From Paris with love
David Shayler,the former M15 officer exiled in France, reveals how the Secret Service turned its back when Colonel Gaddafi's men came looking for him
When I first went on the record, many people seemed not to be bothered about MI5's unnecessary investigation into leftwing individuals. They saw it as a part of the Cold War. What they found hard to accept were my disclosures that MI5 simply could not do its job.
We have always believed that our intelligence services are "the best in the world". But how would we know? The edifice of secrecy thrown up around MI5 and MI6 has meant that we have little reliable information about what is done in our name. When I went on record with tales of incompetence and bungling, I was howled down. My information was banned and my character attacked in a series of shadowy anonymous briefings.
A government injunction prevents me revealing details of what I learned about MI5's operational incompetence I can, however, relate a true story that happened to me after I had left MI5...
In the week after I was released from prison in November 1998, John Wadham, my lawyer and the director of Liberty, the human rights Organization, forwarded a fax from the BBC Arabic Service. It requested an interview with one of their freelance journalists, Souhail Rasheed. In the same week, Anne Sophie Levy, my French lawyer, received a number of calls from this individual offering me £50,000 to do a television interview about my prison experiences.
We discussed the political sensitivities of giving an interview to an Arab journalist, but decided that there was little anyone could do about it as long as I didn't make any new disclosures. And, hell, for £50,000 I was more than happy to oblige.
The Tuesday of that week, I called him on a French mobile number and agreed to meet to him in the Cafe Beaubourg the following Thursday.
My girlfriend Annie Machon and I deliberately arrived about 10 minutes early, hoping to see Rasheed's arrival. We sat in a corner but a waiter approached us to say that Rasheed was waiting for us on the first floor where he had an excellent view of both entrances. He looked like an academic. He wore little round, tortoiseshell rimmed glasses, was grey and balding with a pointy beard. The look was completed by a pipe and newspaper like something out of a bad movie.
Rasheed told us he wasn't going to beat about the bush. He declared that he was a
"representative of the Libyan Intelligence Services" (LIS) and was licensed to carry a firearm. He patted a large bulge below his armpit. He then went on to detail what we could get out of this meeting. As he spoke, he kept sparking up his flamethrower lighter. Later, Annie and I confessed that we could only think of one thing as he spoke: his using the lighter to torture some terrified prisoner.
It transpired, unsurprisingly, that the LIS wanted me to go to Libya. In return, I could name my price. "We are talking millions of pounds. We have bank accounts already set up in Switzerland for this sort of thing."
But I had no intention of being a traitor. I was just too scared to say no in case he took this as a declaration of war. I wondered if the lighter was in fact a recording device. I think he realised he had scared us with the mention of the LIS. He began to backtrack. If we went to Libya, we would, he elaborated, only be meeting the Colonel for tea. I could give my evidence about MI6's failed plot to kill Gaddafi and about Lockerbie in writing. And the Libyans would, of course, help me get a book published.
I had absolutely no intention of betraying my country, but I did discuss the possibility of giving some sort of statement to the Libyan authorities on the Gaddafi plot. But without leaving France. Rasheed said that any book deal or payment was dependent on my going to Libya.
"Don't worry," he said. "No one there thinks you were involved in the plot," thereby immediately giving away to me that they did. They wanted me in Libya to answer questions. Not as a witness but as a coconspirator. For a second or two, I left the conversation and let my mind follow this to its logical conclusion torture, show trial and execution. The cynical might think I am overdramatising, but I spent two years reading about atrocities committed by the regime that would have embarrassed medieval despots. There was no way I was going to Libya.
Rasheed, I think, suspected he had blown it. But he ploughed on, switching tack. He asked me if I would be prepared to give a statement about the Gaddafi plot to their lawyer in Paris. I could see no harm in revealing information already in the public domain. Anyway, I had information about the murder of innocent civilians. Didn't I have a duty to pass evidence to those concerned with its investigation? I said that I would have to consult my lawyer first.
Rasheed then started on about Lockerbie. He began to spin theories about where the real responsibility lay, naming just about every Arab regime apart from Libya. I smiled limply, giving nothing away, hoping that all this would soon be over. Of course, if I could prove that Libya was not responsible for the attack, I would be handsomely rewarded. Again, I said nothing.
When he had finished his pitch, I agreed to get back to him within the week, although I had absolutely no intention of doing so. It just seemed the easiest way to get out of a nightmare situation. I said I didn't have any contact numbers as I was in the process of moving to a new flat.
"Don't you have a mobile?" He asked. I tried to show no fear. But that very morning I had bought a no-subscription, no-bills mobile phone at a shop near our flat.
(Did they have me under surveillance then?) I told him that I didn't. I gave him my email address, although fortunately I later found out that the account had been closed while I was in prison. Before we left, we got him talking a bit, partly to alleviate the intensity of the discussion it is not every day that a strange man offers you a lifetime's financial security to betray your country partly to gather information on him. He told us that he was a Jordanian by birth but was a naturalised French citizen.
After a couple of minutes of this, Annie and I shook hands with him and left, trying not to look like we were making indecent haste.
As we left, Annie and I tried to talk casually, in case we were still being watched. We agreed not to return to the flat. We walked off in the opposite direction towards Les Halles and then turned towards Place de Chatelet. I had the feeling I was being followed.
Coincidentally, I had to make an urgent phone call about a completely unrelated matter, so I went into a telephone box while Annie crossed the road to see if anyone appeared to take the same route as us. One character, an Arab, stopped, looked across at the phone box I was in, paused and then went on his way. A couple of other unlikely-looking Arabs hung around the square for no apparent reason.
We agreed to find a cafe where we could discuss what exactly we thought was going on. But first, we had to get some distance between us and the goons who we suspected were following us. We headed off up Avenue Victoria and then turned right into Rue des Lavandieres. As we turned, we risked a glance over our shoulders. One of the Arabs had moved off in our direction and was using a mobile phone. We scurried off towards Rue de Rivoli, doubled back on ourselves a couple of times and then found a cafe.
We sat there for about an hour, drinking kirs to try and Calm down. We eyed each newcomer to the Cafe with suspicion. Each person who came in alone was immediately marked down for further subtle (we hoped) scrutiny. We did the same in each cafe we went to that night until, nervous and exhausted, we decided to spend the night in the 7e Art Hotel rather than go home and risk blowing our address to the Libyans.
We phoned John Wadham that day but he was unable to meet us until the following Friday. We realised there wouldn't be too much danger as we had a week to decide. Or at least that's what the Libyans thought. So we were safe until then.
When that week was up, we knew that the Libyans would be wondering what had happened to our decision. That night, at around midnight, the buzzer downstairs went. As no one knew where we were living, we froze. Not even the letting agency knew we were David Shayler and Annie Machon, as a journalist friend had completed all the paperwork and we had allowed the letting agency to think we were a married couple called David and Anna de Carteret.
We thought it might be drunks at the buzzer. But why did it have to happen the very night our deadline with the Libyans ran out? The buzzer went again. We turned off the telly and the lights, even though these weren't visible from downstairs, and went to the cutlery drawer where we both pulled out sharp knives.
The buzzer went again, but this time the unknown joker just left his finger there.
For about half a minute. We cowered until the buzzing stopped. And that was it.
Until one o'clock in the morning when exactly the same thing happened. Again, we cowered, not sure what to do.
The following morning at 8am, we were woken up by yet another buzz, which we tried hard to ignore. An hour later, it happened again. But that was the last of it.
When we finally met John Wadham, we agreed that he should inform MI5: officers and former officers have a duty to report approaches from foreign intelligence services. John spoke to Paul Martin, the current press liaison officer, while Annie and I sat listening. MI5 said that it was not their concern, until John pointed out that we were merely following Service guidelines. Martin spoke to Stephen Lander, head of MI5, shortly afterwards and then called us back.
It was, they had agreed, a matter for the French intelligence services. John pointed out that it was a threat to national security as I had details that the Libyans clearly wanted, including the names of agents in Libya who worked for MI5 and MI6.
A couple of weeks later, John Wadham phoned me to say that MI5 had again been in contact. It wanted to pass on an "unconfirmed rumour" that the Libyans wanted to kidnap me in connection with the "so-called Gaddafi plot". I asked what MI5 was doing about this. The answer was nothing.
Of course, if I came back to the UK, I Could rely upon the protection of the authorities there, but otherwise I was on my own. John asked MI5 to at least pass on the information to the French authorities, which they reluctantly agreed to do.
In the meantime, Annie and I contacted our French lawyers. They phoned the DST (the French Secret Service) to make them aware of what had happened. They said that it was a problem for the Brits. Our lawyers then wrote to them, which sent them into a flat spin, as they would have looked extremely shortsighted and incompetent if anything had happened to me.
A week or so after that, Paul Martin phoned John Wadham again with similar information. The Libyans, according to unconfirmed intelligence, were still planning an operation against me. Again, MI5 made it Clear that it was not prepared to help me.
MI5 failed to do its duty. It failed to protect a British Citizen. And it failed to follow up an investigative lead into a Libyan intelligence officer, even though government policy dictates that it must identify these operatives.
I studied the Libyan regime for two years. If I had been kidnapped, I would have cracked when faced with torture. I would have given my captors the identities of MI5 and MI6 agents, many of whom continue to live in Libya. The agents would have then been tortured and probably executed and the Officers certainly rendered ineffective. In all, it would have been an enormous coup for the Libyans and would have left the UK's efforts against the Libyan target severely depleted.
The Special Branch officers who protect Salman Rushdie may not agree with his views on the police but they are still duty bound to protect him from those who wish to undermine our democracy through the use of violence. By refusing to act, the Service didn't just put my life at risk. It risked the lives of MI5 and MI6 operatives and the compromise of its most secret methods and operational techniques. It preferred to play politics rather than talk to a whistleblower now threatened by a state with a record for terrorism.
Ironically, by failing to react, MI5 potentially put the security of the British state at far greater risk than I have ever done in my public disclosures.
Punch, Issue 96, December 18, 1999 Jan 14, 2000
Advertisement for David Shayler“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
Amnesty for David Shayler
Accountability for MI5/MI6
PUBLIC FRIEND No1
Attributed to Edmund Burke, Philosopher and writer.
“They prosecute the critics, but they don’t prosecute the traitors”
David Shayler, ex-MI5 officer & whistleblower.
David Shayler spent four months in jail for revealing that MI6 used your money to fund terrorism. Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook lied to the British people.
Democracy has failed us.
We believe the people have a right to know about crimes committed in their name.
If you want more information, would like to help or make a donation to the cause, contact us at:
“Public Friend No1”Who we are:
21 Tabard Street,
London, SE1 6BP
England.
Telephone: 0033 6 82 63 70 91
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
We are people from all walks of life who support what David Shayler has done to expose illegality and malpractice in the intelligence services. Supporters already include Gareth Peirce the Lawyer, Mark Thomas the comedian and Francis Wheen, political commentator.
All the activities of Public Enemy No1 will be entirely legal. They will include peaceful protest, lobbying the media and parliament
