A young Russian woman working for a British lawmaker is facing deportation after security services detained her on suspicion of espionage, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
The paper reported that Katia Zatuliveter, 25, secretly worked for the Russian intelligence as a “sleeper” agent.
She had been working for Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock who sits on parliament’s defence select committee which examines defence policy but has no access to secret material.
Hancock, who is also an MP for Porstmouth in southern England where there is a large naval base, denied his research assistant had done anything wrong.
“She is not a Russian spy. I know nothing about espionage, but she has been subjected to a deportation order,” Hancock said in a statement. He said she would appeal moves to deport her.
The lawmaker said that the domestic security service, MI5, had never raised any concerns about her with him.
“No one has ever said to me under any circumstances whatsoever that she has been involved in anything like that,” he said. “It is now in the hands of her lawyers. I am sure that in the end she will be proved to be right.”
Hancock told the BBC in an interview she was arrested on Thursday morning and taken to an immigration detention centre in London, before being moved to another centre where she is being held and putting her appeal together.
“Nobody has shown me any evidence to support the view that she is any way a threat to the United Kingdom,” Hancock said.
He said his assistant, who had worked for him for close to three years, had passed strict security vetting procedures to work in parliament.
The paper said her removal was approved by Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May after being briefed about her activities.
The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases or confirm deportation orders were in place. London’s Metropolitan police referred all queries to the UK Border Agency, who was not answering calls.
The Russian embassy in London could not be reached for comment.
A security source told the Sunday Times Zatuliveter’s presence was not “conducive to national security”, and the intention was to “show her the door”.
The paper said it was the first time since the end of the Cold War that someone working in parliament had been accused of spying for the Russians.
Toronto Sun
A young Russian woman working for a British lawmaker is facing deportation after security services detained her on suspicion of espionage, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
The paper reported that Katia Zatuliveter, 25, secretly worked for the Russian intelligence as a “sleeper” agent.
She had been working for Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock who sits on parliament’s defence select committee which examines defence policy but has no access to secret material.
Hancock, who is also an MP for Porstmouth in southern England where there is a large naval base, denied his research assistant had done anything wrong.
“She is not a Russian spy. I know nothing about espionage, but she has been subjected to a deportation order,” Hancock said in a statement. He said she would appeal moves to deport her.
The lawmaker said that the domestic security service, MI5, had never raised any concerns about her with him.
“No one has ever said to me under any circumstances whatsoever that she has been involved in anything like that,” he said. “It is now in the hands of her lawyers. I am sure that in the end she will be proved to be right.”
Hancock told the BBC in an interview she was arrested on Thursday morning and taken to an immigration detention centre in London, before being moved to another centre where she is being held and putting her appeal together.
“Nobody has shown me any evidence to support the view that she is any way a threat to the United Kingdom,” Hancock said.
He said his assistant, who had worked for him for close to three years, had passed strict security vetting procedures to work in parliament.
The paper said her removal was approved by Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May after being briefed about her activities.
The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases or confirm deportation orders were in place. London’s Metropolitan police referred all queries to the UK Border Agency, who was not answering calls.
The Russian embassy in London could not be reached for comment. A security source told the Sunday Times Zatuliveter’s presence was not “conducive to national security”, and the intention was to “show her the door”.
The paper said it was the first time since the end of the Cold War that someone working in parliament had been accused of spying for the Russians.
SUMMARY: WIKILEAKS – DECEPTION AND DISINFORMATION?
Perhaps more attention than is deserved is being given by government and the media to the release, by Wikileaks, of alleged “secret” diplomatic communications.
In this “letter to the editor” on the Wikileaks matter to Stratfor.com (Strategic Forecasting, Inc., a company comprised of intelligence professionals that uses human intelligence and other sources to provide unique, independent, non-ideological analysis of political, economic, and military developments), I suggest that the Wikileaks disclosures may be classic “deception and disinformation” tradecraft.
As discussed in the article, this argument is bolstered by comments in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on December 1, 2010 by a former Reagan administration official saying that release of these documents hurts the authoritarian regimes – friend and foe – that the U.S. seeks to influence far more than it adversely affects U.S. interests.
Interestingly, the Wikileaks principal is (according to numerous commercial news sources) hiding in London of all places. The U.K. has an Official Secrets Act that permits prosecution of those who disclose classified information, even such information obtained legally. Indeed, the U.K. and other nations have criticized the U.S. for not adopting such a law. (It probably would be impossible for the U.S. to adopt such a law in light of First Amendment jurisprudence.)
These comments apply to the most current Wikileaks document release as well as previous releases. I publish this here because access to Stratfor requires a subscription.
WIKILEAKS – DECEPTION AND DISINFORMATION?
December 2, 2010
It seems, perhaps, that, as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “the (government and
media) doth protest too much” regarding disclosures by Wikileaks of alleged
sensitive information. There has been insufficient consideration of the possibility that these disclosures are, at least in part, deliberate, and represent classic “deception and disinformation” tradecraft.
The U.S. intelligence community was crippled by the scandals and abuses of the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in the community’s tangential involvement in Watergate during the Nixon administration. Subsequent administrations were forced to operate with their intelligence hands tied. The U.S. (and, by extension, other Western nations) were unable to engage in activities – however necessary or desirable, albeit unsavory – that offended the sensibilities of domestically free societies effectively governed by the rule of law. These politically correct constraints proved unrealistic in a world largely governed by Hobbes’ “state of nature.”
In 1982, Margaret Thatcher, recalling Churchill’s wisdom that, “the truth is so valuable it is often protected by a bodyguard of lies,” resurrected a vigorous deception and disinformation capability in the U.K. intelligence community. (This initiative, not surprisingly in the U.K., quickly became known as “dee dee.”) She successfully convinced Ronald Reagan and the U.S. intelligence community to develop comparable expertise. After all, it is often possible to achieve indirectly that which cannot legitimately be achieved directly.
As Paul Nitze observed in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (December 1, 2010), the documents disclosed by Wikileaks damage weak, authoritarian regimes much more than they damage the U.S. (to the extent that they damage the U.S. at all). Most of the Wikileaks documents simply confirm what any reasonably knowledgeable international affairs analyst already knew. In his concluding paragraph, Nitze – for the record – condemned the Wikileaks disclosures, but his condemnation rings hollow.
The possibility that the diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks are simply part of a sophisticated disinformation campaign – particularly in the U.S., where “leaks” of sensitive information on domestic matters by politicians has become a legitimate public policy debate technique – should not be summarily dismissed.
Americans dismissed ‘bureaucratic’ Foreign Office concern that Lebanese Hezbollah suspects might be tortured
Richard Norton-Taylor and David Leigh
RAF Akrotiri at Limassol, Cyprus. WikiLeaks cables claim the US brushed aside British objections about secret spy flights from the base Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
American officials swept aside British protests about secret US spy flights taking place from the UK’s Cyprus airbase, the leaked diplomatic cables reveal.
Labour ministers said they feared making the UK an unwitting accomplice to torture, and were upset about rendition flights going on behind their backs.
The use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus for American U2 spy plane missions over Hezbollah locations in Lebanon – missions that have never been disclosed until now – prompted an acrimonious series of exchanges between British officials and the US embassy in London, according to the cables released by WikiLeaks. The then foreign secretary David Miliband is quoted as saying, unavailingly, “policymakers needed to get control of the military“.
Ministers demanded a full “audit trail” of covert operations, codenamed Cedar Sweep, amid growing public concern in the UK about unacknowledged CIA rendition flights and alleged UK complicity in torture. The planes gathered intelligence that was then allegedly passed to the Lebanese authorities to help them track down Hezbollah militants. In the past, such flights have also been carried out on Israel’s behalf by the Americans.
As the 2008 row escalated, the US rejected the British concerns over torture in unequivocal terms, with one senior official at the embassy in London baldly stating in one cable: “We cannot take a risk-avoidance approach to CT [counter-terrorism] in which the fear of potentially violating human rights allows terrorism to proliferate in Lebanon.”
The cables disclose that as well as the Lebanon missions, U2s from Akrotiri were gathering intelligence over Turkey and northern Iraq.The information was secretly supplied to the Turkish authorities in an operation codenamed Highland Warrior. The British protested that “in both cases, intelligence product is intended to be passed to third-party governments”.
On 18 April 2008, Britain demanded the US embassy provide full details of all flights so ministers could tell whether they “put the UK at risk of being complicit in unlawful acts … This is a very important point for ministers”.
A US diplomat, Maura Connelly, cabled: “We understand that these additional precautionary measures stem from the February revelation that the US government transited renditioned persons through Diego Garcia without UK permission and HMG’s [her majesty’s government’s] resultant need to ensure it is not similarly blindsided in the future.”
She complained to Washington that the demands were “burdensome” and “an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy”.
Will Jessett, then director of counter-terrorism at the ministry of defence, had sent a letter warning that “the use of UK bases for covert or potentially controversial missions” on behalf of Lebanon or Turkey meant it was “important for us to be satisfied that HMG is not indirectly aiding the commission of unlawful acts by those governments”.
The letter warned that other states, particularly Cyprus, might well object should they find out. Ministers therefore wanted the US to submit each time “an assessment of any legal or human rights implications”.
On 24 April, the embassy sent a cable to Washington entitled: “Houston, we have a problem”. It stated: “HMG ministers are adamant.”
The embassy “pushed back hard” on demands for a full “audit trail” of spy flights. But in what appears to have been a heated dispute, the British responded by detailing other US “oversights”.
“Contacts cited instances in which operations Highland Warrior and Cedar Sweep had been conducted from the UK sovereign base areas of Akrotiri without the proper ministerial approvals … In addition, Highland Warrior had raised tensions with the Cypriots, jeopardising the UK’s hold on Akrotiri.”
There were “other lapses that proved embarrassing to HMG (ie renditions through Diego Garcia and improperly documented shipments of weaponry through Prestwick airport)”.
The US used Prestwick in 2006 as a staging post to ship laser-guided bombs to Israel, causing British protests. The Israelis wanted the munitions to attack Hezbollah bunkers in Lebanon.
The US embassy concluded: “A new element of distrust has crept into the US-UK mil-mil relationship.
“The renditions revelation proved highly embarrassing for the Brown government. The British proposal … may be disproportionate but is almost certainly an indication of the Brown government’s sensitivity … at a time Brown is facing increasing domestic political woes.”
A month later Britain was still, according to the US, “piling on concerns and conditions” about human rights, saying that although junior minister Kim Howells was making the decisions, Miliband was being kept informed.
British officials warned that ministerial concerns “could jeopardise future use of British territory”.
US patience finally snapped when a Foreign Office official, John Hillman, passed on the message that “even the [US] state department’s own human rights report had documented cases of torture and arbitrary arrest by the Lebanese armed forces”.
Hillman urged the US to ensure the welfare of prisoners in Lebanon “if there were any risk that detainees captured with the help of Cedar Sweep intel could be tortured”.
At this point Richard LeBaron, charges d’affaires at the London embassy, cabled Washington that human rights concerns could not be allowed to get in the way of counter-terrorism operations. Britain’s demands were “not only burdensome but unrealistic”, he said, proposing “high-level approaches” to call the British to heel.
“Excessive conditions such as described above will hinder, if not obstruct, our co-operative counter-terrorism efforts,” he said.
Senior Bush administration official John Rood stepped in and the Foreign Office’s director general for defence and intelligence, Mariot Leslie, hastened to placate him.
The clash was “unnecessarily confrontational”, she told him. “Leslie expressed annoyance at the additional conditions conveyed by the FCO working level,” the cable states. “She had not been aware beforehand that such a message would be conveyed. In fact she regretted the tenor of the discussions had turned prickly, and underscored HMG appreciation for US-UK military and intelligence co-operation.”
She reassured him that US was not actually expected to check on detained terrorists.
“Ministers had merely wanted to impress upon the US government that they take the human rights considerations seriously.
“She noted that HMG ‘desperately needs’ [Cyprus] for its own intelligence gathering and operations and was committed to keeping them available to the US (and France).
“However, the Cypriots are hypersensitive about the British presence there, she said, and could ‘turn off the utilities at any time’. That, combined with the ‘toxic mix’ of the rendition flights through Diego Garcia, has resulted in tremendous parliamentary, public and media pressure on HMG.”
Leslie stuck to her guns on one point, saying the US embassy would still have to put in full written applications for future spy missions because “Miliband believed that ‘policymakers needed to get control of the military’.” The cable stated: “Leslie … was very frank that HMG did object to some of what the US government does (eg renditions).”
British ministers loyally kept these objections about the US to themselves, however, despite coming uinder repeated attack from the UK media for alleged complicity in the dispatch of Islamist prisoners to places where they would be tortured.
US use of Cyprus has always been controversial. Relations between London and Washington were strained at the time of the attacks on Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war by Ted Heath’s decision to adopt a policy of strict neutrality. The then prime minister refused to allow the US to use Britain’s electronic intercept and air bases on Cyprus .
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cyprus-rendition-torture, 2 December 2010
To everyone in the UK who feels concerned with the Human Rights situation in Iraq:
Please contact your MP and ask him/her to sign the Early Day Motion EDM968 – Human Rights Situation of Iraqi Turkmen
See:
80 signatures are needed.
Below are the names of the 20 MPs who have already signed :
HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION OF IRAQI TURKMEN 08.11.2010
20 signatures
EDM 968
Hancock, Mike
Blenkinsop, Tom
Bottomley, Peter
Clarke, Tom
Connarty, Michael
Durkan, Mark
Hemming, John
Hopkins, Kelvin
Leech, John
McDonnell, John
Munt, Tessa
Ritchie, Margaret
Rogerson, Dan
Russell, Bob
Shannon, Jim
Sharma, Virendra
Singh, Marsha
Williams, Mark
Williams, Roger
Williams, Stephen
That this House is concerned about the human rights situation of the Iraqi Turkmen, the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, who mainly live in the northern provinces, such as Kirkuk; condemns the ethnic cleansing and assimilation policy of Iraqi Turkmen by both Saddam Hussein’s government until 2003 andthe Kurds since 2003, who claim the Iraqi Turkmen lands which are rich with oil, gas sulphur, uranium and phosphorus; notes that the census in Iraq delayed for the third time since 2007 is now due to be held on 5 December 2010; worries that the inclusion of the questions on ethnicity and mother tongue in the census will divide Iraqi people instead of uniting them and might create new outbreaks of violence in this country; further condemns the treatment of the Iraqi Turkmen as the lower class in Iraq in comparison with the Arabs and Kurds; believes all ethnicities in Iraq should possess equal rights; welcomes the work of the Iraqi Turkmen Front to promote the human rights of Iraqi Turkmen such as the right to participate in the forming of the new government and the right to have justice, equality, fairness and an end to the discrimination and violence; and calls on the Prime Minister and the Government to raise the issue of Iraqi Turkmens’ human rights with the government of Iraq.
Emir Feisal I (right) and Chaim Weizmann (also wearing Arab dress as a sign of friendship) in Syria. Feisal later became King of Iraq.
by ISI LEIBLER
Chaim Weizmann would turn in his grave were he aware of the public attacks on the Israeli government by some in the UK Jewish leadership.
Mick Davis, the South African-born chief executive of the powerful mining group Xstrata, is chairman of Anglo Jewry’s United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA) – the principal fund-raising institution for Israel of the UK Jewish community.
He also heads a body known as the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) – essentially comprised of a group of wealthy British Jews and their acolytes who, by virtue of their financial largesse, assume a dominant influence on many levels of communal life. The power represented by their collective wealth enables them not to be accountable to anyone and few would dare question their policies.
Anglo Jewry has been blessed in the past with rich philanthropists, many of whom were also endowed with wisdom. Despite his immense wealth and access to the most important leaders in the land, Sir Moses Montefiore was devoted to his people and, far from radiating hubris or arrogance, generated respect and love.
In striking contrast, Mick Davis, also known as “Big Mick,” displays characteristics associated with the nouveau riche, akin to the behavior of some of the Russian- Jewish oligarchs. His opinions are rarely challenged and he contemptuously rejects the suggestion that holding a communal role in any way precludes him from publicly expressing views which would normally be considered incompatible for anyone occupying such a position.
Needless to say, Davis is fully entitled to say whatever comes to his mind. Nobody seeks to deprive him of freedom of expression.
Many Jews are critical of Israeli governments.
But for a person holding senior public office in a major Diaspora community to indulge in crude public attacks on Israeli leaders and relate to Israel’s security requirements in relation to their impact on his image in non-Jewish circles is surely bizarre and utterly unconscionable.
While occupying the role of chairman of the UIJA in a country in which hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism have reached record levels, Davis brazenly incites his fellow Jews to criticize Israel.
RESIDENT IN London, he had the chutzpa to berate the Israeli prime minister “for lacking the courage to take the steps” to advance the peace process, arguing that “I don’t understand the lack of strategy in Israel.” He also employed the terminology of our enemies, predicting an “apartheid state” unless Israel was able to achieve a two-state solution – unashamedly blaming Israelis rather than Palestinians for being the obstacle to peace.
His sheer arrogance was best demonstrated in his most outrageous remark: “I think the government of Israel has to recognize that their actions directly impact on me as a Jew living in London, UK.
When they do good things, it is good for me; when they do bad things, it is bad for me. And the impact on me is as significant as it is on Jews living in Israel… I want them to recognize that.”
Aside from implying that Israel is responsible for the anti-Semitism he is encountering, Davis is effectively warning that when considering defense issues which may have life-or-death implications for Israelis, the government must be sure not to create problems for him in his non- Jewish social circles. From his London mansion, he blithely brushes aside suicide bombers, rockets launched against our children and the threat of nuclear annihilation because his gentile friends might complain about the behavior of his Israeli friends.
Jonathan Hoffman, vice president of the UK Zionist Federation (one of the few Anglo-Jewish leaders courageous enough to criticize Davis), expressed outrage that the UIJA chairman could make such a remark. “We are not aware that Hampstead is within range of Iranian or Hamas missiles, nor that its residents have to send their children to the IDF for three years,” he said.
It is telling that over recent years, Davis has not been renowned for condemning the shameful policies of British governments in relation to Israel. And it is no coincidence that immediately after the UK abstained from the UN vote on the Goldstone Report, Davis chaired a JLC reception at which former foreign minister David Miliband was the key speaker. On that occasion, the “outspoken” Davis felt constrained not to express a single word of complaint or disappointment at the perfidious behavior of the British government in relation to this issue.
Admittedly, Davis’ latest outburst is neither intellectually challenging nor persuasive.
But emanating from a Jewish “leader” in the anti-Semitic UK environment in which campaigns to boycott and delegitimize Israel are at an all-time high, and at a time when Israel is under siege and fighting for its existence, it surely represents a level of unprecedented vulgarity.
IN ANY self-respecting Diaspora Jewish community, Davis would have been obliged to tender his resignation immediately after making such outrageous remarks.
Not so in sunny London.
Instead of condemning him, the Anglo- Jewish establishment groveled. Many even seemed delighted that one of their leading spokesmen had distanced himself from what many of them may regard as the unsavory government which the people of Israel had democratically elected.
With the exception of Jewish National Fund head Samuel Hayek, not a single member of the JLC criticized Davis.
The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Vivian Wineman, said, “Mick Davis is entitled to make his remarks – there are a wide range of views in the country and in Israel on these issues.”
Simon Hochhauser, president of the Orthodox United Synagogue and a JLC trustee, may one day regret and feel ashamed for having stated that “there is nothing in the quoted comments I would disagree with.”
Former UIA chairman Brian Kerner said that he was “broadly supportive” of the views expressed by Davis, but questioned voicing them in public because “it is only picked up by our enemies, distorted and used against us.”
Harvey Rose, chairman of the Zionist Federation, also agreed with “much” of the position expressed by Davis, noting that “how Israel is perceived in the UK has a direct bearing on our comfort levels in Britain.”
The non-Orthodox groups, some of whom had always been inclined against Zionism, applauded Davis as “a remarkable leader and a true Zionist leader.”
Anglo-Jewish leaders share a long tradition of burying their head in the sand, avoiding confrontation and displaying a determination not to rock the boat under any circumstances. One of their leaders actually wrote in The Jerusalem Post, proudly boasting how their pro-Israel advocacy approach was based on “whispering” rather than “shouting.”
Today, by lacking the courage to challenge the propriety of one of its most senior “leaders” indulging in coarse public condemnations of Israel, the trembling Israelite establishment has further undermined the standing of the UK Jewish community.
When one proudly recalls the outstanding contribution of British Jews to the development of Zionism, and the role played by leaders of the caliber of Chaim Weizmann, one is left with a sense of profound sadness. The Anglo- Jewish Zionist pioneers would turn in their graves were they aware of the irresponsible behavior of those who have currently assumed the mantle of leadership of their community.
For more than three decades now, efforts to resolve the territorial dispute in Cyprus between its Greek and Turkish residents have failed. Since reunification plans have been rejected, is it time to officially partition the island?
