UK spy agencies argue for torture trial behind closed doors

October 29, 2009 Leave a comment

Binyam Mohamed

Binyam Mohamed

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The two primary intelligence agencies in the British Isles have argued that any evidence presented in a lawsuit accusing them of torture should remain secret. The request, which is unprecedented in British legal history, was made on Monday before Britain’s High Court by MI5, MI6, as well as by a number of government ministers. The court case in point centers on a lawsuit filed jointly by seven British citizens or residents, all of whom were held in the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp and claim they were tortured by the CIA with British complicity. The seven are Moazzam Begg, Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Martin Mubanga, and Binyam Mohamed, whose case is perhaps the most well known. Read more of this post

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CIA misled, lied to Congress several times since 2001, say lawmakers

October 29, 2009 Leave a comment

Jan Schakowsky

Jan Schakowsky

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The two Democrats chairing the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have accused the CIA of misleading Congress on at least five instances during the last eight years. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Representatives Jan Schakowsky (CA, photo) and Anna Eshoo (IL.) said an investigation by the Committee had uncovered several examples “where the committee actually has been lied to” by the CIA. The two chairwomen described the investigation findings as “symptom[s] of a larger disease” involving the routine practice of “incomplete and often misleading intelligence briefings”. However, commenting on Schakowsky and Eshoo’s allegations, Robert Litt, the senior attorney in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the conduct of all 16 US intelligence agencies, said Congress was not adequately briefed on “a small number of intelligence activities”, but “has since been brought up to date”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0158

October 28, 2009 Leave a comment

  • Former Los Alamos scientist is no spy, say physicists. US scientists familiar with the work of P. Leonardo Mascheroni, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear physicist whose house was recently searched by the FBI, insist he is not a spy. Mascheroni says he was told by the FBI that he is suspected of possible involvement in “nuclear espionage”.
  • Analysis: The West’s intelligence deficit on Iran. The fact is that neither a single intelligence agency nor the collective wisdom of the Brits, Israelis, French and Americans, has given Western countries a full picture of what is going on either in Iran’s nuclear program or in the minds of the leadership in Tehran.
  • Australia hires more spies. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) has said in its annual security review that “hostile intelligence agencies” are increasingly using the Internet to gather intelligence from Australian government computer networks. Interestingly, ASIO also noted that the number of its staff members increased from 1492 in 2008 to 1690 today.

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Venezuela announces arrest of Colombian “spies”

October 28, 2009 Leave a comment

Francisco Arias Cardenas

Cardenas

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The government of Venezuela announced yesterday the arrest of an undisclosed number of Colombian intelligence agents, who were allegedly “captured carrying out actions of espionage”. The announcement was made by the Venezuelan deputy foreign minister, Francisco Arias Cardenas, who claimed that the detainees were all members of Colombia’s scandal-prone and soon-to-be-dismantled DAS intelligence agency. Cardenas gave no further details yesterday, but said that the Venezuelan government would “soon produce evidence” to back up its claims. Read more of this post

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Breaking news (or is it?): Karzai’s brother on CIA payroll

October 28, 2009 Leave a comment

Wali Karzai

Wali Karzai

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Citing “current and former American officials”, The New York Times said last night that Ahmed Wali Karzai, notorious drug lord and younger brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “gets regular payments from the CIA. Understandably, the Times report is making headlines all over the world today, though it’s not exactly a revelation. IntelNews readers have known about Wali Karzai’s spy connection since September 17 (respect to The Washington Post‘s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who first alerted us to it). That aside, there are four main new pieces of information in the Times article. First is the allegation that the CIA has financially sustained Wali Karzai ever since the initial US invasion of Afghanistan, in 2001. Second, Karzai appears to function as a “landlord” to the CIA force in southern Afghanistan, providing it with facilities and logistical support. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0157

October 28, 2009 Leave a comment

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News you may have missed #0156

October 27, 2009 Leave a comment

  • NGOs worry African spy services. A memo authored by African spy service representatives at the third annual conference of the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA), has acknowledged what most intelligence services in developing countries already know: that many “volunteers” of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are in fact intelligence operatives using their NGO status as a cover.
  • Nozette admitted guilt in fraud charges last January. New information shows that Stewart D. Nozette, who was arrested and charged last week under the US Espionage Act, pleaded guilty in January to overbilling NASA and the Pentagon more than $265,000 for consulting services.

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Swedish journalist, author, admits KGB ties

October 27, 2009 1 Comment

Jan Guillou

Jan Guillou

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
One of Sweden’s most famous journalists has admitted having had ties with the KGB in the 1960s and 1970s. Jan Guillou, a veteran newspaper correspondent known in Sweden for his hugely popular spy novels, admitted meeting with a KGB handler after allegations surfaced in a Swedish newspaper. Stockholm-based daily Expressen said it had in its possession several declassified files belonging to Sweden’s security service (SAPO), which revealed that Guillou was recruited by the KGB in 1967. The files are reportedly based on the testimony of the late Arne Lemberg, Guillou’s friend and fellow-reporter, who told SAPO that Guillou held regular meetings with KGB rezident in Stockholm Yevgeny Ivanovich Gergel. Read more of this post

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Israel mum on mysterious devices found in Lebanon

October 27, 2009 Leave a comment

One of the devices

One of the devices

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Israel has refused to either confirm or deny it planted a number of communications interception devices that were uncovered last week by security forces in southern Lebanon. Responding to a “request for clarifications” issued by the United Nations, the Israeli government said simply that “collecting intelligence in southern Lebanon will continue as long as the government in Beirut is not in full control of its territory”, an obvious reference to Hezbollah, the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization that controls large parts of Lebanon. Three the devices were found last week, attached to a telecommunications cable on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Houla. Interestingly, two of the devices self-destructed by exploding as Lebanese security personnel were approaching. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0155

October 27, 2009 Leave a comment

  • NSA confirms rumors of new Utah data center. IntelNews readers have known about this since last July. Despite the new center, NSA still cannot process all the information it intercepts. But officials told a press conference on Friday that the Agency “has no choice but to continue enhancing its data processing efforts”.
  • UK intel agents to train West Bank security forces. Britain is sending intelligence officers from MI5 and MI6 to the West Bank, to train the Palestinian Authority’s Mukhabarat intelligence agency. According to The Daily Mail, the move is aimed to “stop a wave of brutal torture by Palestinian security forces”. How ironic is it, then, that both MI5 and MI6 are currently under investigation by British police for complicity to torture?

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News you may have missed #0154 [updated]

October 26, 2009 Leave a comment

  • Breaking news: Castro’s sister says she spied for the CIA. Juanita Castro, Fidel and Raúl Castro’s sister, says she voluntarily spied for the CIA from 1961 to 1964, when she left the island for Miami. She said she met a CIA officer called “Enrique” at a hotel in Mexico City in 1961; she was then given the codename “Donna” and codebooks so she could receive encoded instructions from Washington.
  • Was Milan Kundera a communist police informant? Documents unearthed by Czech academics allegedly show that the Czech-born author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being denouncing a Western spy to Czechoslovakia’s StB secret police during his student days.
  • Afghans complain about US spy balloon. A US spy balloon (see previous intelNews coverage) flying over the city of Kandahar in Afghanistan, is prompting privacy complaints from residents.

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Prince Albert’s former spymaster airs Monaco’s ‘dirty secrets’

October 26, 2009 Leave a comment

Prince Albert II

Prince Albert II

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last April I wrote that former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer, who until recently was spymaster to prince Albert II of Monaco, was completing a book on his experiences in the tiny principality, a project he began after leaving his post. But that’s not all. Eringer has now sued the prince for €360,000 ($542,000) in alleged unpaid income, including a severance pay package. The London Sunday Times, which has “obtained” a copy of Eringer’s lawsuit, says that the document “lays bare some of [Monaco’s] dirtiest secrets”. Among them are Eringer’s claims that he investigated activities in Monaco by Russian and Italian mobsters, that he was asked to “assist” a young woman who was romantically involved with prince Albert, and that he went after video evidence showing “a woman performing a sex act on the prince” at his 40th birthday party. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Is US supporting suicide terrorists in Iran?

October 26, 2009 1 Comment

Jundullah men

Jundullah men

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Jundullah, a militant anti-regime Sunni group in Iran, claimed responsibility last week for an October 18 suicide attack that killed 42 people, including five senior members of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards corps. Tehran blamed the attack, which is part of a wider low-intensity guerilla war in the country’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, on the work of covert American, British and Pakistani operatives. Should the Iranian allegations be taken seriously? IntelNews has written before about Washington’s complex relationship with Jundullah and the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), two of several armed groups officially deemed terrorist by the US State Department. In 2007, ABC News went so far as to claim that Jundullah “has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005″.   Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0153

October 26, 2009 Leave a comment

  • More on Nozette’s 2009 mystery trip abroad. The affidavit of Stewart David Nozette, who was arrested last Monday for attempting to sell classified US government information to an undercover FBI agent, reveals that “[o]n or about January 6, 2009, [the scientist] traveled to a different foreign country”, carrying with him two thumb drives, which he failed to bring back with him. Where did he go, and why?
  • Armenia charges former army officer with spying for Azerbaijan. Armenian Army officer Gevorg Airapetian and a “foreign national” were arrested in a “special operation” by Armenian authorities earlier this week, and charged with spying for Azerbaijan. Some suspect Russian involvement, believing the Azerbaijanis to have acted as intermediaries between Airapetian and Moscow.
  • US spy chief Blair calls for spy cooperation. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair called Wednesday for a better-coordinated effort within the US intelligence community. But he said nothing about recent reports that intelligence officials shut down a Web-based unclassified e-mail system, which had been heralded as an important step in information sharing between members of the US intelligence community.

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News you may have missed #0152

October 25, 2009 Leave a comment

  • Madoff befriends Israeli-handled spy in prison. According to legal papers filed last Tuesday, Bernard Madoff, imprisoned for masterminding one of history’s largest financial frauds, is sharing a cell with Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of selling military secrets to Israel over two decades ago.
  • Polish undercover agent has cover blown. An undercover agent of Poland’s controversial Anti-Corruption Agency (CBA), known simply as Tomek K. (a.k.a. Tomasz Malecki or Tom Piotrowski) has had his cover blown after seducing Polish television star Weronika Marczuk-Pazura during an anti-corruption investigation. Whoever said undercover work was boring?
  • Finnish former prime minister says KGB tried to recruit him. In his political memoirs published last week, Paavo Lipponen, who was Finland’s prime minister from 1995 to 2003, reveals the Soviet KGB tried unsuccessfully to recruit him in 1966 and again in the early 1970s.

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