News you may have missed #613 (court case edition)

October 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Katia Zatuliveter

Katia Zatuliveter

►►Russian accused spy admits affair with British MP. Katia Zatuliveter, 26, who is accused by British counterintelligence service MI5 of being a spy for Russia, has admitted having a four-year affair with Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock, 66, while she worked as his parliamentary researcher. She also admitted that before meeting Mr Hancock she had affairs with a NATO official and a Dutch diplomat. However, she has denied working as a spy or targeting Mr Hancock in a honey trap operation.
►►Trial for ex-CIA officer accused of leaking secrets delayed. The trial for Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer charged with leaking classified defense information has been delayed. Opening arguments were expected to begin this week, but the trial was postponed on Monday after prosecutors said they intended to appeal the judge’s decision to strike two witnesses.
►►UK justice secreary plans closed-door terrorism trials. Intelligence gathered by British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6, even if obtained by torture, will never be disclosed in court proceedings, under proposals announced by British justice secretary Kenneth Clarke. The proposals have been welcomed by the security and intelligence agencies, but criticized by civil rights groups for promoting “secret justice”.

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News you may have missed #606

October 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

Gaza Freedom Flotilla raid

2010 Flotilla raid

►►N. Korea planned to trade nukes for full ties with US. North Korea in 2008 indicated it would retain its nuclear bombs until the end of the six-party talks as a final bargaining chip for attaining full diplomatic relations with the United States, according to US diplomatic cables leaked recently by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
►►Judge refuses to sanction CIA for destroying torture tapes. A federal judge won’t hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of detainee interrogations that included the use of a torture technique known as waterboarding, ruling instead that the spy agency merely committed “transgressions” for its failure to abide by his court order. The Obama administration has kept its promise to the CIA.
►►Turkey says NATO members will not share intelligence with Israel. Turkey has says it is certain that NATO member states will keep their promise of not sharing the Alliance’s intelligence within with Israel. Turkish-Israeli relations badly damaged last year, after Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza to breach the naval blockade, killing nine Turkish civilians.

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Germany releases Mongolian spy master wanted for abduction, torture

October 4, 2011 by 2 Comments

Bat Khurts

Bat Khurts

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On May 15, 2003, Mongolian refugee and political-asylum seeker Enkhbat Damiran was kidnapped outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Le Havre, France. According to Amnesty International, Damiran was apprehended by a team of officers of the General Intelligence Agency of Mongolia (GIAM), who kicked him, drugged him and beat him with electric batons, before ushering him to the Mongolian embassy. From there, Damiran was illegally smuggled into Germany, where he stayed for a few days, before being transported to Mongolia, through Belgium. Once back in his homeland, Damiran effectively ‘disappeared’ in the custody of GIAM, where he was allegedly subjected to systematic torture by his captors. The latter believe him to be connected with the 1998 assassination of Zorig Sanjaasürengiin, Mongolia’s former Minister of Infrastructure. Following complaints about the abduction from the European Union, the Mongolian government apologized to the governments of France, Germany and Belgium. But Damiran’s abduction has continued to be at the root of a diplomatic rift between Europe and Mongolia, which has widened in recent years. Things became even more heated in September 2010, when British intelligence, acting on a Europe-wide arrest warrant, captured Bat Khurts, former Director of GIAM, who is believed to be responsible for Damiran’s abduction and torture. Khurts was arrested in London, after being lured there in a carefully planned and executed intelligence operation. This past July, the British government decided to extradite Khurts to Germany, where was scheduled to be tried on abduction charges on October 24. So it was a bit of a surprise to say the least, when, yesterday, the Mongolian former spymaster was unexpectedly released by German authorities, after having all charges against him dropped. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #597

September 24, 2011 by Leave a comment

Abdel Hakim Belhaj

Abdel Belhaj

►►Inside the CIA’s secret Thai prison. The United States Central Intelligence Agency appears to have used Bangkok’s former Don Muang International Airport as a secret prison to torture Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who is now the commander of rebel Libyan military forces in Tripoli. If true, Belhaj’s allegations are the first public descriptions of a CIA black site in Thailand. Bangkok-based journalist Richard S Ehrlich investigates.
►►How is the US government using security contractors? “Mark Lowenthal, who was a high-ranking CIA official before joining the contractor work force, told the [US House Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee] that during his time as assistant director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, half of his staff was made up of contractors”.
►►Leaked cables show Australia nuclear power push. In 2008, John Carlson, head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office, which acts as the country’s nuclear safeguard authority, advised the then prime minister Kevin Rudd that no scheme to limit carbon emissions would succeed without the building of civilian nuclear power stations, according to leaked US diplomatic cables. When contacted by the media, Carlson refused to confirm or deny the accuracy of the revelations.

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News you may have missed #587 (Libya edition)

September 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

Abdel Hakim Belhaj

Abdel Belhaj

►►Inside Libyan spy overlord’s low-tech HQ. “Handwritten notes prepared for officials over the past months show that Libya’s spooks had a good grasp of who was sending weapons to the rebels. However, its contacts with MI6 and the CIA had clearly disintegrated, as a series of despairing pleadings reveal”.
►►UK government to investigate Libyan rendition claims. British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that an independent inquiry should investigate evidence that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the rendition of terrorist suspects to Libya, where they were tortured by the Gaddafi regime.
►►Libyan rebel says female MI6 spy ignored his pleas for help. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who is commander of Libya’s rebel military, says a female MI6 spy was among the Britons who flew to Tripoli to interrogate him, after the CIA abducted him in Malaysia, and delivered him to the hands of the Libyan regime.

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News you may have missed #581

September 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

Jin Yinan

Jin Yinan

►►CIA wants to censor book by ex-FBI agent. The agent, Ali H. Soufan, argues in the book that the CIA missed a chance to derail the 9/11 plot by withholding from the FBI information about two future 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego. He also says that torture interrogation methods against terrorism detainees were unnecessary and, ultimately, counterproductive. Both these things are known and have been publicly discussed. As The Independent correctly notes, the CIA’s objections are “less for national security reasons than out of a desire to avoid re-airing incidents that show the Agency in an unflattering light”.
►►New scandal at India’s SIGINT agency. The Indian government founded the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) in 2004, as a potential communications nerve center for all of India’s intelligence agencies. But the SIGINT agency has been involved in one financial scandal after the other, most recently relating to an elaborate procurement scam.
►►China silent about spy lecture leak. China has remained quiet as a recently leaked video of a Chinese general’s candid remarks on sensitive spying cases continued to draw international attention. The ministries of defense and foreign affairs have not responded to media inquiries, and numerous phone calls to National Defense University, where the general, Jin Yinan (pictured), teaches, went unanswered. State media made no mention of the story.

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News you may have missed #557 (‘CIA getting away with stuff’ edition)

August 3, 2011 by 2 Comments

CIA HQ

CIA HQ

►►Judge dismisses CIA mind-control lawsuit. A court has dismissed a federal lawsuit against the CIA by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) for allegedly subjecting US military personnel to chemical, biological and mind control experiments from 1953 until 1976. According to the presiding judge, the veterans can’t sue the CIA because they can’t prove they took “secrecy oaths” administered by the Agency. But the lawsuit continues to apply against the US Department of Defense and other government entities and individuals.
►►Judge absolves CIA for destroying torture tapes. In 2007, the US Justice Department began an investigation into the destruction by the CIA of videotapes, which reportedly showed acts of torture committed during interrogations of terrorism detainees. It concluded that the CIA destroyed the tapes on purpose, after it was instructed to deliver them to the DoJ for examination. But, in a move that hardly surprised observers, a judge on Monday ruled that the CIA did not act in contempt when it destroyed videotapes.
►►Norway quietly drops US spy activities investigation. Back in November of 2010, Norway, Sweden and Denmark launched official investigations into media reports that accused US embassies in their countries of operating illegal intelligence-gathering networks. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #540

July 17, 2011 by Leave a comment

Jim Judd

Jim Judd

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►► Bulgaria bars ex-spies from holding diplomatic posts. Bulgaria’s conservative-majority parliament has voted to bar individuals who once worked for the country’s communist-era secret service from holding top diplomatic jobs. The aim of the legislation is what Eastern European countries call ‘lustration’, namely the process of cleansing of their security and intelligence agencies from Soviet-era operatives. The practical problem with that, of course, is that, in doing so, Eastern European intelligence services do away with some of their best-trained operatives. Moreover, there is nothing to suggest that Bulgaria’s post-communist spy agencies are significantly more law-abiding than their communist-era predecessors. Regular IntelNews readers might remember our coverage of Operation GALERIA as a case in point. ►► Ex-spymaster says Canada is too concerned about torture. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) struggle to isolate itself from complicity in torture by US and British spy agencies has reached the “point where we were probably alienating foreign partners” by not sharing intelligence. This is the opinion of Jim Judd, former Director of CSIS. He also argued that “strident anti-torture interpretations” would affect “everything and anything CSIS did, with respect to foreign intelligence agencies”. Judd, a career spy who retired in 2009, is considered something of a hawk, and probably rightly so. ►► NSA whistleblower requests reduced sentence (update: No jail time for Drake, judge releases him saying he has been through “four years of hell”). Thomas Drake was a senior official with the US National Security Agency. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #531 (US edition)

July 5, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • US spy agencies looking into cloud computing. In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the US intelligence community, recently sunk money into a cloud-based storage company called Cleversafe. The CIA has emerged as one of the US government’s strongest advocates of cloud computing, but some US intel insiders are not so hot on the idea.
  • Obama administration drops most CIA torture probes. So, this is how one of the darkest chapters in US counterterrorism ends: with practically every instance of suspected CIA torture dodging criminal scrutiny. Wired’s Danger Room blog calls it “one of the greatest gifts the Justice Department could have given the CIA as David Petraeus takes over the agency”.
  • US report shows increase in authorized wiretaps. US federal and state applications for orders authorizing or approving the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications increased 34 percent in 2010, compared to the number reported in 2009.

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News you may have missed #465

January 5, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Germany denies secret spy collaboration with the US. Germany’s aerospace center denied Monday that it is working with the US on a $270 million high-tech secret spy program, insisting that its plans for a high-resolution optical satellite have purely scientific and security uses. The denial was in response to US State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and revealed by Norwegian daily Aftenposten.
  • Was Iranian nuclear defector tortured? Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who returned to Tehran in July after what he called a “kidnapping” by the CIA, has been held in detention by Iranian authorities for two months and tortured so badly he was hospitalized, according to a dissident Iranian web site.
  • WikiLeaks reveals France leads industrial spying in Europe. France is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage on other European countries, even ahead of China and Russia, according to leaked US diplomatic cables, reported in a translation by Agence France Presse of Norwegian daily Aftenposten‘s reporting.

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Some underreported WikiLeaks revelations

November 30, 2010 by 3 Comments

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
There is little point in recapping here the bulk of disclosures contained in the ongoing WikiLeaks revelations. The news sphere is jam-packed with them —and perhaps this is the real story in the WikiLeaks revelations, namely the fact that espionage and intelligence issues have near-monopolized the global news cycle for the first time since the post-Watergate Congressional investigations of the 1970s. But it is worth pointing out a handful of news stories on the WikiLeaks revelations that have arguably not received the media coverage that they deserve. Undoubtedly the most underreported disclosure concerns a 2007 meeting between US officials and Meir Dagan, the then Director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. During the meeting, Dagan apparently “presented US with five-step program to perform a coup in Iran“.  But there are other underreported disclosures. Take for instance the revelation that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally authorized US diplomats to engage in all-out and indiscriminate spying on senior United Nations officials. Although there is nothing here that will surprise seasoned intelligence observers, the breadth of intelligence collection that US diplomats are instructed to engage in (which includes collecting credit card numbers and biometric data of UN officials) is astonishing and certainly unprecedented. Moreover, it should be noted that many senior UN officials are in fact American, which leads to the intriguing question of whether US diplomats are routinely required to engage in intelligence collection against American UN officials. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #429 (CIA edition)

September 10, 2010 by Leave a comment

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News you may have missed #356

May 21, 2010 by 1 Comment

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News you may have missed #352

May 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

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CIA ‘used fake British passports’ in kidnap operation

May 17, 2010 by 1 Comment

UK passport

British passport

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
British authorities are looking into allegations that a team of CIA agents made use of forged British passports during an abduction operation in 2003. The allegations surfaced last week in Spain, where a team of prosecutors is currently investigating the activities of 13 CIA agents (11 men and two women) who appear to have used the Spanish tourist resort of Majorca as a base for conducting various operations around Europe. Following the example of Italy, which last year convicted several CIA operatives for illegally abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan, Spanish authorities are now considering issuing arrest warrants for the 13 CIA agents. They are all believed to have been involved in the abduction and rendition of German citizen Khaled El-Masri. El-Masri was abducted in Skopje, Macedonia, in 2003, and later transferred on a secret CIA flight to a Syrian prison, where he says he was brutally tortured. He was later released without explanation, once US authorities realized they had the wrong man. Read more of this post

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