[A-List] UK state: MI5 whitewash

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Shayler is disappointing because on the bigger questions he gets much wrong,
e.g. there was no plot to destabilise Harold Wilson -- very much the party
line still peddled by MI5 today. However the fact that he chose to reveal
that people like Mandelson and Jack Straw were being surveilled by MI5
during the 1970s (no doubt as part of the general campaign against the trade
union and labour movement of which Harold Wilson was nominally head),
despite being rather too predictably newsworthy (rather than truly serious)
has forced people like these two to come clean. Straw told Parliament that
he bore "no hard feelings" about being spied on whilst Mandelson doesn't
even acknowledge that it happened, very probably because for many, many
years he has had his own dealings with MI6 (the London Weekend connection
especially). Blowing the gaffe on that would be too threatening for too
many, thus his pompous denial and smear of Shayler. It would expose, yet
again, the rivalry and distrust that exists between the two agencies who
spent much of the 1970s fighting their own proxy war in Northern Ireland on
the grounds of jurisdictional authority. Another former MI6 asset, Robert
Maxwell, was investigated by MI5 during the 1960s for the same reasons that
Shayler alleges Mandelson was surveilled as recently as 1992. And Shayler
made the error of also criticising MI6 instead of limiting his claims to MI5
until after any trial. It is too easy for his stories of murder plots by MI6
to be dismissed as the fantasy of someone who sat at a desk in a formally
subordinate organisation not privy to the decisions of the superior one.


Shayler convicted of revealing state secrets
Former MI5 agent sold documents to newspaper

MICHAEL SETTLE
The Herald, 5 November 2002

DAVID Shayler, the renegade spy, is today facing up to six years in jail
after he was convicted of revealing state secrets.

The 36-year-old was found guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday on three counts
of disclosing information under the Official Secrets Act. Each offence
carries up to two years' imprisonment.

In 1997, the former MI5 agent passed top-secret documents to a newspaper in
return for £40,000. The prosecution claimed he had potentially placed the
lives of secret agents at risk.

Shayler argued he was a whistle-blower rather than a traitor and had acted
in the public interest by exposing the incompetent and illegal activities of
his fellow agents.

However, yesterday he was grim-faced as the jury returned its verdict in the
Old Bailey. He was remanded on bail for sentencing today.

The court heard how Shayler copied 28 files on seven topics, including
several on Libyan links with the IRA and Soviet funding of the Communist
party of Great Britain, before leaving MI5 in October 1996.

The documents, some marked "top secret", were said to be "chocabloc" with
agents' names and other highly sensitive information.

In the 1997 articles for the Mail on Sunday, Shayler accused British
security services of botching investigations into IRA attacks in London in
the 1990s and failing to prevent a 1994 bombing of the Israeli embassy.

Papers also contained information about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. He
accused the government of ignoring an alleged plot by British agents to kill
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Shayler also claimed that agents bugged private interviews between suspected
terrorists and their lawyers in prison and MI5 operatives tapped the phones
of key Labour party members in the 1970s.

The prosecution said it would apply later for Shayler's £40,000 newspaper
fee to be confiscated.

Outside court, the former spy was unusually reticent. Annie Machon, his
partner, also a former MI5 officer, said: "David is a whistle-blower, pure
and simple. I'm shocked at the verdict. He deserves to be protected, not
prosecuted.

"David revealed malpractice, crime and incompetence on behalf of the
intelligence service and he did it in the public interest."

She added: "The Official Secrets Act needs urgent review and parliament must
ensure anyone prosecuted under it in future has a public interest defence."

John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty and Shayler's
solicitor, said: "This is not the end of our case."

He explained the defence would now consider an appeal and would continue its
application to the European Court of Human Rights.

Last night, Peter Mandelson, the former Northern Ireland secretary, spoke
out, claiming Shayler had not spoken the truth about him over claims that
MI5 agents tapped his telephone in the 1970s and kept records on his
political activities.

The Hartlepool MP said he had been telephoned once in the 1970s when
chairman of the British Youth Council by an eastern European diplomat, which
was "entirely innocent" and required no further action by the security
services.

"I believe Mr Shayler shaded the truth to impress the Mail on Sunday who
were paying him for his original 'revelations'. In this case, they were not
worth the paper they were printed on," said Mr Mandelson.

Earlier, Nigel Sweeney, QC, for the crown, told the trial disclosure of even
one piece of classified information could be the "final piece in the jigsaw"
allowing hostile countries or organisations to identify British agents.

Shayler, who defended himself, told the court: "It should be a fundamental
principle of a fair society that people are allowed to expose the wrongdoing
of the security services, particularly when they are a threat to our
liberty. I was seeking to expose the truth."

He appealed to the jury to be brave and prove "the law is an ass" by
clearing him. They thought otherwise.

------

The spy who just could not shut up
Whistle-blower Shayler broke every rule in the secret agent's handbook

MICHAEL SETTLE
The Herald, 5 November 2002

NORMALLY spies are anonymous creatures who, if they do talk publicly, appear
behind curtains in courtrooms or as silhouettes on our television screens.

David Shayler, by contrast, appeared to break almost every rule in the
secret agents' rulebook and for a period appeared ubiquitous in the media,
even appearing via a satellite link on the BBC's satirical programme Have I
Got News For You.

Once dubbed a "blabbermouth" and "born rebel", the 36-year-old from
Middlesbrough was not so much the spy who talked but the spy who would
simply not shut up.

It was in 1997 he broke ranks with front-page revelations about MI5's files
on senior Labour politicians. These were followed up by exposing a number of
state secrets which he felt showed law-breaking and incompetence among his
fellow-spies.

Throughout Shayler's trial, his defence has been consistent: he is a
whistle-blower, not a traitor.

The three charges under the Official Secrets Act that Shayler faced at the
Old Bailey were based on the first disclosures, published by the Mail on
Sunday, that agents tapped the telephone of Peter Mandelson, the former
Northern Ireland secretary, for three years in the late 1970s because they
wrongly feared he was a Soviet agent.

Shayler claimed to have seen a photocopy of Mr Mandelson's Communist party
membership card in the top secret file, as well as transcripts of the
sensitive phone taps.

He claimed MI5's records on Mr Mandelson were reviewed as late as 1992
because the security services wanted to establish if he could be a threat to
national security.

Last night, the former cabinet minister, who denies ever having been a
Communist party member, broke his silence on the Shayler case, claiming
MI5's interest was stirred by an "entirely innocent" phone call he received
from an eastern European diplomat when he was chairman of the British Youth
Council.

Shayler had "shaded the truth" with his so-called revelations, claimed Mr
Mandelson, simply to impress the Mail on Sunday. "In this case, they were
not worth the paper they were printed on," he said.

Among Shayler's other disclosures was that MI5 had a file on Jack Straw, the
foreign secretary, because it was concerned about his involvement with
left-wing politics as president of the National Union of Students from 1969
to 1971.

At the Old Bailey's famous court two, the jurors were given weighty files
containing 28 documents which Shayler, a graduate of Dundee University and
former Sunday Times trainee journalist, admitted passing to the Mail on
Sunday. His fee was £40,000.

Some parts of the files, more than 200 pages long, had been censored to
protect agents, but they still provided a fascinating insight into the work
of MI5.

The documents - which would have normally remained secret for 30 years, or
possibly even for a century - included reports on how Libya provided arms to
the IRA, investigations into right and left-wing "subversive" groups, a
report from an unnamed foreign intelligence agency on the Lockerbie bombing
and a memo headed "Moscow gold" on Soviet funding of the Communist party of
Great Britain.

It was only for these initial disclosures Shayler faced trial, yet he has
made a large number of other claims about MI5 and MI6.

A few days after the first disclosures in the Mail on Sunday, Shayler added
more names to his list of politicians spied on by MI5, including Edward
Heath, the former Tory prime minister, "because he was very keen on
rapprochement with the eastern bloc".

A year later came Shayler's most remarkable disclosure, which emerged while
he was being held in a cell at La Sante prison in Paris as Britain tried to
arrange for him to be extradited to face charges.

He said MI6 attempted to kill Muammar Gaddafi by paying an Arab agent
£100,000 to place a bomb under the Libyan leader's motorcade in 1996.

The device blew up, killing several innocent bystanders, but Colonel Gaddafi
escaped unhurt, added Shayler, who worked on MI5's Libyan desk for two
years.

Robin Cook, the -then foreign secretary, dismissed the Gaddafi plot
allegation as "pure fantasy".

Shayler remained incarcerated in Paris for four months as the French courts
refused to extradite him on the grounds his whistle-blowing was political
and he, therefore, could not be extradited to face trial under the Official
Secrets Act.

It is six years since Shayler left MI5.

Today, he could be facing a similar length of time at Her Majesty's
pleasure.
Diary of revelation
October 1996 Shayler leaves MI5.

August 1997 He tells Mail on Sunday about the activities of MI5, including
claims that it investigated Labour ministers Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and
Harriet Harman. He flees to France after government and MI5 decide to
investigate him under the Official Secrets Act.

High Court issues an injunction to prevent Mail on Sunday publishing further
claims.

September 1997 Shayler's partner Annie Machon, also a former MI5 officer, is
arrested on arrival at Gatwick airport.

November 1997 Injunction is lifted and Mail on Sunday publishes Shayler's
claims that MI5 failed to stop the bombing of the Israeli embassy in London
in 1994.

July 1998 Shayler says MI6 officers plotted an assassination attempt against
Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

August 1998 French police arrest Shayler in a Paris hotel.

October 1998 High Court rejects legal aid for Shayler to fight his
extradition to Britain. French public prosecutor backs British government's
extradition request.

November 1998 French judges rule Shayler's motives are not grounds for
extradition and he is set free.

August 1999 Shayler threatens to reveal new secrets on the internet.

December 1999 He launches a campaign to return to the UK.

February 2000 Government issues a writ against Shayler for breaches of
confidence, contract and copyright laws on files held by MI5 and MI6.

July 2000 Shayler's novel, The Organisation, is passed by government
censors.

August 2000 He returns to Britain from France. Within hours of arriving, he
is charged under the Official Secrets Act.

October 2002 Shayler's trial for exposing official secrets begins at the Old
Bailey.