Category Archives: MI5

50 Chinese students leave UK in three years after spy chiefs’ warning

Posted on by

MI5 chief says Chinese communist party targeting intellectual property across west

Fifty Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after Britain tightened its procedures to prevent the theft of sensitive academic research, the head of MI5 said in a speech about the espionage threat posed by Beijing.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the spy agency, also said that MI5 had “more than doubled” its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe, as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI.

Continue reading...

Woman terrorised by MI5 agent takes legal action against service

Posted on by

Man with background in rightwing extremism accused of attacking woman with machete and threatening to kill her

A woman who was terrorised by an MI5 agent with a background in rightwing extremism is taking legal action against the security service.

Beth, not her real name, claimed the man, her former partner, attacked her with a machete and threatened to kill her.

Continue reading...

MI5 agent ‘abused and threatened’ ex-partner, BBC investigation reveals

Posted on by

Story made public after an attempt by the attorney general to gain an injunction to prevent broadcast

An agent working for MI5 with a background in rightwing extremism abused his former partner and used his connection with the domestic intelligence agency to threaten her further, according to an investigation by the BBC.

The man – known only as X for legal reasons – is said to have terrorised the woman and at one point attacked her with a machete and threatened to kill her, as shown in a video captured on her mobile phone. “There was so much psychological terror from him to me, that ultimately culminated in me having a breakdown,” the woman said.

Continue reading...

Tories ‘bending the rules’ after missing deadline for publishing Lebedev advice

Posted on by

Not releasing MI5 advice on granting peerage makes government look like it has something to hide, Labour says

Ministers have been accused of “bending the rules to dodge scrutiny” after Downing Street missed the deadline for publishing the security advice it received about granting Evgeny Lebedev a peerage.

MPs voted last month for the material to be released after reports that MI5 raised security concerns when the Evening Standard owner and son of a KGB officer was nominated by Boris Johnson to join the House of Lords in March 2020.

Continue reading...

UK spies who allegedly passed questions to CIA torturers subject to English law, court rules

Posted on by

Abu Zubaydah, tortured at CIA ‘black sites’ in six different countries, has right to sue UK government

UK intelligence services who allegedly asked the CIA to put questions to a detainee who was being tortured in “black sites” were subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which he was being held, the court of appeal has ruled.

The three appeal judges were asked to decide whether Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to extreme mistreatment and torture at secret CIA “black sites” in six different countries, has the right to sue the UK government in England.

Zubaydah had no control whatever over his location and in all probability no knowledge of it either.

His location was irrelevant to the UK intelligence services and may have been unknown to them.

The claimant was undoubtedly rendered to the six countries in question precisely because this would enable him to be detained and tortured outside the laws and legal systems of those countries.

Continue reading...

MI5 investigated Texas synagogue hostage-taker in 2020

Posted on by

UK intelligence officers concluded Malik Faisal Akram posed no threat, which allowed him to travel to US and buy gun

The British man who took hostages at a Texas synagogue had been under investigation by MI5 as a possible Islamist terrorist threat as recently as 2020, Whitehall sources acknowledged on Tuesday morning.

British intelligence closed the investigation, however, after officers had concluded Malik Faisal Akram from Blackburn posed no threat, and as a result he was able to freely travel to the US and purchase a gun.

Continue reading...

Chinese national trying to improperly influence politicians, says MI5

Posted on by

Warning circulated to MPs and peers about woman targeting parliamentarians

A security warning from MI5 has been circulated to MPs and peers claiming that a female Chinese national has been seeking to improperly influence parliamentarians.

The “interference alert” names an individual “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party” with MI5’s logo at the top.

Continue reading...

UK officials still blocking Peter Wright’s ‘embarrassing’ Spycatcher files

Posted on by

A documentary-maker has accused the Cabinet Office of defying the 30-year rule in withholding details of the MI5 exposé

The Cabinet Office has been accused of “delay and deception” over its blocking of the release of files dating back more than three decades that reveal the inside story of the intelligence agent Peter Wright and the Spycatcher affair.

Wright revealed an inside account of how MI5 “bugged and burgled” its way across London in his 1987 autobiography Spycatcher. He died aged 78 in 1995.

Continue reading...

The spies who hated us: reporting on espionage and the secret state

Posted on by

Our security correspondent speaks to a predecessor about an era of spooks, leaks and open hostility from MI5

It is time for morning coffee and Richard Norton-Taylor and I are discussing secrecy, deception and brown envelopes, which comes naturally to the pair of us, as past and present defence and security correspondents of the Guardian.

Norton-Taylor joined the paper in January 1973 (when, incidentally, this writer was not yet two), starting in Brussels and switching to security a few years later. The first part of his career was dominated by a series of landmark official secrecy battles.

Continue reading...

MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up

Posted on by

Exclusive: Document produced by university cited agency as secret funder of research

For an agency devoted to secrecy and surveillance, it is an embarrassing slip-up. An inadvertent disclosure on a university document has revealed that MI5 is partly behind what was meant to be a covert bug and drone research project.

Ostensibly, Imperial College’s research was to create a quadcopter system for charging remote agricultural sensors – but MI5’s participation has emerged because somebody involved stated it was the secret second funder of the programme.

Continue reading...

MI5 was involved in 1972 conviction of trade unionists, court told

Posted on by

‘Higher echelons of the state’ allegedly helped get striking workers including Ricky Tomlinson convicted

Three government departments including the Security Service, MI5, collaborated to help convict a group of construction workers who had gone on strike to try to improve their pay and safety measures, the appeal court has heard.

Lawyers for the 14 trade unionists, including the actor Ricky Tomlinson, told the court that the “higher echelons of the state” were responsible for helping to get them unfairly convicted for offences arising out of a strike 47 years ago.

Continue reading...

Government lawyer tells court M15 officers could authorise murder

Posted on by

Admission came hours before bill allowing continuation of controversial powers passed the Commons

Government lawyers have told a court that MI5 officers could authorise an informer to carry out a murder under controversial powers that ministers want to see continued contained in a bill that passed the Commons hours later.

The admission came in a court of appeal hearing on Wednesday when Sir James Eadie, representing the government, was asked if there was “a power for a Security Service officer to authorise an agent to execute an extremely hostile individual”.

Continue reading...

John le Carré obituary

Posted on by
Writer whose spy novels chronicle how people’s lives play out in the corrupt setting of the cold war era and beyond

John le Carré, who has died aged 89 of pneumonia, raised the spy novel to a new level of seriousness and respect.

He was in his late 20s when he began to write fiction – in longhand, in small red pocket notebooks, on his daily train journey between his home in Buckinghamshire and his day job with MI5, the counter-intelligence service, in London. After the publication of two neatly crafted novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962), which received measured reviews and modest sales, he hit the big time with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963).

Continue reading...

MI5 boss says Russian and Chinese threats to UK ‘growing in severity’

Posted on by

Ken McCallum also pledges to boost diversity in the service as response to Black Lives Matter movement

MI5’s new boss has said the spy threats posed by China and Russia to the UK are “growing in severity and complexity” while the terrorist threat from Isis and the far right “persists at scale”.

Giving his first speech since his domestic spy agency’s director general in April, Ken McCallum focused on risks from hostile states, including undermining “the integrity of UK research” on a coronavirus vaccine.

Continue reading...

UK set to introduce bill allowing MI5 agents to break the law

Posted on by

Government says bill is not a ‘licence to kill’ but critics call for limits on agents’ activities

A bill allowing confidential informants working for MI5 and the police to break the law will be introduced on Thursday amid a row about whether committing crimes such as murder and torture should be explicitly banned.

The government says that the covert human intelligence sources bill does not amount to a “licence to kill” because it will be compliant with the European convention on human rights, which safeguards the right to life and prohibits torture.

Continue reading...

Timid, incompetent … how our spies missed Russian bid to sway Brexit

Posted on by

MPs who compiled the Russia report were incredulous at Britain’s reluctance to tackle Kremlin

In September 2015 a tall young man with jet black hair and a pleasant grin made his way to Doncaster. His name was Alexander Udod. With the EU referendum vote on the horizon, Udod was attending Ukip’s annual conference. In theory he was a political observer. Actually Udod was an undercover spy, based at the Russian embassy in London.

Udod chatted with the man who would play a key role in Brexit – the Bristol businessman Arron Banks. The spy invited Banks to meet the Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko. What allegedly followed was a series of friendly encounters between Leave.EU and the Russians in the crucial months before the June 2016 poll: a boozy lunch, pints in a Notting Hill pub, and the offer of a Siberian gold deal. (Banks denies receiving money from Russia and previously stated his only contact with the Russian government in the run-up to the referendum consisted of “one boozy lunch” with the ambassador.)

Continue reading...

British security services to get extra powers in wake of Russia report

Posted on by

Counter-espionage laws to be strengthened as government accused of failing to respond to security threat

Legislation to clamp down on foreign spying is being considered by Downing Street in the wake of a damning report laying bare the impact of Russian influence in Britain and accusing the government of “badly” underestimating the threat posed by the Kremlin.

Under the new legislation, foreign agents would have to register in the UK in a move modelled on similar requirements in the US and Australia.

Continue reading...

British state ‘covered up plot to assassinate King Edward VIII’

Posted on by

Historian says papers challenge official version that George McMahon was a fantasist

It has all the hallmarks of a 21st-century political thriller, including a plot to assassinate a controversial monarch, an MI5 double agent, and claims of a high-level cover-up.

In 1936, an MI5 informant called George McMahon tried to assassinate King Edward VIII as he rode his horse near Buckingham Palace. Just as he was taking aim with a revolver, a woman in the crowd grabbed his arm and a policeman punched him, causing the weapon to fly into the road and strike the monarch’s mount.

Continue reading...

MI5 rejects claims that officials withhold intelligence from Priti Patel

Posted on by

Informed security source says Sunday Times report quoting unnamed officials is untrue

MI5 has rejected claims that its officials are withholding information from Priti Patel because they do not trust her.

An informed security source said the report about Patel’s relationship with the agency in the Sunday Times was “simply untrue” and that she was getting the same information from the agency as any other home secretary.

Continue reading...