Maina Kiai says he is ‘deeply concerned’ about use of officers such as Mark Kennedy to infiltrate non-violent groups

Mark Kennedy, an undercover police officer who infiltrated a group of environmental protesters. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

A senior United Nations official has called on the British government to launch a judge-led public inquiry into the “shocking” case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover police officers who have been infiltrating protest groups.

Maina Kiai, a UN special rapporteur, said the scandal involving undercover police cultivating intimate sexual relationships with political activists over long periods of time had been as damaging as the phone-hacking controversy that prompted the Leveson inquiry.

He said he was “deeply concerned” about the UK’s use of undercover police officers in non-violent groups exercising their democratic rights to protest.

“The case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover officers is shocking as the groups in question were not engaged in criminal activities,” Kiai told a central London news conference. “The duration of this infiltration, and the resultant trauma and suspicion it has caused, are unacceptable in a democracy.

“It is a clear violation of basic rights protected under the Human Rights Act, and more generally under international law, such as the right to privacy.”

He added: “This is not a James-Bond-type movie issue. I think it is unacceptable that the state can pay somebody who will use women, and be part of their lives and then just devastate them and leave them. That’s unbelievable.”

Kiai is the latest senior figure to call for a full investigation into the controversy since the Guardian began revealing details of the spy operation two years ago. The undercover policing controversy will be raised in parliament next month during a special hearing hosted by the home affairs select committee.

Undercover police have been living double lives for several years among protest groups, sometimes even residing with female activists and spending weeks abroad with them on holiday. At the end of their deployment, the police spies vanish without a trace.

The surveillance operation, which has continued to plant long-term spies in protest groups despite recent controversies, comes under the remit of an initiative to combat what police call domestic extremism. Many of the targets of the operation have turned out to be law-abiding anti-capitalist campaigners or protesters against global warming.

In at least three cases, relationships between police and the women they were spying on have resulted in the birth of children.

The UN rapporteur’s preliminary report follows a 10-day fact-finding mission to London, Belfast and Edinburgh. Kiai met campaigners, senior police, civil servants and the home secretary, Theresa May. He said she told him a full inquiry into undercover policing was “not something on the agenda”.

However, Kiai, who has responsibility in the UN for the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, said he believed the case of Kennedy and others had left a “trail of victims and survivors in its wake” who deserved answers.

Eleven women and one man are bringing a high court legal action for the emotional trauma suffered as a result of “deeply personal” relationships they formed with men who turned out to be police officers.

A judge ruled last week that some of their claims should be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an obscure body that usually deals with complaints against MI5 and MI6.

Mr Justice Tugendhat cited the fictional case of James Bond to argue that when parliament introduced legislation allowing covert police to have personal relationships with targets, they must have assumed they may have sexual encounters.

Rejecting the idea that it could be a “James Bond movie issue”, Kiai said: “I therefore call on the authorities to undertake a judge-led public inquiry into the Mark Kennedy matter, and other related cases, with a view to giving voice to victims, especially women, who were deliberately deceived by their own government, and paving the way for reparations.”

The government has so far resisted calls for a judge-led inquiry, instead choosing to back a host of other separate reviews into the conduct of Kennedy and related issues.

…

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 January 2013 16.49 GMT

Find this story at 23 January 2013

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

Judge rules half of the women’s cases can be heard in open court but half must be first heard by secret tribunal

The judge said that claims against two police officers – Mark Kennedy (pictured above) and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs – should first be heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling

Ten women who say they were deceived into having sexual relationships with undercover police officers have won only a partial victory in their fight to have their case heard in the high court.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said the lawsuit alleged “the gravest interference” with the fundamental rights of women who had long-term relationships with police officers sent to spy on their political groups. The judge rejected an attempt by the Metropolitan police to have the whole case struck out of the court.

However, in a mixed ruling, the judge said that half the cases in the legal action should first be heard by a secretive tribunal that usually deals with complaints against MI5.

The case relates to a joint lawsuit brought by 10 women and one man who claim they suffered emotional trauma after forming “deeply personal” relationships with the police spies.

In his ruling, Tugendhat acknowledged that the allegations made by the women were “very serious”. He added that the case appeared to be unprecedented. “No action against the police alleging sexual abuse of the kind in question in these actions has been brought before the courts in the past, so far as I have been made aware.”

The judge drew a comparison with James Bond, the fictional member of the intelligence service who “used relationships with women to obtain information, or access to persons or property”.

Although Ian Fleming, the writer of the Bond series, did not dwell on “psychological harm he might have done to the women concerned”, the judge said fictional accounts such as these point to how “intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature”.

Lawyers for the Met had attempted to have all 11 cases struck out of the court, arguing they constituted an abuse of process and should instead by heard by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), a little-known complaints body.

However, they achieved only a partial victory.

In his ruling, the judge said that claims against two police officers – Mark Kennedy and a second spy who posed as Mark Jacobs – should first be heard by the IPT. Both of these officers were deployed after 2000, and some of the claims allege their activities constituted a breach of the Human Rights Act, which came into force in October that year.

However, the judge said that other claims for damages under common law, including torts of misfeasance in public office, deceit, assault and negligence, should be heard by the high court.

He temporarily stayed high court proceedings pending the conclusion of cases at the IPT. The special tribunal was introduced in 2000 to examine complaints from the public about unjustified state surveillance within what it calls “a necessary ring of secrecy”. Complainants do not see the evidence put forward by the state and have no automatic right to an oral hearing. Neither can they appeal its decision.

Lawyers for the some of the women described the decision to send half of the cases to the tribunal as an “outrage”.

Harriet Wistrich, of Birnberg Peirce, said: “We brought this case because we want to see an end to sexual and psychological abuse of campaigners for social justice and others by undercover police officers. We are outraged that the high court has allowed the police to use the IPT to preserve the secrecy of their abusive and manipulative operations in order to prevent public scrutiny and challenge.”

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 January 2013 14.01 GMT

Find this story at 17 January 2013

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

It is often suggested by intelligence researchers that one major difference between Western and Soviet modes of espionage during the Cold War was their degree of reliance on technology. It is generally accepted that Western espionage was far more dependent on technical innovation than its Soviet equivalent. While this observation may be accurate, it should not be taken to imply that the KGB, GRU, and other Soviet intelligence agencies neglected technical means of intelligence collection. In a recent interview with top-selling Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russian intelligence historian Gennady Sokolov discusses the case of Vadim Fedorovich Goncharov. Colonel Goncharov was the KGB’s equivalent of ‘Q’, head of the fictional research and development division of Britain’s MI6 in the James Bond films. A veteran of the Battle of Stalingrad, Goncharov eventually rose to the post of chief scientific and technical consultant of KGB’s 5th Special Department, later renamed Operations and Technology Directorate. According to Sokolov, Goncharov’s numerous areas of expertise included cryptology, communications interception and optics. While working in the KGB’s research laboratories, Goncharov came up with the idea of employing the principles behind the theremin, an early electronic musical instrument invented by Soviet physicist Léon Theremin in 1928, in wireless audio surveillance. According to Sokolov, the appropriation of the theremin by the KGB under Goncharov’s leadership “changed the world of intelligence”.

Renamed “passive bug” by the Soviets, a modified version of Theremin’s invention allowed the KGB to do away with wires and hidden microphones, using instead tiny coils and metal plates surreptitiously hidden in a target room or area. Such contraptions acted as sensors that picked up the vibrations in the air during conversations and transmitted them to a beam (receiver) placed nearby, usually in an adjoined room or vehicle. One such device was planted by the KGB inside the large wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States given by the Soviets to US Ambassador to the USSR, Averell Harriman, as a present in February 1945. By hanging the decorative artifact in his embassy office in Moscow, the Ambassador enabled the KGB to listen in to his private conversations, as well as those of his successors, including Walter Bedell Smith (later Director of Central Intelligence), Alan G. Kirk, and George F. Kennan, for nearly eight years. The bug was discovered by the US in 1952 and exposed to the world during a conference at the United Nations (see photo).

Sokolov says that Goncharov also used the “passive bug” in several Moscow hotels frequented by Western visiting dignitaries, such as the Hotel National and the Hotel Soviet. Targets of “passive bug” operations included Indonesian President Sukarno, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, whose conversations Goncharov allegedly managed to bug even though the West German leader chose to spend most of his trip to the USSR inside a luxury train compartment provided by the West German government. The Russian intelligence historian also claims that the theremin-based bug was used to eavesdrop on the conversations of Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. The KGB allegedly bugged Margaret’s cigarette lighter, cigarette case and ashtrays, and was able to listen in to the Princess’ “drunken sprees” during her trips around Western Europe, collecting “dirt on the British Royal House”.

…

December 24, 2012 by intelNews 5 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

Find this story at 24 December 2012

KGB homed in on Princess during visit to Copenhagen in 1964
Bugging devices attached to ashtrays and lighters to listen in on ‘scandalous gossip’
Spies set up failed ‘honey trap’ for former Prime Minister Harold Wilson

Soviet spies have admitted using bugging devices on the Royal Family and former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Secret agents from the KGB targeted Princess Margaret in the 1960s, attaching listening aids to her lighter, cigarette case, ashtrays and telephones.

According to the Sunday Express, they homed in on the Princess during a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1964.

Lord Snowdon And Princess Margaret get ready to board a plane in September 1964 ahead of their visit to Copenhagen. Russian spies have admitted bugging the Princess on the trip

Until now, Russia has always denied the covert operation, which took place in a hotel, but has now admitted compiling a dossier on the Princess’s love affair with Robin Douglas-Home and further relationships with Roddy Llewellyn, Colin Tennant and Dominic Ewes, a painter who later committed suicide.

Spies passed photos, tape recordings and ‘most interesting, even scandalous’ gossip involving senior royal figures.

It is also said agents tried to get information from Margaret’s therapist, Kay Kiernan, who also treated the Queen.

Intelligence on Prince Phillip was gathered via society osteopath and artist Stephen Ward, who later killed himself at the height of the Profumo affair.

But spies failed in a sting operation on then future leader Harold Wilson, setting up a ‘honey trap’ for him in a Moscow hotel.

Princess Margaret (second from right and then left) was targeted by KGB spies on her visit to Copenhagen in 1964. Bugging devices were planted in her lighter, cigarette case, ashtrays and telephones

A new book will detail the KGB spies’ attempts at bugging the Royal Family. Pictured, the Kremlin, in Moscow

Female agents posing as prostitutes patrolled the hotel overlooking the Kremlin, with a camera planted in a chandelier in his bedroom.

But when the film was developed, Wilson’s face was disguised.

Colonel Vadim Goncharov, who has since died, was the KGB chief in charge of the snooping operations, and he was ordered by bosses to go on television to deny the claims, fearing they would cast a shadow over the Queen’s first and only visit to Russia in 1994.

…

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 11:01 GMT, 23 December 2012 | UPDATED: 17:05 GMT, 23 December 2012

Find this story at 23 December 2012

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Defence Secretary John Nott warned Mrs Thatcher that the USSR was using civilian aircraft to carry out spying missions in the UK

The Soviet Union used civil airliners to conduct secret Cold War spying missions over Britain, according to newly published Government files.

Some aircraft would switch off their transponders, alerting air traffic controllers to their position before veering off their approved flight paths to carry out aerial intelligence-gathering missions over sensitive targets, papers released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule show.

In a memorandum marked SECRET UK US EYES ONLY, Defence Secretary John Nott informed prime minister Margaret Thatcher in December 1981 that the RAF was monitoring the hundreds of monthly flights through UK airspace by Warsaw Pact airliners.

“One incident of particular interest took place on 9th November, when an Aeroflot IL62 made an unauthorized and unannounced descent from 35,000 ft to 10,000 ft just below cloud level, to fly over RAF Boulmer, a radar station currently being modernised. It subsequently climbed back to 37,000 ft,” he wrote.

“During this manoeuvre its Secondary Surveillance Radar which automatically broadcasts the aircraft’s height was switched off, though it was on before and after the incident. It must, therefore, be assumed that it was switched off intentionally to conceal a deliberate and premeditated manoeuvre.

“Our investigations have now revealed it was the same aircraft which over flew the USN base at Groton when the first Trident submarine was being launched. You will recall that as a result of this incident the President banned Aeroflot flights over the USA for a short period.”

But that was not the only example of bad behaviour by enemy spies that year. In August 1981 the Second Secretary at the USSR embassy VN Lazin became the first Soviet diplomat for a decade to be expelled for “activities incompatible with his status”.

The Foreign Office informed No 10 that Lazin, actually the senior member of the scientific and technical intelligence section of the KGB in London, was arrested during a “clandestine meeting” with a Portuguese national.

“He developed his relationship with the Portuguese national over several months and sought to obtain technical and scientific information in the UK from him and to use him as an agent with the possibility of eventually placing him in a Nato post,” the Foreign Office noted.

The Soviets responded in traditional fashion with the tit-for-tat expulsion of the British cultural attache in the Moscow embassy. More was to follow six months later in February 1982 when MI5 decided to call time on the espionage career of another Soviet, Vadim Fedorovich Zadneprovskiy, a member of the Soviet trade delegation whom for the previous five years operated as a KGB agent-runner. His recruits included a British businessman who was given the codename COURT USHER.

Updated: 28 December 2012 11:48 | By pa.press.net

Find this story at 28 December 2012

© 2013 Microsoft

Soviet spies used civilian planes to snoop on British and American military installations during the 1980s, newly released U.K. documents show.

Britain’s Royal Air Force “established that some of these aircraft deviated from their flight-plan routes in circumstances which would lead us to assume that they were gathering intelligence,” the then defense secretary, John Nott, wrote in a memo to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that’s among government files from 1982 published today after being kept confidential for the prescribed 30 years.

The papers from the National Archives in London give an insight into both the extent of Soviet espionage and the U.K. government’s awareness of it. One agent from the KGB, the Soviet security agency, was identified on arrival in 1977 and followed for five years, subject to a series of British intelligence operations before finally being expelled.

Relations between Thatcher’s government and the Soviet Union were tense at the time, despite attempts by diplomats to persuade her to take a conciliatory line. More than once in her files she rejects a course of action proposed in a memo, referring to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the reason.

As Communist Party general secretary Leonid Brezhnev approached his 75th birthday at the end of 1981, Foreign Secretary Peter Carrington said it would be “churlish” of her not to send congratulations.

“Afghanistan?” Thatcher wrote in the margins of the memo suggesting this. “I really don’t think we should send a message.” She underlined “don’t.”
‘Unannounced Descent’

Nott wrote to Thatcher about the KGB’s use of Aeroflot planes over Britain after the Royal Air Force decided to look at the activities of “the thousand or so Warsaw Pact airliners which fly over the U.K. each month.”

In “one incident of particular interest,” the defense secretary wrote, an Ilyushin IL62 from the Soviet airline “made an unauthorized and unannounced descent from 35,000 feet to 10,000 feet, just below cloud level, to fly over RAF Boulmer, a radar station currently being modernized” in northeast England.

The plane turned off its automatic broadcast of its height during the maneuver, after which it returned to its previous altitude and began transmitting again.

The RAF subsequently established the same plane performed a similar operation over the U.S. Navy base at Groton, Connecticut, when the first Trident submarine was being launched.
Trade Official

The KGB was also using more traditional methods. In February 1982, the Security Service, the British internal security agency popularly known as MI5, asked for permission to expel a Russian trade official, Vadim Fedorovich Zadneprovskiy, after he “engaged in unacceptable intelligence-gathering activities.” According to the MI5 report, he had been identified as a KGB agent on his arrival in 1977 and followed.

MI5 used his inquiries about British counter-surveillance techniques to establish gaps in the KGB’s knowledge, with “some success.” The security service watched as he ran a British businessman, whom they codenamed “Court Usher,” as an agent, even using him to deliver equipment “in a thoroughly clandestine manner.” After concluding it wouldn’t be able to recruit Zadneprovskiy, MI5 demanded he be thrown out.

It wasn’t just professional spies trying to get in on the act. As the Falklands War raged, and the government wrestled with the question of how to keep French-built Exocet anti-ship missiles out of Argentine hands, Attorney General Michael Havers sent Thatcher a handwritten note suggesting a way to intercept a shipment.
‘Bond Movie’

Acknowledging his idea “may be thought to be more appropriate to a James Bond movie,” Havers said the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, should try to insert its own person as loadmaster on any flight used to carry missiles to Argentina.

“If this can be agreed, the loadmaster has total control over the flight and, therefore, could redirect the aircraft in transit to (for example) Bermuda,” he wrote. “This will cost money (this is an expensive dirty business) but could, in my view, be cheap at the price.”

Havers may not have been aware at the time that MI6 was already running operations to precisely that end. Nott’s diary recalls, without giving details, how the agency both prevented Argentina buying missiles available on the open market and disabled missiles it thought could fall into Argentine hands.

The U.S., while leading attempts to broker a cease-fire between Argentina and the U.K., provided information from spies as part of its support to Britain in the conflict.
‘Magnificent Support’

…

By Robert Hutton and Thomas Penny – Dec 27, 2012

Find this story at 27 December 2012

®2013 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Petty officer gathered secret coding programs and met two people he thought were Russian agents, court hears

Edward Devenney admitted discussing information relating to the movement of nuclear submarines. Photograph: Gaz Armes/ MoD Crown Copyright/PA

A Royal Navy submariner was caught trying to sell secrets to Russia in a sting operation led by the security services, the Guardian understands.

Edward Devenney, 30, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to collecting secret coding programs used by the British and attempting to pass the classified information on to Moscow.

Devenney, who is formerly from Northern Ireland, was a submariner on HMS Vigilant, a Trident nuclear submarine, when he decided to pass on secrets to the “enemy”, it is understood. The submarine – one of four that make up the UK’s nuclear deterrent – is normally based at Faslane in Scotland but had been refuelling at Devonport dock in Plymouth when Devenney’s activities raised the suspicions of his senior officers.

Devenney’s motivation, it is believed, was unhappiness with his situation and a degree of anger towards his employers after being passed over for promotion, rather than an issue of ideology or money.

A prolific tweeter, his behaviour raised the suspicions of his senior officers and over a period of months an undercover operation was carried out.

This led to Devenney contacting two people he believed were from the Russian secret service and discussing information relating to the movement of nuclear submarines with them. However, he was in fact talking to British agents.

Devenney was arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act. He appeared at the Old Bailey in London and pleaded guilty to gathering details of encryption programs in breach of the act.

The charge related to collecting information for a purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state between 18 November 2011 and 7 March 2012. The information was described in court as “crypto material” – or codes used to encrypt secret information – which could be useful to an enemy.

Devenney also admitted a charge of misconduct in a public office in relation to a meeting with two people he believed were from the Russian secret service. He admitted meeting the two individuals and discussing the movement of nuclear submarines with them. He denied a further count of communicating information to another person. The Crown Prosecution Service would not pursue this charge, the court heard.

…

Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 November 2012 13.15 GMT

Find this story at 13 November 2012
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Threat: Edward Devanney took photographs on board HMS Vigilant

A Royal Navy petty officer was jailed for eight years today after taking mobile phone pictures in the top-secret communications room of a nuclear submarine and planning to pass information to the Russians.

Edward Devanney secretly photographed canisters holding code systems used throughout Britain’s armed forces, which are normally locked in a safe.

Such a security breach could have jeopardised any chance of British submarines operating undetected by the enemy, the Old Bailey heard. Navy chiefs still do not know how he was able to open the safe and take the photos undetected.

Mr Justice Saunders told him: “You were prepared to betray your country and your colleagues. It needs to be understood by those who may be tempted to pass on secrets that long sentences will follow even unsuccessful attempts.”

Devanney rang the Russian embassy 11 times and later made contact with two men called Dimitri and Vladimir he believed to be enemy agents. He told them he was disillusioned with the Navy saying: “I’m just a bit p***** off with them. I know it’s petty but I just want to hurt them.”

…

Paul Cheston

12 December 2012

Find this story at 12 December 2012

© 2012 Evening Standard Limited

A disillusioned Royal Navy submariner betrayed his country by trying to pass nuclear sub secrets to Russian agents because he wanted to “hurt” the Navy.

Petty Officer Edward Devenney was jailed for eight years yesterday for breaching the official secrets act after being caught in an elaborate MI5 sting operation.

He spent three months in contact with men who he thought were two Russian spies but were actually British agents, the Old Bailey heard.

He continued with his plan, done in revenge for not being promoted, despite having suspicions and even told one: “Your accent sounds remarkably fake, like British intelligence”.

A communications engineer, he offered highly sensitive details of the movements of nuclear submarines and of a previous secret operation.

He also photographed top secret code information that could have caused “substantial damage to the security of the UK”.
The case last night also raised questions over Royal Navy security because Devenney had been able to access the code material from a locked safe.

He was also allowed to remain in his sensitive post despite having problems with drink and depression after being charged with rape, for which he was later acquitted, and had been warned he would be sacked after showing signs of erratic behaviour such as going absent without leave.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Saunders said: “This is a very serious case. The defendant was prepared to betray his country and his colleagues.”

Devenney, 30, from County Tyrone, had been a “blue-eyed boy” with a promising future in the Royal Navy, which he had served loyally for more than ten years, the court heard.

Lord Carlile QC, defending, said his career went “awry” in 2010 after he was charged with alleged rape, for which he was acquitted.

He began drinking excessively and became depressed and the following year asked to be removed from a promotion training course for 12 months.

However, he later decided he had been treated badly by the Navy and wanted to “hurt” them, Mark Dennis, prosecuting, said.

In November last year he began calling the Russian embassy in London, including 11 calls on one day shortly after a 12 hour binge drinking session.

At the time he was stationed on the nuclear submarine HMS Vigilant, which was in Plymouth undergoing a refit.

The following month he was contacted by a man called “Dima” who claimed to be from the Russian embassy.

A week later another man called Vladimir called claiming to be a colleague of Dima.

A series of phone calls and text messages were exchanged in which Devenney said he was “****** off” with the Royal Navy and that they could “help each other”.

In January, it was arranged he would meet Vladimir at the British Museum in London and the pair then met Dima in a nearby hotel room.

During the secretly filmed meeting, Devenney offered details of a previous secret operation by HMS Trafalgar, a hunter killer submarine, and various movement dates of two nuclear submarines.

Such advance notice could allow an enemy state time to set up equipment to record the sub’s unique signature information which would have meant it could have been tracked anywhere in the world, the court heard.

Two days after first contacting the Russian embassy, Devenney also managed to get into a locked safe on board HMS Vigilant and take three photographs of part of a secret code for encrypted information.

The pictures were placed on his laptop but he never passed them on or even mentioned them during his later meeting with the “Russians”.

Devenney pleaded guilty to breaching the Official Secrets Act by gathering classified information and misconduct by meeting the supposed spies.

The judge said he was passing a deterrent sentence because “those who serve their country loyally must know that those who don’t will receive proper punishment.”

…

By Tom Whitehead, Security Editor

5:15PM GMT 12 Dec 2012

Find this story at 12 December 2012

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

An member of the British Royal Navy has been arrested in a counterintelligence sting operation, after trying to sell top-secret government documents to people he believed were Russian operatives. Petty Officer Edward Devenney, who has been in the Royal Navy for over a decade, was arrested earlier this week while meeting with two MI5 officers posing as Russian spies. Originally from Northern Ireland, Devenney, 29, appears to have been motivated by disgruntlement against the Navy, after his planned promotion to commissioned officer was halted due to financial austerity measures imposed on the military by the British government. According to the court indictment, Devenney contacted an unnamed “embassy of a foreign country” in London, offering to provide classified information in exchange for money. It is unknown at this point how exactly MI5, the British government’s foremost counterintelligence organization, became privy to the content of Devenney’s communication with officials at the unidentified embassy. What is known is that, after several messages were exchanged between the parties, Devenney arranged to meet two people he believed were Russian government employees. In reality, the two individuals were MI5 officers, who were able to film the clandestine meeting. Devenney was apparently arrested on the spot, having first announced that he wished to “hurt the Navy” because his promotion to a commissioned officer had been “binned” by the British government. He also shared with them classified information, which British government prosecutors say he collected meticulously between November 19, 2011, and March 7 of this year. The information consisted of cryptological material, including encryption codes for British naval communications, operational details about the now decommissioned submarine HMS Trafalgar, as well as “the comings and goings of two nuclear submarines”.

…

November 15, 2012 by Joseph Fitsanakis 5 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |

Find this story at 15 December 2012

Lawyers and human rights groups say 400 settlements show ‘systemic’ abuse

British soldiers take Iraqi prisoners: human rights groups and lawyers are calling for a public inquiry into the UK’s detention and interrogation practices in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. Photograph: Reuters

The Ministry of Defence has paid out £14m in compensation and costs to hundreds of Iraqis who complained that they were illegally detained and tortured by British forces during the five-year occupation of the south-east of the country.

Hundreds more claims are in the pipeline as Iraqis become aware that they are able to bring proceedings against the UK authorities in the London courts.

The MoD says it is investigating every allegation of abuse that has been made, adding that the majority of British servicemen and women deployed to Iraq conducted themselves “with the highest standards of integrity”.

However, human rights groups and lawyers representing former prisoners say that the abuse was systemic, with military interrogators and guards responsible for the mistreatment acting in accordance with both their training in the UK and orders issued in Iraq.

The campaigners are calling for a public inquiry into the UK’s detention and interrogation practices following the 2003 invasion. An inquiry would be a development the MoD would be eager to avoid.

Payments totalling £8.3m have been made to 162 Iraqis this year. There were payments to 17 individuals last year and 26 in the three years before that.

The average payment to the 205 people who have made successful claims has been almost £70,000, including costs. The MoD says it is negotiating payments concerning a further 196 individuals.

Lawyers representing former prisoners of the British military say that more than 700 further individuals are likely to make claims next year.

Most of those compensated were male civilians who said they had been beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened before being interrogated by British servicemen and women who had detained them on suspicion of involvement in the violent insurgency against the occupation. Others said that they suffered sexual humiliation and were forced into stress positions for prolonged periods.

Many of the complaints arise out of the actions of a shadowy military intelligence unit called the Joint Forward Interrogation Team (Jfit) which operated an interrogation centre throughout the five-year occupation. Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross complained about the mistreatment of detainees at Jfit not long after it was first established.

Despite this, the interrogators shot hundreds of video films in which they captured themselves threatening and abusing men who can be seen to be bruised, disoriented, complaining of starvation and sleep deprivation and, in some cases, too exhausted to stand unaided.

A former soldier who served as a guard at Jfit told the Guardian that he and others were ordered to take hold of blindfolded prisoners by their thumbs in between interrogation sessions then drag them around assault courses where they could not be filmed.

He also confirmed that the prisoners were often beaten during these runs, and that they would then be returned for interrogation in front of a video camera.

The interrogators were drawn from all three branches of the forces and included a large number of reservists.

During proceedings brought before the high court in London, lawyers representing the former Jfit prisoners suggested the interrogation centre could be regarded as “Britain’s Abu Ghraib”.

Questioned about the compensation payments, an MoD spokesperson said: “Over 120,000 British troops have served in Iraq and the vast majority have conducted themselves with the highest standards of integrity and professionalism. All allegations of abuse will always be investigated thoroughly. We will compensate victims of abuse where it is right to do so and seek to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.”

Lutz Oette, legal counsel at Redress, a London-based NGO which helps torture survivors get justice, said: “The payments provide a long overdue measure of redress. However, for the victims compensation without truth and accountability is a heavy price to pay. For justice to be done there is a need for a full independent inquiry to establish what happened and who is responsible.

“Looking at the number of claimants and scale of payments, there clearly seems to be a systemic problem. It is high time for this to be fully accounted for, first and foremost for the victims but also the British public, which has an obvious interest to know the truth behind the figures.”

Next month, the high court will hear a judicial review of the MoD’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into the abuses. Human rights groups and lawyers for the former prisoners say the UK government is obliged to hold an inquiry to meet its obligations under the European convention on human rights – and particularly under article three of the convention, which protects individuals from torture.

After a hearing, the high court highlighted matters supporting the allegations of systemic abuse. These included:

• The same techniques being used at the same places for the same purpose: to assist interrogation.

• The facilities being under the command of an officer.

• Military doctors examining each prisoner at various stages in their detention.

• Investigations by the Royal Military police that were concluded without anyone being held to account.

If the court does order a public inquiry, responsibility for any systemic abuse is likely to be traced up the military chain of command and beyond.

…

Ian Cobain
The Guardian, Thursday 20 December 2012 21.00 GMT

Find this story at 20 December 2012

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

Ruling clears way for fresh inquest into 96 deaths, re-examining roles of police, Sheffield council and Sheffield Wednesday

Relatives of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster have said they feel vindicated in their 23-year campaign for justice after the original inquest verdict of accidental death was quashed in the high court.

The landmark verdict clears the way for a new inquest into the deaths next year, re-examining the roles of the police and other emergency services, Sheffield council and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, and leading to the possibility of new verdicts of unlawful killing.

The lord chief justice said it was “inevitable” that the emergence of fresh evidence about how and why the 96 victims died made it “desirable and reasonable for a fresh inquest to be heard”.

“However distressing or unpalatable, the truth will be brought to light,” Lord Judge said. “In this way, the families of those who died in the disaster will be properly respected. Our earnest wish is the new inquest will not be delayed for a moment longer than necessary.”

The decision came as a new police investigation into the disaster was announced by the home secretary, Theresa May. The former Durham chief constable Jon Stoddart will lead the new inquiry and liaise with a parallel Independent Police Complaints Commission review.

The application by the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, to quash the original verdicts was made in the wake of the publication in September of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) report and accepted by three high court judges.

New medical evidence revealed that 58 victims “definitely or probably” had the capacity to survive beyond the 3.15pm cut-off point imposed by the original coroner, Dr Stefan Popper. In a further 12 cases, the cause of death remained unclear.

Grieve said the application was unopposed and supported by all the families and the defendants, the coroner for South Yorkshire and the coroner for West Yorkshire.

The original coroner said that no evidence gathered after 3.15pm, when the first ambulance arrived on the pitch, would be considered because he believed that by that point all 96 victims were already dead. As a result, the role of the police and the emergency services in the aftermath of the disaster was not considered.

The attorney general told the court that medical evidence from Dr Bill Kirkup and Prof Jack Crane formed “the essential basis” for his application, meaning that the premise of the original inquest was unsustainable.

“The new medical evidence presented by the panel’s report leads to the conclusion that justice has not been done,” he said.

The lord chief justice said there was “ample evidence to suggest that the 3.15pm cut-off was seriously flawed” and that was sufficient on its own to justify the quashing of the original inquest.

It raised new questions about the conduct of police and the emergency services, he said.

But he said there were other reasons for ordering a new inquest, including the 116 amendments to police statements designed to cast them in a better light, and new evidence about the safety of the stadium.

Set up to reconsider all evidence relating to the disaster, including new documents made available for the first time, the HIP report raised serious concerns about the adequacy of the original inquest in Sheffield in 1990.

The review found that the decision to impose the cut-off severely limited examination of the response of the police and emergency services to the disaster on 15 April 1989, in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium, and “raised profound concerns regarding sufficiency of inquiry and examination of evidence”.

The lord chief justice agreed, saying that “in our judgment the 3.15pm cut-off point provided not only the most dramatic but also the most distressing aspect” of the new evidence.

“In short, the unchallenged evidence of pathologists at the Taylor inquiry and the subsequent inquest is no longer accepted,” he said.

…

Owen Gibson
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 December 2012 21.50 GMT

Find this story at 19 December 2012

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

MPs say decision is ‘unbelievable’ and they should be banned after London 2012 fiasco
G4S failed to recruit enough staff and more than 10,000 troops had to be drafted in at the last minute
Bosses say decision proves Government recognises they can ‘still win business’

Bungling Olympic security firm G4S is set to be offered another gold-plated Government contract despite its failure to provide enough staff for London 2012.

The company, which MPs want blacklisted from taxpayer-funded deals because the Army had to rescue it this summer, has now been shortlisted to help in several call centres.

G4S has been picked by the Department for Work and Pensions above 16 other firms and now looks likely to help advise the public on benefits.

Scandal: G4S’s mishandling of its Olympic security contract led to the military being called in, but it has now been shortlisted for another taxpayer-funded deal

Its inability to cope with an Olympics security contract meant that 18,000 troops and 12,000 police were drafted in to form the ‘ring of steel’ around venues that G4S had promised, causing national outrage.

G4S signed a £284million deal to provide 10,400 Games security guards, but just 16 days before the opening ceremony it admitted it had only fulfilled 83 per cent of contracted shifts.

Laughing: G4S boss Nick Buckles managed to keep his £5.3m a year job despite the embarrassing problems this summer

Politicians have today vented their fury at the news.

Shadow sports minister Clive Efford said: ‘This is unbelievable after the way they let down the country.’

Tory MP Patrick Mercer and former Army officer added: ‘I would be deeply concerned about further taxpayers’ money being spent on the firm that caused such chaos.’

But despite their catastrophic failings this summer G4S, which offers a wide range of services, not just security, said they could do the job.

Sean Williams, managing director of its employment support services arm, said the decision showed it could ‘still win business’.

‘We’ve done a massive amount of work for the Government over the past few years and we hope the Government recognises that,’ he added.

G4S look set to run call centres linked to the Coalition’s roll out of its Universal credits system.

The six main benefits will be rolled into one over the next five years and G4S staff could help answer calls from the public.

A DWP spokesperson said: ‘Framework agreements with six suppliers will allow DWP to procure contact centre requirements over the next four years, if needed.

‘DWP’s own call centres remain the primary point of contact for claimants and there is no guaranteed work for any suppliers on the Framework.’

Changes: British soldiers were denied holiday and brought back from warzones to fill in for G4S

G4S SIGNS UP NEW DIRECTORS TO SURE UP BUSINESS

G4S announced the appointment of three new directors today as the security group looks to move on following its Olympics Games contract fiasco.

ITV chief executive Adam Crozier and Paul Spence, who has served on Capgemini’s management committee, will join the G4S board next month, while Tim Weller, chief financial officer of Petrofac, will start in April.

The non-executive appointments replace Bo Lerenius and Paul Condon, who will retire from the company’s board in June following nine years service.

Shares in the FTSE 100 Index group were 3 per cent higher today.

The head of the bungling security firm kept his job despite an independent review finding the company guilty of ‘mishandling’ its Olympic contract.

…

By Martin Robinson

PUBLISHED: 13:31 GMT, 18 December 2012 | UPDATED: 17:49 GMT, 18 December 2012

Find this story at 18 December 2012

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Move comes as MPs and MSPs table questions to ministers after Guardian revealed ties between British and Maldives police

The Maldives police service is accused of serious and persistent abuses. Photograph: Ibrahim Faid/AFP/Getty Images

Foreign Office ministers are to raise serious concerns about human rights abuses in the Maldives after a Guardian investigation revealed close ties between the British and Maldives police.

Alistair Burt is to pressure the Maldives government to tackle serious and persistent abuses by its police service, including attacks on opposition MPs, torture and mass detentions of democracy activists, on an official visit next month.

MPs and MSPs are tabling questions to the foreign secretary, William Hague, and ministers in the Scottish government about disclosures in the Guardian that at least 77 police officers in the Maldives, including the current commissioner, Abdulla Riyaz, were trained by the Scottish Police College.

The college did not train Maldives officers in public order policing, but did include courses on human rights. Sources in the Maldives said a number of officers directly implicated in the recent violence were trained at the college, at Tulliallan in Fife.

Tory and Labour MPs at Westminster and MSPs active in a cross-party human rights group at Holyrood said the Foreign Office and Scottish ministers should immediately review those contracts.

The Guardian can also disclose that the Scottish Police college could soon extend its role in the Maldives by helping run degree courses for a new policing academy, despite the growing international condemnation of Maldives police conduct over the last 10 months.

The college and the Foreign Office are considering a formal proposal to supply teaching to the new academy. The Maldives president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who took power in February after the police helped to force the first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, from office, has used that deal to defend his regime’s track record on human rights.

In October Waheed wrote directly to senior public figures, including the airlines owner Sir Richard Branson and musician Thom Yorke, who had signed an open letter to the Guardian condemning his regime’s conduct, claiming that Scottish police were helping to reform policing in the Maldives.

John Glen MP, the parliamentary private secretary to the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, and a supporter of the opposition Maldives Democratic party, said he would be raising “grave concerns” that Waheed was using the Scottish Police college’s involvement to manipulate international opinion, in the Commons and directly with Burt.

Glen said: “There are grave implications for the Scottish Police college, which is in danger of being taken for a ride by a regime which is blatantly trying to legitimise the quality of its police force on the back of the established reputation of Scottish policing.”

John Finnie MSP, who chairs the Scottish parliament’s cross-party human rights group and is a former police officer, said he had written to Hague asking him to reconsider the training deal until democracy and civil liberties had been restored in the Maldives.

Finnie has also tabled questions to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, asking whether he had any powers to stop the college training police in oppressive regimes, and would be raising the Guardian’s investigation with Stephen House, chief constable of the new single police force for Scotland.

…

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 December 2012 07.00 GMT

Find this story at 19 December 2012

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

Scottish Police College and former officers have trained some of the Maldives police facing allegations of brutality against pro-democracy protesters, opposition MPs and journalists

Maldivian policemen block protesters after the ‘coup d’etat’ in February, when the island nation’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, stepped down. Photograph: Ibrahim Faid/AFP/Getty

The Maldives are marketed as a tourist paradise; a chain of idyllic coral islands with golden, palm-fringed beaches, where holidaymakers can bathe undisturbed in the warm, crystal-clear seas of the Indian Ocean.

But that image has been challenged by a series of damning reports by human rights investigators. They accuse the Maldives police service (MPS) of serious, repeated civil rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters, opposition MPs and journalists.

Violence in the Commonwealth nation sharply escalated this year after the forced departure of the Maldives’ first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed, in February. Human rights agencies believe that the alleged coup, and the violence since then, has shattered the islands’ slow, fragile journey to democracy.

That conflict, which has reportedly led to the mass detention of 2,000 opposition activists, assaults and arrests of 19 opposition MPs, as well as sexual assaults, torture and the indiscriminate use of pepper sprays – including twice against ex-president Nasheed, has raised significant questions about the role of British police in training and advising the islands’ controversial police service.

Opposition groups, Amnesty International and senior officials in the reformist Nasheed government, including the former high commissioner to the UK and the former chair of the Maldives’ police integrity commission, have told the Guardian about their serious concerns over the UK’s role.

They believe significant contradictions have emerged in the UK’s dealings with the Maldives police, which threaten to damage the UK’s reputation in south Asia.

Farah Faizal, the former Maldives high commissioner to the UK and a member of the UK-based Friends of the Maldives pressure group, said: “If they’ve been providing training all these years and the MPS in Maldives are carrying out all these brutal attacks on people then there are obviously questions for them [whether] it is the right training they’ve been getting.”

Opposition activists say the UK has been aware about the police force’s troubled reputation for years: senior British officers raised serious anxieties about human rights standards more than five years ago.

After a fact-finding mission in 2007, one senior retired Scottish officer, John Robertson, described the force’s special operations command as an “openly paramilitary organisation” and a “macho elite … most of whom lack basic police training”.

In 2009, two senior British officers recruited by British diplomats – Superintendent Alec Hippman of Strathclyde police and a former inspector of constabulary for England, Sir David Crompton, made a series of recommendations to improve policing, after discovering the Maldives police service was poorly equipped for modern policing.

After policing improved during Nasheed’s three-year term of office, the MPS has been heavily implicated in the violent, alleged coup when Nasheed was deposed in February this year. He stepped down – alleging that he was forced to at gunpoint – after several days of brutal clashes between the police, the Maldives’ military, senior members of Nasheed’s Maldives Democratic party and pro-democracy campaigners.

That violence has continued since the alleged coup, raising allegations that the opposition Maldives Democratic party is being suppressed before fresh but unconfirmed elections are due to take place next year.

That alarm intensified after former president Nasheed was arrested in October for allegedly arresting a judge, and ignoring a travel ban and several of his MPs were arrested on a private island for allegedly drinking alcohol.

In July, Amnesty International described the situation there as a “human rights crisis” following “a campaign of violent repression [which] has gripped the country since President Mohamed Nasheed’s ousting in February 2012.” Its report, The Other Side of Paradise, concluded “there are already signs that the country is slipping back into the old pattern of repression and injustice.”

Opposition groups are alarmed that former police officers acting privately and the Scottish Police College (SPC), backed by the Foreign Office, have continued training MPS officers and advising the force during a period of intense political conflict and mounting allegations of human rights abuses.

Faizal said she had been pressing the Foreign Office to take much tougher action on human rights in the islands. “I would hope they would definitely review what they’ve been doing because somebody has been paying for this: they should dramatically review what they’ve been doing and they need to tell these people in the MPS if they want to continue their relationship, they must be seen to be policing rather than act like thugs, just going around and beating people.

“They have to be a credit to the Scottish Police College if they do well, but right now, how the MPS is behaving is absolutely shocking.”

An investigation by the Guardian has found that Scottish police forces and the SPC have been closely involved in training Maldivian police, including its current commissioner, Abdulla Riyaz, for more than 15 years – when the Maldives were dominated by the unelected, autocratic President Abdul Mamoun Gayoom.

Since then, more than 67 MPS officers have been trained at the college at Tulliallan in Fife, their fees helping the SPC earn millions of pounds of extra income from external contracts. In 2009-10, the college received £141,635 from training MPS officers. The SPC said those fees did not make a profit, but was breakeven income.

The course, a diploma in police management in which human rights was “covered”, was taken by 67 Maldives officers. A separate group of MPS officers were also given human rights training in 2011, the college said. At least 10 middle- and senior-ranking Maldives officers are believed to have attended previously.

Links between Scottish and Maldives police began in 1997 when Riyaz and three other officers – then part of the Maldives’ military national security force, which ran all internal policing before a civilian police service was set up in 2003, had a five-month visit to Scotland the Highlands and islands.

Seconded to the Northern constabulary, Riyaz spent a month in the Western Isles and four months in Inverness, before taking a postgraduate diploma in alcohol and drugs studies at Paisley University in 1999. That tour of the Highlands was seven years before Gayoom, reacting slowly to pressure from its allies, including the UK government, split up his national security force into a military arm and a civilian police service in 2004. In January 2007, as Gayoom came under growing pressure for democratic reforms, including relinquishing his control over the judiciary, the police and state prosecution service, the SPC signed its open-ended training deal with the MPS.

The Foreign Office admitted it had “serious concerns” about the alleged police brutality and was pressing President Mohammed Waheed Hassan, to tackle the problem but added: “Targeted police capacity-building programmes can lead to increased police professionalism, responsiveness and accountability.

“Although progress is not always swift, we judge that UK engagement can make a positive contribution to consolidation of democracy and respect for human rights.”

The Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA), which runs Tulliallan, admitted it does not monitor policing in the Maldives, or check on how its former students perform, and admitted it had no knowledge of the critical report by Robertson from 2007. It said that monitoring links with the Maldives was the Foreign Office’s responsibility, through the British high commission in Sri Lanka.

John Geates, the interim chief executive of the SPSA and the former police college director who signed the original deal with the Maldives in 2007, defended its relationship with the force.

“We believe that sharing our wealth of experience and expertise is a positive way of contributing to the development and delivery of fair and effective policing across the world,” Geates said.

“We are passionate about showing other police forces how to deliver community policing by consent which, by its nature, means the college does not work with western democracies where that culture and ethos already exists.”

Bruce Milne, a former head of training and educational standards at Tulliallan college and retired chief superintendent, now works in the Maldives as a private consultant through his firm Learning & Solutions, but there are differing accounts about his work there.

Milne, who left Tulliallan in June 2010, initially signing a deal to provide training up to degree level with a private corporate security firm set up by Riyaz called Gage Pvt, and an organisation called the Centre for Security and Law Enforcement Studies.

According to Gage’s Facebook page, that deal was signed at a famous Maldives tourist resort called Sun Islands in December 2011, when Riyaz was not working for the Maldives police. Formerly an assistant commissioner, Riyaz had been sacked in early 2010 during Nasheed’s presidency for alleged fraud. He was reinstated as commissioner in February 2012, after Nasheed was deposed.

Riyaz told the Guardian that the deal signed last December lapsed after he rejoined the police. Milne’s company website said his firm “is in the process of forming a partnership with the MPS to create and support the Institute for Security and Law Enforcement Studies (Isles), in affiliation with the Scottish Police College, a world-renowned police training establishment.”

The college denied that. It said: “There is no formal affiliation between Learning & Solutions and the SPC in relation to the Maldives.”

Milne refused to discuss his dealings with the MPS with the Guardian, but his profile on the social networking site LinkedIn states he has been “responsible for the provision of advise [sic] on organisational development to the Commissioner of Police and to provide assistance and direction in the development of Isles, a professional institute offering competitive education and training for police and security staff in the Maldives”.

Superintendent Abdul Mannan, a spokesman for the MPS, denied that Milne was working with the MPS. He said: “Learning & Solution [sic] is working with Police Co-operative Society, a co-operative society registered under the Co-operative Societies Act of Maldives, and not MPS, to deliver a BSc course through Isles.

“Learning and Solutions is one out of the many foreign partner institutions working with Polco to deliver courses through Isles and Polco welcomes all interested parties to work in partnership to help Maldives deliver its security and justice sector training needs.”

Mannan said the MPS was committed to improving the force’s standards and its human rights record; it now had an internal police standards body that was modernising its policies and procedures. The force was “trying to professionalise the organisation and solid international partners are helping us achieve this goal.

…

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 17 December 2012 19.01 GMT

Find this story at 17 December 2012

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