A Russian woman working in the British parliament is to be deported after security services arrested her on suspicion of espionage, The Sunday Times reported.
Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5 decided that Katia Zatuliveter, 25, who works for Mike Hancock, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Commons defence select committee, was secretly working for the Russian intelligence service as a ‘sleeper’, the paper reported.
The arrest is believed to be the first time since the end of the Cold War that someone working in parliament has been accused of spying for Russia.
The newspaper said MI5 believes the attractive Zatuliveter was deliberately targeting Hancock, 64, who has a strong interest in Russia.
Hancock dismissed allegations that his assistant was a spy.
‘She is not a Russian spy. I know nothing about espionage, but she has been subjected to a deportation order. She is appealing it, because she feels, quite rightly, that she has done nothing wrong,’ he told the Press Association.
A spokesman for the Home Office, or interior ministry, said: ‘We do not routinely comment on individual cases.’
Zatuliveter, who underwent security vetting before taking up her job, was arrested by police and immigration officials last week and is being held at a secure facility awaiting deportation to Russia.
The move to deport her comes after she was stopped while re-entering Britain at London’s Gatwick airport in August. Before releasing her, security officials questioned her in depth about her work for Hancock, the report said.
A source told The Sunday Times: ‘Her presence here is not considered to be conducive to national security. There was unhappiness about what she could have access to. The intention is to show her the door.’
The report said the British MP employed Zatuliveter after meeting her in Strasbourg, where he often travels on business as a member of the parliamentary forum of the Council of Europe.
The deportation could place further strain on Britain’s diplomatic relations with Russia, which are only just emerging from an icy period after the murder by poisoning of the dissident Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
Martin, who enlisted in 2006, also told the agent that he was seeking “long-term financial reimbursement,” and that he could be very valuable over a 15- or 20-year career, the warrant says.
Martin offered to bring the agents two documents at their next meeting and accepted $500 in cash from the agent, according to the warrant.
At a meeting the next day at the same hotel, Martin produced two documents – one labeled “secret” and the other “top secret” and accepted $1,500 in cash, the warrant alleges. He agreed to meet the agent again on Nov. 19, when he produced 51 pages of secret and top secret documents, according to the warrant.
The warrant does not address how Martin came under suspicion or how he came into contact with the undercover FBI agent.
A Russian woman working in the British parliament is to be deported after security services arrested her on suspicion of espionage, The Sunday Times reported.
Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5 decided that Katia Zatuliveter, 25, who works for Mike Hancock, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Commons defence select committee, was secretly working for the Russian intelligence service as a ‘sleeper’, the paper reported.
The arrest is believed to be the first time since the end of the Cold War that someone working in parliament has been accused of spying for Russia.
The newspaper said MI5 believes the attractive Zatuliveter was deliberately targeting Hancock, 64, who has a strong interest in Russia.
Hancock dismissed allegations that his assistant was a spy.
‘She is not a Russian spy. I know nothing about espionage, but she has been subjected to a deportation order. She is appealing it, because she feels, quite rightly, that she has done nothing wrong,’ he told the Press Association.
A spokesman for the Home Office, or interior ministry, said: ‘We do not routinely comment on individual cases.’
Zatuliveter, who underwent security vetting before taking up her job, was arrested by police and immigration officials last week and is being held at a secure facility awaiting deportation to Russia.
The move to deport her comes after she was stopped while re-entering Britain at London’s Gatwick airport in August. Before releasing her, security officials questioned her in depth about her work for Hancock, the report said.
A source told The Sunday Times: ‘Her presence here is not considered to be conducive to national security. There was unhappiness about what she could have access to. The intention is to show her the door.’
The report said the British MP employed Zatuliveter after meeting her in Strasbourg, where he often travels on business as a member of the parliamentary forum of the Council of Europe.
The deportation could place further strain on Britain’s diplomatic relations with Russia, which are only just emerging from an icy period after the murder by poisoning of the dissident Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
MANAMA (AFP) – A regional centre to fight Al-Qaeda must be created to help countries join ranks and eradicate the Islamist “danger” which threatens the world, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief said on Friday.
“The danger threatens all of us and the fight against terrorism necessitates international action,” Prince Turki al-Faisal said in Manama, which is hosting a major conference on Middle East security.
“We must relaunch the idea of (setting up) a regional centre to fight” against Al-Qaeda, Prince Turki said.
“There should be no obstacles between countries on the exchange of information” about Al-Qaeda, he added.
In 2005 Saudi Arabia first floated the idea of a regional centre based in the ultra-conservative kingdom, where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was born, to pool international resources against the Islamists.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi, whose country is the ancestral homeland of Bin Laden, told Friday’s meeting the “struggle against Al-Qaeda failed in part because we don’t see this as a global issue.”
“Each one of us is concentrating on their own national security. We need a unified strategy,” Kurbi said.
For his part, British Defence Minister Liam Fox said that “transitional terrorism by definition has no borders.”
“We have to learn to act together,” Fox said.
The annual Manama Dialogue organised by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies draws prime ministers, defence ministers, military officials, intelligence chiefs and private sector heads from across the region and beyond.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistani police have arrested five suspects linked to an attack on a spy agency building in Lahore last year which killed 24 people, the city’s police chief said.
“The suspects have confessed their role in the suicide attack on the intelligence agency building,” police chief Aslam Tareen told reporters, adding that the group had been planning more terror attacks.
“The five were arrested a couple of days ago from Shahdara,” a neighbourhood in Lahore, the country’s eastern hub, Tareen told a press conference.
“We are in a warlike situation and this war on terror has spread across Pakistan, but we are trying to do our best to maintain security,” he said. It would take time to complete the investigation, he added.
Police said the suspects belonged to the previously unknown Al-Toheed-wa-al-Jihad faction which falls under the umbrella Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and had trained in North Waziristan.
“They were activating themselves and planning terrorist activities in Lahore,” Tareen said.
The group was also engaged in kidnapping for ransom, an investigator said.
“They kidnapped people for ransom in 2009 in Faisalabad and Sialkot,” senior police investigator Zulfiqar Hameed told the press conference.
“Their next target was some security forces buildings in Lahore,” he said.
“Police have recovered four suicide vests, one rifle, 32 hand grenade pins, 13 number plates of vehicles, eight mortar shells and ammunition.”
At least 24 people were killed, including 13 policemen, civilians and security officers, in the May 2009 suicide attack on an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) building.
A group calling itself “Tehreek-i-Taliban Punjab” claimed responsibility for the blast in a Turkish-language statement posted on jihadist websites.
Around 4,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007. The attacks have been blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked networks.
