Taiwan has arrested three retired military officers on suspicion of spying for China, allegations that have unsettled lawmakers fearful that state secrets could be leaked to Beijing.

The accused include the former chief of political warfare at the Taiwanese naval meteorology and oceanography office, according a Ministry of National Defense statement sent Monday to local media. The ministry said Chang Chih-hsin had initiated contacts with Chinese officials during his service and was suspected of luring fellow officers and “making illegal gains.”

The office is seen as especially sensitive because it holds information about Taiwanese submarines and hidden ambush zones. “This has gravely endangered Taiwan’s security,” ruling party lawmaker Lin Yu-fang was quoted by the Taipei Times. “It’s a shame for the military.”

As the news spread, the ministry downplayed the risks, saying that no “confidential information” had been leaked to Beijing. The Chinese office for Taiwan affairs told the Global Times, a paper linked to the Communist Party, that it knew nothing about the alleged spying.
That failed to reassure politicians in Taiwan, which has sought to ease tensions and strengthen economic ties with a country that still sees it as a breakaway territory. Trade, investment and tourism have been liberalized between Taipei and Beijing, boosting the Taiwanese economy.

On the surface, relations between Taiwan and China seem peaceful, said Kwei-Bo Huang, director of the Center for Foreign Policy Studies at National Chengchi University. “But deep down, the intelligence warfare hasn’t stopped,” he said. Last summer, an army general was jailed for life for selling secrets to China, the most striking case of espionage yet. Opposition politicians argued episodes of alleged spying show that Taiwan has veered too far in embracing China under President Ma Ying-jeou.

The president has slipped in popularity since he first won election four years ago, when his opponents were hobbled by a corruption scandal, forcing him to defend his increased openness toward China.

“These kinds of activities undermine the confidence of the Taiwanese public towards any friendly gesture at all,” said Dean P. Chen, assistant professor of political science at Ramapo College of New Jersey. “It could easily undermine his China policy.”

The phenomenon of retired military officials heading to China has caused particular concern in Taiwan that secrets could be spilled. Without institutional channels to communicate about military issues, Chen said, officers have ended up chatting informally instead.

“In the absence of an institutionalized arrangement, they lack ideas of what is right to say and what is not right to say. Nobody really knows where to apply a brake,” he said. Creating clearer channels for discussion, Chen added, could help quash under-the-table talk.

…

October 30, 2012 | 7:37 am

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Taiwan has arrested three retired military officers suspected of spying for China, officials say.

One of the officers, identified by local media as Chang Chih-hsin, was the former political warfare head of the meteorology and oceanography office.

The Defence Ministry has said that Mr Chang did not leak sensitive material.

But local media warn his department handled highly classified data, including maps for submarines, hidden ambush zones and coastal defence areas.

“Chang, who initiated contacts with Chinese mainland officials while still serving in the navy, was suspected of luring his former colleagues and making illegal gains,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry had been investigating Mr Chang even before he retired in May and visited China in August, reports say.

While a Defence Ministry spokesman has confirmed the arrest of three former military officials, other media reports say that a total of eight officers have been arrested.

The case is raising questions about the increasing practice in recent years of Taiwan’s retired officers, including generals, visiting China, says the BBC’s Cindy Sui in Taipei.

…

29 October 2012 Last updated at 09:49 GMT

Find this story at 29 October 2012 

BBC © 2012 The BBC is not responsible for the content

Authorities in Taiwan have announced the arrest at least eight current and former military officers on suspicion of conducting espionage on behalf of China. The eight are accused of leaking Taiwanese military secrets to Beijing, in a case that some Taiwanese legislators described yesterday as one of the most serious instances of espionage in the island’s history. According to official statements issued yesterday, the person in charge of the alleged spy ring appears to be Lieutenant Colonel Chang Chin-hsin, who until his retirement earlier this year was charge of political warfare at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) Office. Based outside of Taipei, METOC is in charge of producing mapping data for use by Taiwan’s naval forces, including cartographic manuals used by Taiwanese warships and submarines guarding the Taiwanese coastline. Taiwanese authorities allege that Chang “initiated contacts” with Chinese mainland officials while still serving in the Taiwanese Navy. Following his recruitment, Chang gradually enlisted several other members of the Taiwanese military by offering hefty monetary bribes in exchange for military secrets. Taipei authorities claim that they found out about Chang’s espionage activities in March of this year, and that Taiwan’s Military Prosecutors Office gathered evidence against him before he was able to seriously compromise national security. David Lo, a spokesman at Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, told journalists yesterday that, as a result of the early tip-off and related counterintelligence precautions, Chang had “limited access to sensitive information”.

…

October 30, 2012 by Ian Allen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |

Find this story at 30 October 2012

Files from the Security Service (MI5) released to The National Archives today include the personal post-war diaries of Guy Liddell, then Deputy Director General of MI5.

Liddell’s diaries cover the period 1945 to 1953 and provide a fascinating new insight into the early Cold War era. Daily entries record Liddell’s impressions of key moments including the discovery in 1949 that the Soviet Union had tested its first atomic bomb, the uncovering of the spy Klaus Fuchs and the defection of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

During the Second World War, Liddell had been head of counter-espionage, and his wartime diaries were released to The National Archives in 2002 (KV 4/185-196).

This 29th release of Security Service records contains 77 files and brings the total number of Security Service records in the KV series at The National Archives to 5,003.

Liddell’s diaries are available to view online and will be free to download for one month. Professor Christopher Andrew, author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, has recorded a podcast about the new files.
Highlights

Other highlights from this release, available to view at Kew, include:
A ten-volume file on one of Britain’s leading Communist journalists, Sam Lesser, which covers his career from his time as a volunteer with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War to becoming the Daily Worker’s foreign correspondent and foreign editor at the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s (KV 2/3741-KV 2/3750)
Austro-German Prince Hubertus Lowenstein came to Britain after Hitler took power in Germany. An active, if eccentric, anti-Nazi he was anxious to build a Germany free from National Socialism and his personal ambition was said to be no less than the German throne (KV 2/3716)
Catholic priest Henry Borynski served in a largely Polish parish in Bradford in the early 1950s before his sudden and unexplained disappearance in 1953. There was initial speculation that he had been ‘kidnapped by Red Agents and taken behind the Iron Curtain’ but the case remains unsolved (KV 2/3722-KV 2/3724)

Find this story at 26 October 2012

LONDON — Overstaffed, overconfident and all too often over here.

That’s how a top British spymaster saw his American counterparts at the FBI and CIA, according to newly declassified diaries from the years after World War II.

Friction between British spies and their American colleagues is a recurring theme in journals kept by Guy Liddell, the postwar deputy director of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5.

The diaries, published for the first time Friday by Britain’s National Archives, show Liddell was frustrated by FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover — “a cross between a political gangster and a prima donna” — and skeptical of the brand-new U.S. espionage service, the CIA.

“In the course of time … they may produce something of value,” Liddell wrote of the CIA in September 1947 after a meeting with its deputy director, Edwin Kennedy Wright.

“There is a great deal of ‘dissemination, evaluation and coordination,’ but of course the thing that really matters is whether they have anything that is worth disseminating, evaluating, or coordinating,” Liddell said.

Liddell also noted that Wright had told British intelligence officials that “in an American organization 500 people were employed to do what 50 people would do over here.”

Archives historian Stephen Twigge said the transatlantic relationship was marked by “a certain friction towards what the British might think of as the Johnny-come-latelies in the CIA.”

Britain and the U.S. were staunch wartime and Cold War allies, but the intelligence-sharing relationship was sometimes troubled. It reached a low ebb after the conviction in 1950 of Klaus Fuchs, a German-British nuclear scientist charged with passing atomic weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.

Hoover, outraged by the security lapse and angered that Britain would not let the Americans interview Fuchs in prison, threatened to cut off intelligence cooperation.

Liddell accused Hoover of “unscrupulous” behavior.

“Hoover, finding himself in something of a jam, is obviously taking British security for a ride … Hoover’s next move was to go before some other committee and say that the British made a muck of the Fuchs case,” he wrote.

Liddell called the American attitude “wholly wrong, stupid and unreasonable.”

“It merely shows how utterly incapable they are of seeing anybody’s point of view except their own, and that they are quite ready to cut off their noses to spite their faces!”

Twigge, however, said the Americans had a point — “half the British secret service turns out to have been penetrated by Soviet intelligence.”

The diaries cover a dark period for British intelligence, during which several senior agents were exposed as Soviet spies. Liddell was tainted by his friendship with Guy Burgess, one of the “Cambridge Spies” secretly working for the Russians.

The diaries show that Liddell doubted Burgess’ guilt. “My own view was that Guy Burgess was not the sort of person who would deliberately pass confidential information to unauthorized parties,” he wrote in 1950.

Liddell was shaken by the disappearance of Burgess and Donald Maclean, who defected to Moscow in 1951, and was himself questioned as a possible double agent. He retired from MI5 in 1953 and died of heart failure in 1958.

“As time has gone on it’s pretty apparent he wasn’t a Soviet agent,” Twigge said. “Just unlucky in his friends.”

A previous installment of Liddell’s diaries, covering World War II, was declassified in 2002.

The new volumes reveal the life of a postwar spymaster to be extremely varied. Liddell attended the Nuremberg trials of senior Nazis, where he saw figures including Hermann Goering — “one of the few who had much spunk left in him” — and Rudolf Hess, who “appeared to be entirely indifferent to the proceedings.”

Another entry recorded a briefing about a UFO sighting, of which Liddell was skeptical.

…

By Associated Press, Published: October 25

Find this story at 25 October 2012

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© The Washington Post Company

Il merito della cattura del rais sarebbe stato dei servizi di Parigi. Il Colonnello «venduto» all’Occidente da Assad

TRIPOLI – Sarebbe stato un «agente straniero», e non le brigate rivoluzionarie libiche, a sparare il colpo di pistola alla testa che avrebbe ucciso Moammar Gheddafi il 20 ottobre dell’anno scorso alla periferia di Sirte. Non è la prima volta che in Libia viene messa in dubbio la versione ufficiale e più diffusa sulla fine del Colonnello. Ma ora è lo stesso Mahmoud Jibril, ex premier del governo transitorio e al momento in lizza per la guida del Paese dopo le elezioni parlamentari del 7 luglio, a rilanciare la versione del complotto ordito da un servizio segreto estero. «Fu un agente straniero mischiato alle brigate rivoluzionarie a uccidere Gheddafi», ha dichiarato due giorni fa durante un’intervista con l’emittente egiziana «Sogno Tv» al Cairo, dove si trova per partecipare ad un dibattito sulle Primavere arabe.

PISTA FRANCESE – Tra gli ambienti diplomatici occidentali nella capitale libica il commento ufficioso più diffuso è che, se davvero ci fu la mano di un sicario al servizio degli 007 stranieri, questa «quasi certamente era francese». Il ragionamento è noto. Fin dall’inizio del sostegno Nato alla rivoluzione, fortemente voluto dal governo di Nicolas Sarkozy, Gheddafi minacciò apertamente di rivelare i dettagli dei suoi rapporti con l’ex presidente francese, compresi i milioni di dollari versati per finanziare la sua candidatura e la campagna alle elezioni del 2007. «Sarkozy aveva tutti i motivi per cercare di far tacere il Colonnello e il più rapidamente possibile», ci hanno ripetuto ieri fonti diplomatiche europee a Tripoli.

RIVELAZIONI – Questa tesi è rafforzata dalle rivelazioni raccolte dal «Corriere» tre giorni fa a Bengasi. Qui Rami El Obeidi, ex responsabile per i rapporti con le agenzie di informazioni straniere per conto del Consiglio Nazionale Transitorio (l’ex organismo di autogoverno dei rivoluzionari libici) sino alle metà del 2011, ci ha raccontato le sue conoscenze sulle modalità che permisero alla Nato di individuare il luogo dove si era nascosto il Colonnello dopo la liberazione di Tripoli per mano dei rivoluzionari tra il 20 e 23 agosto 2011. «Allora si riteneva che Gheddafi fosse fuggito nel deserto e verso il confine meridionale della Libia assieme ad un manipolo di seguaci con l’intenzione di riorganizzare la resistenza», spiega El Obeidi. La notizia era ripetuta di continuo dagli stessi rivoluzionari, che avevano intensificato gli attacchi sulla regione a sud di Bani Walid e verso le oasi meridionali. In realtà Gheddafi aveva trovato rifugio nella città lealista di Sirte. Aggiunge El Obeidi: «Qui il rais cercò di comunicare tramite il suo satellitare Iridium con una serie di fedelissimi fuggiti in Siria sotto la protezione di Bashar Assad. Tra loro c’era anche il suo delfino per la propaganda televisiva, Yusuf Shakir (oggi sarebbe sano e salvo in incognito a Praga).

…

Dal nostro inviato LORENZO CREMONESI

Dal nostro inviato LORENZO CREMONESI

Find this story at 1 October 2012

Copyright 2012 © RCS Mediagroup S.p.a. Tutti i diritti sono riservati

A U-28A plane, painted in a civilian paint scheme, is seen about to touch down on a landing strip, in this file photo. (US Airforce)

America’s top commander in Africa revealed that the U.S. military has conducted spy operations all over the continent as part of the fight against international adversaries from al Qaeda-allied terror groups that target the homeland to suspected war criminals like Joseph Kony.

“Do we collect information across Africa? Yes, we do,” U.S. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command, said in a leadership conference at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies Monday.

In an attempt to clarify recent press reports that the U.S. military had set up “spy locations” throughout Africa, Ham said that U.S. troops do at times go on “short-term deployments of capabilities” in various African nations, but always with the permission of the host country.

Ham did not explain what exactly those capabilities are, but gave as an example the hunt for Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army — a hunt the U.S. military has supported with the permission of four local governments. Last October, President Obama announced that 100 American special operations troops had been sent to central Africa to help track Kony.

“To have some intelligence collection capability that has the ability to monitor the areas in which we believe the Lord’s Resistance Army is operating, to be able to see, to be able to listen, to be able to collect information which we then pass to the four nations, four African nations, which are participating, I think is a good way ahead,” Ham said.

Ham’s admission comes two weeks after The Washington Post reported that the U.S. military had secretly expanded its presence in Africa to include a network of small air bases used to spy on terrorist organizations there. According to the Post, the military uses small, unarmed turbo-prop planes disguised as private charters to carry out sensitive intelligence collection.

Part of that program appeared to have been revealed in February when the Department of Defense announced the deaths of four special operations servicemen near Djibouti. The four men died after their U-28 plane — a “non-standard” surveillance aircraft similar in appearance to a private plane — was involved in an accident.

Gen.: Future Role for US Military in Libya, ‘Ideal’ Position in Somalia

Ham echoed fears previously voiced by U.S. officials to ABC News about a possible foothold extremist groups like al Qaeda may be trying to make in Libya and elsewhere in Africa. AQIM, an al Qaeda offshoot based in northwestern Africa, has publicly said it has “benefitted” from the chaos in Libya already.

…

By LEE FERRAN
June 26, 2012

Find this story at 26 June 2012

Copyright © 2012 ABC News Internet Ventures. Yahoo! – ABC News Network

WASHINGTON – Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers’ mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage.

But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three U.S. counterterror officials and a former intelligence official.

The counterterror effort indicates that the administration has been worried for some time about a growing threat posed by al-Qaida and its offshoots in North Africa. But officials say the military organization was too new to respond to the attack in Benghazi, where the administration now believes armed al-Qaida-linked militants surrounded the lightly guarded U.S. compound, set it on fire and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Republicans have questioned whether the Obama administration has been hiding key information or hasn’t known what happened in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

As of early September, the special operations teams still consisted only of liaison officers who were assigned to establish relationships with local governments and U.S. officials in the region. Only limited counterterrorism operations have been conducted in Africa so far.

“There are no plans at this stage for unilateral U.S. military operations” in the region, Pentagon spokesman George Little said Tuesday, adding that the focus was on helping African countries build their own forces.

For the Special Operations Command, spokesman Col. Tim Nye would not discuss “the missions and or locations of its counterterrorist forces” except to say that special operations troops are in 75 countries daily conducting missions.

The go-slow approach being taken by the Army’s top clandestine counterterrorist unit – known as Delta Force – is an effort by the White House to counter criticism from some U.S. lawmakers, human rights activists and others that the anti-terror fight is shifting largely to a secret war using special operations raids and drone strikes, with little public accountability. The administration has been taking its time when setting up the new unit to get buy-in from all players who might be affected, such as the U.S. ambassadors, CIA station chiefs, regional U.S. military commanders and local leaders.

Eventually, the Delta Force group will form the backbone of a military task force responsible for combating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups across the region with an arsenal that includes drones. But first, it will work to win acceptance by helping North African nations build their own special operations and counterterror units.

The Obama administration has been concerned about the growing power and influence of al-Qaida offshoots in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and North Africa. Only the Yemeni branch has tried to attack American territory directly so far, with a series of thwarted bomb plots aimed at U.S.-bound aircraft. A Navy SEAL task force set up in 2009 has used a combination of raids and drone strikes to fight militants in Yemen and Somalia, working together with the CIA and local forces.

The new task force would work in much the same way to combat al-Qaida’s North African affiliates, which are growing in numbers and are awash in weapons from post-revolutionary Libya’s looted stockpiles. They are well-funded by a criminal network trafficking in drugs and hostages.

…

Published: 07:12 PM, Tue Oct 02, 2012

By Kimberly Dozier

The Associated Press

Find this story at 2 October 2012

Copyright 2012 – The Fayetteville Observer, Fayetteville, N.C.

SENIOR crime intelligence officials planted paid informers to make fake right-wing-related threats against the government.

This was allegedly part of a wider strategy to loot the unit’s Secret Service Account for personal benefit.

Law enforcement agency sources allege that spy bosses worked their way into the R600 million-a-year slush fund by fabricating information to create a false impression of imminent, unprecedented attacks on black people and ANC members.

It is understood that in the run-up to the ANC’s centenary celebrations in the Free State in January, spy masters in North West used one of their informers to threaten chaos and violence against the ruling party, unless it stemmed farm attacks.

Claiming to have detected a threat, they allegedly asked for and got additional money – believed to be millions – from the slush fund on the pretext that they wanted to remunerate “sources” who tipped them off.

In one incident, a masked man made chilling threats against black people and the ANC in a recorded video last year alongside right-winger Andre Visagie, a former secretary-general of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging who formed the Geloftevolk Republikeine (Covenant People Republicans).

The video was posted on YouTube, sparking fear and costly investigations by law enforcement agencies.

Visagie said he would comment after viewing the video.

Three security cluster sources said the threats were behind the police’s decision to deploy an Nyala permanently outside the ANC’s headquarters in the Joburg CBD.

A confidential document penned by one of the investigators, a copy of which is in the possession of Independent Newspapers, points to the staged events.

These entail crime intelligence officials planting informers to make false threats, meant to justify the looting of the fund by intelligence operatives.

The five-page document outlined the methods used and gave the names of those involved – informers and their police handlers – as well as their backgrounds.

A senior national police official said he was “aware” of the scam, adding that some of those implicated had offered evidence in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

He confirmed that spy bosses cited the need to pay sources as a reason for wanting more resources. “You can say, ‘There is a group I want to impress – I need a Gucci bag’, and you will get it. At times there isn’t a follow-up on whether there was any infiltration.”

It is understood the money was shared among those who masterminded the scam.

Brigadier Thulani Ngubane, North West police spokesman, said they were “not aware” of any abuse of the slush fund. The provincial commissioner would investigate and charge those implicated as he viewed the allegations “seriously”.

While a report by other investigators has noted abuses of the fund under crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli, who has been suspended, it is understood it has been abused for decades. Mdluli has denied any wrongdoing.

…

June 14 2012 at 03:49pm

PIET RAMPEDI

Find this story at 14 June 2012 

Pretoria News © 1999 – 2010 Independent Online. All rights strictly reserved.

A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed today.

He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head.

The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African country, was to stop Gaddafi being interrogated about his highly suspicious links with Sarkozy, who was President of France at the time.

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, allegedly ordered the murder of former Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi

Other former western leaders, including ex British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were also extremely close to Gaddafi, visiting him regularly and helping to facilitate multi-million pounds business deals.

Sarkozy, who once welcomed Gaddafi as a ‘brother leader’ during a state visit to Paris, was said to have received millions from the Libyan despot to fund his election campaign in 2007.

The conspiracy theory will be of huge concern to Britain which sent RAF jet to bomb Libya last year with the sole intention of ‘saving civilian lives’.

A United Nations mandate which sanctioned the attack expressly stated that the western allies could not interfere in the internal politics of the country.

Instead the almost daily bombing runs ended with Gaddafi’s overthrow, while both French and British military ‘advisors’ were said to have assisted on the ground.

Now Mahmoud Jibril, who served as interim Prime Minister following Gaddafi’s overthrow, told Egyptian TV: ‘It was a foreign agent who mixed with the revolutionary brigades to kill Gaddafi.’

Gaddafi was killed on October 20 in a final assault on his hometown Sirte by fighters of the new regime, who said they had cornered the ousted despot in a sewage pipe waving a golden gun. The moment was captured on video

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, covered in blood, is pulled from a truck by NTC fighters in Sirte before he was killed

Revolutionary Libyan fighters inspect a storm drain where Muammar Gaddafi was found wounded in Sirte, Libya, last year

Diplomatic sources in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, meanwhile suggested to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra that a foreign assassin was likely to have been French.

The paper writes: ‘Since the beginning of NATO support for the revolution, strongly backed by the government of Nicolas Sarkozy, Gaddafi openly threatened to reveal details of his relationship with the former president of France, including the millions of dollars paid to finance his candidacy at the 2007 elections.’

One Tripoli source said: ‘Sarkozy had every reason to try to silence the Colonel and as quickly as possible.’

The view is supported by information gathered by investigaters in Benghazi, Libya’s second city and the place where the ‘Arab Spring’ revolution against Gaddafi started in early 2011.

Rami El Obeidi, the former head of foreign relations for the Libyan transitional council, said he knew that Gaddafi had been tracked through his satellite telecommunications system as he talked to Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian dictator.

…

By Peter Allen

PUBLISHED: 11:43 GMT, 30 September 2012 | UPDATED: 06:56 GMT, 1 October 2012

Find this story at 30 September 2012

Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd

Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group
© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Er warb den Lockerbie-Attentäter an und ließ Tausende Regimegegner hinrichten. Abdullah al-Sanussi war 30 Jahre lang Gaddafis Geheimdienstchef, nun erwartet ihn in seiner Heimat der Prozess. Das Verfahren könnte neue Details über die libysche Kooperation mit westlichen Diensten liefern.

Tripolis – Der Mann, der seit einem Jahr von Interpol gesucht wurde, verbrachte die vergangenen Monate in einer Villa am Stadtrand von Mauretaniens Hauptstadt Nouakchott. Es war ein Leben in einem goldenen Käfig, denn seit seiner Festnahme im März dieses Jahres stand Abdullah al-Sanussi unter Hausarrest. Am Mittwoch lieferte ihn Mauretanien an Libyen aus. Dort steht dem einst ebenso gefürchteten wie verhassten Ex-Chef des libyschen Geheimdienstes nun ein Prozess bevor, der für ihn mit dem Tode enden dürfte.

Nachdem der Gefangene mit ungewohnt langem und ergrautem Bart in Tripolis gelandet war, sagte Libyens Ministerpräsident Abd al-Rahim al-Kib: “Die libysche Regierung hat Gaddafis rechte Hand überstellt bekommen.” Sanussi sei für fast alle Verbrechen des gestürzten Regimes verantwortlich gewesen und werde nun dafür zur Rechenschaft gezogen. Deshalb werde ihm in Libyen der Prozess gemacht, auch wenn der Internationale Strafgerichtshof am Donnerstag erneut seine Auslieferung nach Den Haag verlangte.

Doch wenn Sanussi in dem Verfahren wirklich auspackt, drohen auch den westlichen Geheimdiensten peinliche Enthüllungen. Am Donnerstag veröffentlichte Human Rights Watch einen Bericht, in dem detailliert geschildert wird, wie der US-amerikanische und der britische Geheimdienst mit Sanussis Schergen kooperierten.

Ein französisches Gericht verurteilte ihn in Abwesenheit

In einem öffentlichen Prozess in Libyen könnte Sanussi diesen Vorwürfen nun neue Nahrung geben. Denn fast vier Jahrzehnte lang war er einer der mächtigsten Männer in Muammar al-Gaddafis Reich. Der Beduinensohn gehört dem Volksstamm der Magarha an, der Gaddafi 1969 bei seinem Putsch gegen König Idris unterstützte. Spätestens Ende der siebziger Jahre stieg Sanussi in den engsten Führungskreis des Landes auf, als er Fatima, eine Schwester von Gaddafis zweiter Ehefrau Safia, heiratete.

Und Sanussi war seinem Schwager stets treu zu Diensten. Studentenproteste in Tripolis und Bengasi ließ er niederschlagen und die Anführer öffentlich hinrichten. Tausende andere Regimegegner landeten hinter Gittern und wurden gefoltert. Lange nahm die Welt kaum Notiz davon. Dies sollte sich erst ändern, als 1988 der Pan-Am-Jumbo, Flugnummer 103, über dem schottischen Lockerbie explodierte. Den 2001 als Attentäter verurteilten Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi hatte Sanussi zuvor für den Geheimdienst angeworben. Megrahi gehörte demselben Stamm an wie Sanussi.

Auch für den Bombenanschlag auf einen Linienflug der französischen Airline UTA im September 1989 soll der Ex-Geheimdienstchef verantwortlich sein. Bei der Explosion über dem Niger kamen alle 170 Insassen ums Leben, darunter auch die Frau des US-Botschafters im Tschad. 1999 verurteilte ein französisches Gericht Sanussi in Abwesenheit. 2003 soll er zudem den Mord des damaligen Kronprinzen und heutigen Königs von Saudi-Arabien, Abdullah Bin Abd al-Asis, geplant haben.

In Libyen wird sein Name jedoch nicht in erster Linie mit Lockerbie in Verbindung gebracht, sondern mit Abu Salim. In diesem berüchtigten Hochsicherheitsgefängnis in Tripolis waren die meisten politischen Gefangenen Libyens inhaftiert. 1996 revoltierten die Häftlinge gegen die Folter und die unmenschlichen Bedingungen. Senussi soll als Geheimdienstchef den Befehl gegeben haben, den Aufstand mit aller Brutalität niederzuschlagen. Überlebende berichteten später von Massenerschießungen, bei denen insgesamt etwa 1200 der knapp 2000 Gefangenen getötet worden sein sollen.

Gaddafi feuerte ihn nach Ausbruch des Aufstands

Dieses Massaker dürfte im Mittelpunkt des Prozesses gegen Sanussi stehen. Doch seine Aussagen könnten auch das Verfahren gegen Gaddafi-Sohn Saif al-Islam beeinflussen. Wann der Prozess in der Stadt Sintan beginnt, ist derzeit noch unklar.

Ehemalige Vertraute aus dem Umfeld der Diktatorenfamilie beschreiben Sanussi als eine Art Mentor von Saif al-Islam. Beide haben die Öffnung des Landes zum Westen in den Nullerjahre maßgeblich vorangetrieben. Die Zusammenarbeit mit CIA und MI6 war da nur ein Aspekt. Sanussi war auch der Gaddafi-Getreue, der westlichen Staaten aus mancher Not half. So soll er bei der Entführung der deutschen Familie Wallert auf den Philippinen zwischen Bundesregierung und den Entführern der Terrorgruppe Abu Sayyaf vermittelt haben. Saif al-Islams Stiftung zahlte damals 25 Millionen Euro Lösegeld. Im Gegenzug machte Außenminister Joschka Fischer im September 2000 der libyschen Regierung seine Aufwartung.

Sanussi war auch eine wichtige Kontaktperson der PR-Firma Monitor Group, die Saif al-Islam dabei half, einen Doktorgrad an der London School of Economics zu erwerben. Nach Informationen der “Financial Times” stellte der Vorstandschef der Monitor Group Sanussi zudem einen Plan vor, der “das internationale Verständnis und die Wertschätzung Libyens verbessern” sollte.

…

07. September 2012, 09:01 Uhr
Von Christoph Sydow

Find this story at 7 september 2012

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Extradition of Libyan dictator’s former head of military intelligence could shed fresh light on 1988 Lockerbie bombing

Mauritania said on Wednesday that it had extradited Muammar Gaddafi’s infamous former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, back to Libya, in a move that could shed fresh light on the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Government sources in Mauritania said Senussi had been sent to Tripoli “on the basis of guarantees given by the Libyan authorities”. Senussi has been in custody in Mauritania since March, after slipping illegally into the country.

Officials in Tripoli could not immediately confirm Senussi’s extradition, also reported by Mauritanian television. But foreign ministry spokesman Saad al-Shelmani said the country’s transitional post-Gaddafi government welcomed the news.

He added: “We have been asking for this move for a very long time.”

Senussi, Gaddafi’s former director of military intelligence and a brutal enforcer, is one of the world’s most wanted men. Libya, France and the international criminal court had all sought his extradition, with France seeking to question him in connection with the bombing of a French UTA passenger plane in 1989.

The ICC has indicted him for crimes against humanity in Libya.

Britain also has a strong interest in Senussi and is likely to seek to interview him in connection with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, in which 270 died. At the time, Senussi headed Libya’s external security organisation. He is said to have recruited Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the bombing. Megrahi died at his home in Libya in May.

The US is also seeking Senussi’s arrest in connection with Lockerbie.

In an interview with the Guardian, Libya’s prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, said that as well as his alleged role in the Lockerbie bombing, Senussi knew the identity of the killer of PC Yvonne Fletcher, shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in 1984.

“He’s the black box,” Keib said, adding: “I guarantee he [Senussi] was almost directly or indirectly involved in most if not all of the crimes [of the former regime]. That doesn’t mean others weren’t involved. But he definitely knows who they were.”

Senussi was married to Gaddafi’s sister-in-law, and was at the Libyan dictator’s side for over three decades. Leaked US diplomatic cables describe him as a trusted “senior regime figure”, “who had played a role as minder of the more troublesome Gaddafi offspring”.

They added: “Sanussi … is usually in physical proximity to the tent in which Gaddafi holds meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries and, according to members of Gaddafi’s protocol office, personally oversees Gaddafi’s close protection detail”.

Libya’s provisional government wants to try him in connection with numerous human rights abuses, including the massacre of 1,200 prisoners at the Abu Salim jail in 1996. During the 2011 Libyan civil war, he was blamed for orchestrating killings in the city of Benghazi and recruiting foreign mercenaries.

…

Luke Harding, Ian Black and agencies in Nouakchott
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 September 2012 13.25 BST

Find this story at 5 September 2012

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

“When police forces and intelligence services engage in international cooperation, parliamentary oversight is the loser. The increasing significance of undercover police networks is making this situation far more critical.” These comments were made by Bundestag Member Andrej Hunko in response to the Federal Government’s answer, which is now available in English (see below), to his Minor Interpellation.

The purpose of the interpellation, a written parliamentary question, was to heighten awareness of the following little-known police structures:

•    the Cross-Border Surveillance Working Group (CSW), comprising mobile task forces on surveillance techniques, drawn from 12 EU Member States and Europol;

•    Europol’s analysis work file entitled Dolphin, which entails the surveillance of left-wing activists in areas such as animal rights and anarchism;

•    the Remote Forensic Software User Group, which was created by the Bundeskriminalamt, the German Federal Criminal Police Office, to promote sales of German Trojan software abroad.

•    the European Cooperation Group on Undercover Activities (ECG), comprising spy chiefs from Member States of the EU and from countries such as Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine;

•    the International Working Group on Undercover Policing (IWG), comprising spy chiefs from European countries as well as from countries such as the United States, Israel, New Zealand and Australia;

Mr Hunko went on to say:

“One of the main parts of the interpellation focused on the undercover activity of British police officer Mark Kennedy, whose infiltration of European leftist movements exemplifies police cooperation conducted beyond the bounds of parliamentary oversight. It remains unclear under whose orders the undercover investigator was operating during the years of his activity.

Kennedy used his infiltration of the Icelandic environmental movement to worm his way into leftist circles from Finland to Portugal through the information events he staged. The Icelandic police are stubbornly rejecting requests from the Minister of Justice to release full details of his activity into the public domain, claiming that disclosure would prejudice British security interests. Even though Members of the Icelandic Parliament have a right to ask questions on police matters, they are not being given any information.

The exposure of the British police officer, by contrast, has been the focus of deliberations in the European Cooperation Group on Undercover Activities (ECG), of which Iceland is not a member. The Federal Government has not revealed the substance of German and British contributions to this discussion. The remit of the ECG, which meets behind closed doors, includes the creation of false identities and the examination of legal frameworks in the countries that send and host undercover agents.

Foreign police officers must obtain authorisation before entering the territory of a sovereign state. They must not commit any criminal offences during their stay. Kennedy, however, sought to impress activists in Berlin by setting fire to a refuse container. Arrested by the police, he even concealed his true identity from the public prosecutor. This is illegal, as the Federal Government has indicated now.

Last year, Germany, together with Britain, urged the European Commission to exempt cross-border undercover activities from a planned new directive establishing a European Investigation Order. This would also make parliamentary oversight of such activities even more difficult.

The necessity of this parliamentary oversight is illustrated by the government use of software to hack into personal computers. In 2008, the German Federal Criminal Police Office established a cross-border Remote Forensic Software User Group with a view to helping police forces in other countries to introduce German spyware.

The Federal Criminal Police Office has also sent delegations to Canada, Israel, the United States and other countries to discuss Trojan programs with police forces and intelligence services. Although the German supreme court had imposed rigid limits in 2007 on the widespread practice of searching entire computer systems, representatives of the Criminal Police Office travelled to the United Kingdom and other destinations to ‘share experience’ on that practice.

Even in the national context it is difficult to detect illegal practices on the part of police forces and intelligence services. Securing judicial convictions for criminal offences is even harder. How much more, then, must the increasingly cross-border nature of police cooperation muddy these waters.

This is why the activity of undercover police networks must be relentlessly exposed. This applies especially to cooperation with the private business sector, which became just as blatant in the case of spyware as it had been in the criminalisation of animal-rights activism, to the benefit of British companies such as Gamma International, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.

I call on the UK Government to disclose all information regarding the activity of Mark Kennedy in Germany and to inform all interested parties retrospectively of his activity. This is the only way in which key questions can be answered, such as whether he had sexual relations on false pretences with targets or contacts in Germany, as he did in the UK.

I must assume in any case that the use of British undercover agents to infiltrate left-wing movements was unlawful, because no police officer is allowed to spend years investigating activists in the absence of any specific grounds for suspicion or any other defined investigative objective.”

Download the answer to the parliamentary question concerning secretly operating international networks of police forces (in English): http://www.andrej-hunko.de/start/download/doc_download/236-concerning-secretly-operating-international-networks-of-police-forces

Download the answer in German (International im Verborgenen agierende Netzwerke von Polizeien): http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/098/1709844.pdf

Find this story at 22 August 2012 

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Statewatch can reveal the existence of a previously unknown international police working group geared towards discussing and developing covert investigative techniques. At the same time parliamentary questions in Germany have seen further details of other police networks emerge – although many questions remain unanswered – in particular on the work and activities of former policy infiltrator Mark Kennedy.

Project ISLE

Recent research by Statewatch has led to the discovery of an EU-funded project known as ISLE (International Specialist Law Enforcement), a project initiated with the aim of building “a network of [EU] Member State organisations that may develop coordination, cooperation and mutual understanding amongst law enforcement agencies using ‘specialist techniques’.” [1]

Project ISLE has its origins in a “pilot seminar consisting of twenty-six ‘specialist technique’ practitioners” held in London in 2006, and was created to increase cooperation and coordination amongst EU law enforcement authorities utilising “specialist techniques”: “covert entry into premises or vehicles and the facilitation of covert searches of property, covert forensic capabilities and covertly installed technical devices.” [2]

In 2010, as part of its programme “Prevention of and Fight against Crime”, the EU awarded €115,614 for the project to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA is one of three main “project partners”, alongside Belgium’s Commissariaat-Generaal Special Units (CGSU), and Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA).

SOCA provides a project manager and administration, and as part of the steering group with the CGSU and BKA has a mandate to “create a larger Working Group” consisting of “full-time practitioners from organisations where their countries [sic] legislation supports ‘specialist techniques’.”

The “workgroup of practitioners” will:

– “Expand on existing partnerships and create new ones, including developing Member States, to promote and develop coordination, cooperation and mutual understanding of ‘specialist techniques'”;
– “Broaden the range of ‘specialist techniques’ by sharing knowledge on capability, identifying common standards and jointly developing new technologies”; and
– “Implement an agreed control strategy with shared responsibility and engagement in achieving a long-term program of activity toward the development of ‘specialist techniques'”

A document outlining the group’s terms of reference states that:

“Participants and their organisations must be prepared to promote and encourage international, inter-agency cooperation in ‘specialist techniques’ and contribute to the establishment of a long-term program.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, secrecy is clearly the order of the day:

“Organisations with diplomatic/political responsibilities may find it difficult to participate openly during information exchanges and due consideration should be given to their role in the project.”

Europol provides a secure database and communication channels in order to permit secure communication and information exchange between participants.

ISLE’s official starting date as an EU-funded project was 9 November 2009, with one document stating that the project “will take no more than 36 months, including three months for the production and submission of the final report.”

The group should currently be moving into the phase of producing this final report. The financing, participants, practices, and accountability of the group are currently the subject of further research.

One of many

Project ISLE is the latest addition to a growing list of publicly-known but highly secretive international police networks concerned with infiltration and surveillance. They include:

– The Cross-Border Surveillance Working Group, made up of “mobile task forces on surveillance techniques, drawn from 12 EU Member States and Europol”;
– The Remote Forensic Software User Group, created “to promote the sale of German Trojan software abroad”;
– The International Working Group on Undercover Policing (IWG), made up of “spy chiefs from European countries as well as from countries such as the US, Israel, New Zealand and Australia”; and
– The European Cooperation Group on Undercover Activities (ECG)

In May this year, the German MP for Die Linke, Andrej Hunko, received a lengthy response to a number of parliamentary questions that have now been translated into English. The answers to some of his questions reveal further details of these the composition and practices of these groups, although many of the government’s responses cite “reasons of confidentiality” for refusing public access to information. [3]

The Cross-Border Surveillance Working Group (CSW) first met in 2005, and its meetings have included representatives from thirteen states (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK) and Europol, whose representative contributes “Europol’s technical perspective.”

The German government has refused to say on whose initiative the group first met and what “operative and tactical options” were raised by the German delegation at CSW meetings. It has also refused to disclose what contributions Europol has made to the group in the last five years. In nine of his thirteen questions about the CSW Hunko was told that for “reasons of confidentiality” the government could not make their answer publically available.

However, there is more transparency over meetings concerned with surveillance software used for telecommunications interception and the remote searching of individuals’ computers – products that German police forces have in the past used to “surveil people’s internet activity beyond what is allowed by the law.” [4]

Details are provided in the German government’s answers at ten different meetings held since 2008, with law enforcement agencies from a number of different states attending, including France, the Netherlands, Canada, the USA and Israel.

Their answers reveal that a meeting in October 2010 was devoted to discussion of the software package FinSpy, produced by the German company Gamma International. Assessment of the product by the BKA was “fundamentally positive” from a technical point of view and they “purchased a licence for the FinSpy software for a limited period of time for test purposes in early 2011.”

Gamma has also offered its products to the authorities of countries such as Oman, Turkmenistan, Egypt, and Bahrain, and in 2012 received a Big Brother Award for its willingness to cooperate with “government agencies of countries where human rights are respected to a far lesser degree than here in Germany.” [5]

In April, the European Parliament called for the introduction of strict rules on the export of tools that could be used to block websites and monitor communications, although no new legislation has yet been drafted. [6]

The German government’s answers also confirm that the International Working Group on Undercover Activities (IWG) was established in 1989, when the BKA joined. The German Customs Investigation Service (Zollkriminalamt) began participating in 2000. Once again, however, the government declined to answer the majority of questions publicly for “reasons of confidentiality.”

The European Cooperation Group on Undercover Activities was also the subject of a number of questions from Hunko, and the German government has stated the group was established for:

“The promotion of international cooperation by law enforcement agencies at the European level with respect to the deployment of undercover investigators to combat organised crime.”

It is unclear why the “covert deployment of the British police officer Mark Kennedy” was discussed at the group’s meeting in 2011, considering its apparent concern with organised crime. Despite seven years undercover, there is no clear evidence that his work succeeded in preventing or exposing any specific incidents that would amount to serious or organised crime.

Global infiltration

Kennedy was exposed as a police spy following the collapse of a prosecution against environmental activists in the UK in early 2011, sparking a public outcry and the subsequent outing of a number of other infiltrators in protest movements. [7]

Whilst deployed undercover, Kennedy visited “11 countries on more than 40 occasions,” feeding back information to the UK’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit (now the National Domestic Extremism Unit) and subsequently police intelligence units from other countries. [8]

Outside of the UK and Northern Ireland, he visited the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Spain, Denmark, the USA, Poland, France, Italy, and Iceland, and according to the ruling of the UK Court of Appeal in the case that finally led to him being exposed, “Kennedy was involved in activities which went much further than the authorisation he was given,” and was “arguably, an agent provocateur.” [9]

Oversight and accountability

Despite fairly detailed knowledge of some of Kennedy’s movements and activities [10] national parliaments are still being denied information on his work, as noted by Andrej Hunko:

“The Icelandic police are stubbornly rejecting requests from the Minister of Justice to release full details of his activity into the public domain, claiming that disclosure would prejudice British security interests. Even though Members of the Iceland Parliament have a right to ask questions on police matters, they are not being given any information.”

Invoking “British security interests” would seem to suggest that there is clearly still much more information on the deployment by British authorities of police infiltrators overseas to come to light.

A report published earlier this year by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary on “national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest” was condemned by one police monitoring group, Fitwatch, as “a farce” that “fails to address any of the concerns addressed by activists.” [11]

Those concerns include the matter of sexual relations between infiltrators and activists, an issue also raised by Hunko, who has called for the British government to:

“Disclose all information regarding the activity of Mark Kennedy in Germany and to inform all interested parties retrospectively of his activity. This is the only way in which key questions can be answered, such as whether he had sexual relations on false pretences with targets or contacts in Germany, as he did in the UK.”

Numerous examples of infiltrators entering relationships with activists have come to light, and eight women are currently engaged in a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police alleging that they “were deceived into having long term intimate relationships with undercover police officers.” [12]

Yet despite one chief police officer stating that it would be “morally wrong” and “grossly unprofessional” for infiltrators to sleep with activists, the UK’s policing minister, Nick Herbert, has endorsed the practice, saying that a ban: “would provide a ready-made test for the targeted criminal group to find out whether an undercover officer was deployed among them.” [13]

Kennedy is now reported to be working for the Densus Group, “a US company that targets anti-capitalist demonstrators” run by Sam Rosenfeld, a “former British Army officer who toured Northern Ireland.” Kennedy “provides ‘risk and threat assessments’ to companies that suspect they might fall victim to ‘direct action’,” according to London’s Evening Standard [14] in an article seemingly based largely on reports originally posted on Indymedia UK. [15]

It remains unclear whether the full details of what happened during Kennedy’s seven years of undercover work will ever come to light or be comprehensively addressed by the authorities. As admitted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary: “no single authorising officer appears to have been fully aware either of the complete intelligence picture in relation to Mark Kennedy or the NPOIU’s activities overall,” and “the full extent of his activity remains unknown.” [16]

Information currently in the public domain makes up only a small piece of a global puzzle of police working groups and networks dealing with infiltration, intrusion and surveillance not just of criminal groups, but political activists.

That there is a pan-European effort to collect and collate information and intelligence on left-wing activists is clear from the existence of Europol’s Analysis Working File Dolphin, which contains information on the No Borders network and “attacks against railway transports,” taken by some to cover either protests against trains carrying nuclear waste, or the No TAV (Treno Alta Velocità) movement in Italy that opposes the construction of a high-speed railway line. [17]

The legal implications of the deployment of undercover officers and intrusive surveillance techniques are significant, as is their impact on individuals. According to Hunko, the internationalisation of police work means that “parliamentary oversight is the loser.” He has called for secret international police networks to be “relentlessly exposed”, stating that:

“Even in the national context it is difficult to detect illegal practices on the part of police forces and intelligence services. Securing judicial convictions for criminal offences is even harder. How much more, then, must the increasingly cross-border nature of police cooperation muddy these waters?” [18]

Note: This article was amended on 28 August 2012 to show the correct amount of money awarded by the EU to SOCA. This was originally published as being €70,000.

Sources
[1] ‘International Specialist Law Enforcement’, Document 1, 2009
[2] ‘International Specialist Law Enforcement’, Document 2, 2009
[3] German Bundestag, ‘Answer of the Federal Government to the Minor Interpellation tabled by the Members of the Bundestag Andrej Hunko, Jan Korte, Christine Buchholz, other Members of the Bundestag and the Left Party parliamentary group’, 31 May 2012, in English and in German
[4] Statewatch Analysis: ‘State Trojans: Germany exports “spyware with a badge”‘ by Kees Hudig, March 2012
[5] ‘Category Technology’, Big Brother Awards, April 2012; Vernon Silver, ‘Cyber attacks on activists traced to FinFisher spyware of Gamma’, Bloomberg, 25 July 2012
[6] ‘Parliament wants EU rules for firms exporting internet censorship tools’, European Parliament, 18 April 2012
[7] Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Rajeev Syal, ‘Third undercover police spy unmasked as scale of network emerges’, The Guardian, 15 January 2011
[8] HMIC, ‘A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest’, February 2012; Statewatch Analysis: ‘Using false documents against “Euro-anarchists”: the exchange of Anglo-German undercover police highlights controversial police operations’, June 2012; ‘Mark Kennedy: A mole in Tarnac’, Monitoring European Police!, 17 April 2012
[9] Eveline Lubbers, ‘HMIC’s ’empty’ review leaves little hope for robust scrutiny of undercover cops’, SpinWatch, 28 March 2012
[10] ‘Mark Kennedy: A chronology of his activities’, PowerBase
[11] HMIC, ‘A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest’; ‘HMIC report into domestic extremism – disgusting and farcical’, Netpol, 2 February 2012
[12] Rob Evans, ‘Women start legal action against police chiefs over emotional trauma – their statement’, The Guardian, 16 December 2011
[13] Tom Whitehead, ‘Undercover police not banned from sleeping with targets’, The Telegraph, 2 February 2012; Martin Beckford, ‘Undercover police must be allowed to have sex with activists’, The Telegraph, 14 June 2012
[14] Tom Harper, ‘EXCLUSIVE: Undercover detective in eco trial fiasco now works for US firm that spies on activists’, London Evening Standard, 21 June 2012
[15] ‘Ex-police spy Mark Kennedy’s current business activities’, Indymedia UK, 1 June 2012
[16] ‘A review of national police units which provide intelligence on criminality associated with protest’, p.24
[17] Andrej Hunko, ‘Abolish international databases on anarchy!’, 5 June 2012; ‘Europol boosts its reach, scope and information-gathering’, Statewatch News Online, 1 June 2012
[18] Andrej Hunko, ‘Secret police networks must be relentlessly exposed’, 22 August 2012

Find this story at 28 August 2012

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In het voorjaar van 2010 was India een paar weken in de ban van een afluisterschandaal, maar vervolgens verdween dat in de vergetelheid. Dit is opmerkelijk gezien de staat van dienst van de inlichtingenwereld in India. Schandalen die gewone Indiërs raken, maar ook corruptie, slecht management, verkeerde technologie en apparatuur en bovenal incompetentie lijken de boventoon te voeren bij de NTRO, die verantwoordelijk wordt gehouden voor het schandaal. NTRO, National Technical Research Organisation, gebruikt IMSI Catchers om voor lange tijd en op grote schaal politici, ambtenaren, zakenmensen, beroemdheden en gewone Indiërs af te luisteren.

Find this story at 20 April 2011