the British secret services.

Litvinenko was also a “paid agent” of the Spanish security services. MI6 encouraged him to supply information to the Spanish about Russian mafia activities, and alleged links between top organised criminals and the Kremlin, the hearing was told.

Litvinenko travelled to Spain in 2006 and met his MI6 handler, “Martin”, shortly before his fateful encounter with Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, the two men accused of killing him. The inquest – scheduled to begin in May – will hear claims that the pair were part of a “Russian state” plot to murder Litvinenko using radioactive polonium.

The fact that Litvinenko – a former Russian spy – was working for MI6 raises embarrassing questions as to whether British intelligence should have done more to protect him. Litvinenko had a dedicated phone to contact “Martin” and received regular payments to his bank account from MI6 and Madrid, it emerged in December.

In making their submission to the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, on Tuesday, the media groups will seek to argue that Hague’s attempt to withhold evidence could undermine public confidence in the inquest. Currently the media – as well as Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, and son, Anatoly, – are “completely in the dark” over what material the FCO seeks to exclude.

The media groups will seek to persuade the coroner that the government has also failed to explain what “harm” the release of the information might cause. Nor has it properly considered “lesser measures”, such as redaction, which would allow some disclosure of sensitive documents, or the possibility of closed sessions.

Alex Bailin QC, the lawyer acting for the Guardian, will argue that “the public and media are faced with a situation where a public inquest into a death … may have large amounts of highly relevant evidence excluded from consideration by the inquest. Such a prospect is deeply troubling.”

There are grave public concerns that allegations of “state-sponsored assassination” on the streets of London require “maximum openness”. Additionally, the inquest is likely to be the only judicial forum where evidence will be heard, since the Kremlin has refused to extradite Lugovoi and Kovtun.

Speaking on Monday, Litvinenko’s friend Alex Goldfarb said the foreign secretary appeared unwilling to offend Russia’s “vindictive” president. Goldfarb told the Guardian: “I recognise that Mr Hague has a well-founded interest not to rock the boat with [Vladimir] Putin. He’s afraid. He’s afraid Putin will not vote the way he wants in the UN or squeeze Britain’s interests.”

He added: “The inquest is a balance between the interests of international relations and justice. The bottom line is how far do you compromise with your own justice and decency, and the benefits from doing business with arrogant, murderous and dictatorial foreign states?”

Goldfarb said forensic evidence and reports from Scotland Yard had already been disclosed to interested parties. But he said he was worried the government wanted to keep secret highly sensitive documents showing links between Russian mobsters in Spain and “Putin’s inner circle”. “That’s what Sasha [Litvinenko] was up to,” Goldfarb said.

An FCO spokesperson said: “The government has made an application to the court for public interest immunity in line with its duty to protect national security and the coroner is responsible for deciding that application based on the overall public interest.”

Owen is due to hear submissions from the media at a hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday. He has previously indicated that he wants the inquest to be as open and broad as possible.

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Mark Jenner lived with a woman under a fake name. Now she has testified to MPs about the ‘betrayal and humiliation’ she felt

Mark Jenner, the undercover officer in the Metropolitan police’s special demonstration squad, who went by the name of Mark Cassidy for six years – then disappeared.

He was a burly, funny scouser called Mark Cassidy. His girlfriend – a secondary school teacher he shared a flat with for four years – believed they were almost “man and wife”. Then, in 2000, as the couple were discussing plans for the future, Cassidy suddenly vanished, never to be seen again.

An investigation by the Guardian has established that his real name is Mark Jenner. He was an undercover police officer in the Metropolitan police’s special demonstration squad (SDS), one of two units that specialised in infiltrating protest groups.

His girlfriend, whose story can be told for the first time as her evidence to a parliamentary inquiry is made public, said living with a police spy has had an “enormous impact” on her life.

“It has impacted seriously on my ability to trust, and that has impacted on my current relationship and other subsequent relationships,” she said, adopting the pseudonym Alison. “It has also distorted my perceptions of love and my perceptions of sex.”

Alison is one of four women to testify to the House of Commons home affairs select committee last month.

Another woman said she had been psychologically traumatised after discovering that the father of her child, who she thought had disappeared, was Bob Lambert, a police spy who vanished from her life in the late 1980s.

A third woman, speaking publicly for the first time about her six-year relationship with Mark Kennedy, a police officer who infiltrated environmental protest groups, said: “You could … imagine that your phone might be tapped or that somebody might look at your emails, but to know that there was somebody in your bed for six years, that somebody was involved in your family life to such a degree, that was an absolute shock.”

Their moving testimony led the committee to declare that undercover operations have had a “terrible impact” on the lives of innocent women.

The MPs are so troubled about the treatment of the women – as well as the “ghoulish” practice in which undercover police adopted the identities of dead children – that they have called for an urgent clean-up of the laws governing covert surveillance operations.

Jenner infiltrated leftwing political groups from 1994 to 2000, pretending to be a joiner interested in radical politics. For much of his deployment, he was under the command of Lambert, who was by then promoted to head of operations of the SDS.

While posing as Cassidy, he could be coarse but also irreverent and funny. The undercover officer saw himself as something of a poet. A touch over 6ft, he had a broad neck, large shoulders and exuded a tough, working-class quality.

By the spring of 1995, Jenner began a relationship with Alison and soon moved into her flat. “We lived together as what I would describe as man and wife,” she said. “He was completely integrated into my life for five years.”

Jenner met her relatives, who trusted him as her long-term partner. He accompanied Alison to her mother’s second wedding. “He is in my mother’s wedding photograph,” she said. Family videos of her nephew’s and niece’s birthdays show Jenner teasing his girlfriend fondly. Others record him telling her late grandmother about his fictionalised family background.

Alison, a peaceful campaigner involved in leftwing political causes, believes she inadvertently provided the man she knew as Mark Cassidy with “an excellent cover story”, helping persuade other activists he was a genuine person.

“People trusted me, people knew that I was who I said I was, and people believed, therefore, that he must be who he said he was because he was welcomed into my family,” she said.

It was not unusual for undercover operatives working for the SDS or its sister squad, the national public order unit, to have sexual relationships with women they were spying on. Of the 11 undercover police officers publicly identified, nine had intimate sexual relations with activists. Most were long-term, meaningful relationships with women who believed they were in a loving partnership.

Usually these spies were told to spend at least one or two days a week off-duty, when they would change clothes and return to their real lives. However, Jenner, who had a wife, appears to have lived more or less permanently with Alison, rarely leaving their shared flat in London.

It was an arrangement that caused personal problems for the Jenners. At one stage, he is known to have attended counselling to repair his relationship with his wife. Bizarrely, at about the same time, he was also consulting a second relationship counsellor with Alison.

“I met him when I was 29,” she said. “It was the time when I wanted to have children, and for the last 18 months of our relationship he went to relationship counselling with me about the fact that I wanted children and he did not.”

Jenner disentangled himself from the deployment in 2000, disappearing suddenly from Alison’s flat after months pretending to suffer from depression.

The police spy left her a note which read: “We want different things. I can’t cope … When I said I loved you, I meant it, but I can’t do it.” He claimed he was going to Germany to look for work.

It was all standard procedure for the SDS. Some operatives ended their deployments by pretending to have a breakdown and vanishing, supposedly to go abroad, sending a few letters to their girlfriends with foreign postmarks.

Alison was left heartbroken and paranoid, feeling that she was losing her mind. She spent more than a decade investigating Jenner’s background, hiring a private detective to try to track him down. She had no idea he was actually working a few miles away at Scotland Yard, where he is understood to still work as a police officer today.

The strongest clue to Jenner’s real identity came from an incident she recalled from years earlier when he was still living with her. “I discovered he made an error with a credit card about a year and a half into our relationship,” she said. “It was in the name Jenner and I asked him what it was and he told me he bought it off a man in a pub and he had never used it. He asked me to promise to never tell anyone.”

The Metropolitan police refused to comment on whether Jenner was a police spy. “We are not prepared to confirm or deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations,” it said.

Alison told MPs that the “betrayal and humiliation” she suffered was beyond normal. “This is not about just a lying boyfriend or a boyfriend who has cheated on you,” she said. “It is about a fictional character who was created by the state and funded by taxpayers’ money. The experience has left me with many, many unanswered questions, and one of those that comes back is: how much of the relationship was real?”

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Friday 1 March 2013

Find this story at 1 March 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Inquiry hears claims of 10 or more women having sexual relations with undercover officer who infiltrated eco-activists

Mark Kennedy’s evidence saying he had sexual relationships with two people is disputed by women taking legal action against the police. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

Mark Kennedy, the police spy who infiltrated the environmental movement, appears to have misled parliament over the number of sexual relationships he had with women while he was working undercover.

Kennedy told a parliamentary inquiry that he had only two relationships during the seven years he spied on environmental groups.

However, at least four women had come forward to say that he slept with them when he was a police spy.

Friends who knew Kennedy when he was living as an eco-activist in Nottingham have identified more than 10 women with whom he slept.

Kennedy was the only undercover police officer to give evidence to the inquiry conducted by the home affairs select committee.

He testified in private, but transcripts of his evidence released on Thursday reveal that he claimed he had sexual relationships with “two individuals”.

But three women who say they are Kennedy’s former lovers are part of an 11-strong group taking legal action against police chiefs for damages.

A fourth, named Anna, previously told the Guardian she felt “violated” by her sexual relationship with Kennedy, which lasted several months.

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Friday 1 March 2013

Find this story at 1 March 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.