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Saudis had ‘advance information’ on BAE case

Ellie Keen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:11:15 +0000

THE Saudi governments seemed to have advance knowledge of the probability of Britain halting a bribery investigation before the official decision was taken, the former British ambassador to Riyadh revealed this week.

The disclosure appeared in evidence submitted to court by the Serious Fraud Office, as the House of Lords heard its appeal against a High Court ruling that it acted unlawfully in ending the inquiry against BAE Systems, who allegedly bribed Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia with £1 billion.

Lawyers for the SFO told the court that fraud office director Robert Wardle stopped the investigation in December 2006 because he believed that Saudi Arabia would cut off counter-terrorism co-operation with Britain, putting national security at risk.

Jonathan Sumption QC, for the SFO, said Mr Wardle only became aware of the full scale of the “threat” after receiving a minute in December 2006 from then Prime Minister Tony Blair, together with information from Government departments, warning of an “immediate risk of collapse in UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic co-operation”. Six days later he announced the investigation had been stopped.

But according to evidence presented by the Foreign Office, then British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles wrote three months earlier that he had discussed the SFO case with an unnamed senior Saudi government representative, who was “more optimistic about the SFO enquiry than seemed justified on the facts available to me”, and “always gave the impression that he had his own information”. The representative suggested the inquiry could be stopped on public interest grounds.

Lawyers for Campaign Against Arms Trade and Corner House Research, who are opposing the appeal, attacked the SFO and the Government for claiming that they had not broken international law in dropping the inquiry. Government documents disclosed last year revealed that the Saudi threats were considered so grave that the inquiry would have been stopped even if that breached Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s anti-bribery convention.

Article 5 of the convention bars states from allowing economic interests or foreign relations to influence bribery investigations.

Dinah Rose QC, for the campaigners, said it was illogical for the Government to “maintain the position ‘We acted in accordance with Article 5’ while saying, ‘You can’t consider that [in court] because we would’ve acted the same way if it was a breach’.”

The Attorney-General, who advised the SFO and Mr Blair, had misinterpreted the convention, Ms Rose said, adding: “If the decision maker has misunderstood the legal effect of the instrument he’s purporting to take into account, then his decision is flawed.” The SFO’s lawyers deny all wrongdoing and insist that Mr Wardle’s decision was rational and informed. The judgment is expected this autumn.

Fighting dirty wars: spying for the arms trade

tim — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:17:01 +0000

The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a well respected Quaker and Christian-based pacifist group, which believes in non-violent protest. In the mid 1990s the group was stepping up a campaign against the £500m sale of BAe jets to Indonesia. The campaigners protested that the aircraft would be used to crush resistance in East Timor, which was seeking independence. The Sunday Times revealed in September 2003 that British Aerospace used a private intelligence company to spy on CAAT, since that time. Evelyn Le Chêne, a woman with considerable intelligence connections, sent daily reports on activists’ whereabouts to Britain’s largest arms dealer. The intelligence company was called Threat Response International.

This article is based on a detailed analysis of these secret reports. The files show how the Campaign Against the Arms Trade was subverted by infiltrators passing on information and manipulating the activists.

Evelyn Le Chêne was identified by the Sunday Times as a key player in a vast private intelligence-gathering network that gathered intelligence on the identities and confidential details of nearly 150,000 activists. This information was collated and marketed to British industrial companies. BAe was only one of her clients. It paid her for at least four years – from 1996 to 1999 – to spy on opponents of the arms trade. CAAT appears to have been her main target. Six to eight agents infiltrated the group over a period of time; there is reason to believe the spying went on until the date of the exposure in the Sunday Times in September 2003.

Previous research into the intelligence company had been conducted by Dutch grass-roots organisation buro Jansen & Janssen . I was involved in an investigation in 1998 that resulted in the exposure of an infiltrator. Adrian Franks had attracted attention when he tried to extend his connections with Dutch activist groups, such as the anti military research collective AMOK and the environmental network Aseed. The then 39-year-old Frenchman from Equihen Plage in Normandy used several surnames, and our investigation discovered he was the owner of a private intelligence company that collected information on activists. The name of this company was Risk & Crisis Analyses, whose parent company was registered in Rochester, UK.

This left us with a story, but also quite a few loose ends. It was established that Franks crossed the Channel regularly so buro Jansen & Janssen tried to interest British activist groups in the investigation. Although CAAT and Corporate Watch as well as other organisations (like Enaat) that Adrian claimed to be affiliated with had received warnings about Adrian from their Dutch counterparts, none of them followed up the leads. Our resources were tight. For the Dutch activists exposing Adrian was enough. The internet was in its infancy and there was no data on line relating to Risk & Crisis Analyses. Nor would it have been cheap to cross the Channel and carry on the investigation abroad. Not without the help, or the stimulus, of worried grass roots groups. If only we had known how close we were…

Five years later, in September 2003, David Connett of the Sunday Times found an account of the Jansen & Janssen investigation on the internet. He urgently needed confirmation that Adrian Franks, who also used the name Le Chêne, was related to Evelyn Le Chêne. Connett was investigating Threat Response International, a company which advised corporations on security threats. Evelyn Le Chêne was on the board. When she was first approached by British Aerospace to carry out surveillance work in the mid-1990s, she had been running a company named R&CA Publications from an office in an industrial estate in Rochester,UK. This was the same company that closed down and disappeared shortly after the Dutch exposure of one of its directors as a spy.

Adrian turned out to be Evelyn’s son, and was still working for her company, now called Threat Response International.
Because of my earlier involvement in the case the Sunday Times granted me access to the spy files. The files we examined – about 500 pages – basically consisted of printed reports to BAe, made by Evelyn Le Chêne, calling herself “Source P”.

This was a rare opportunity to investigate corporate spying and anti-activist infiltration from the inside. What follows in an analysis of the spy files, an assessment of the history and practices of both Adrian and Evelyn Le Chêne and some observations on what can be learned from this episode.

Daily reports

In late 1995, when John Major’s Conservative government was deciding whether to grant licences for the Hawk contract, the intelligence reports on CAAT’s activities were flowing into BAe’s offices at Farnborough, Hampshire on an almost daily basis.

The accounts of meetings are pretty detailed. They describe people, their habits and their willingness to participate in CAAT. They report people not having much time to engage themselves in campaign activities and cite familiar reasons such as illness, study, family and work commitments:

”A. is recovering from influenza and is not participating at all for the moment. She is still interested in doing CAAT ‘things’… However, this year she has been crying off sick or as being too tired or that she has something else to do when she is asked to participate in meetings and liaisons.”
“B. is increasingly tied up with writing a research dissertation for a degree and since her hernia operation has not been very active. She has been seldom at home when contact has been attempted.” [9 June 1997]

Le Chêne initially sent her briefings on an encrypted fax to BAe security offices on the ground floor of Lancaster House at Farnborough airfield. Later BAe set up software on her office computer so the company could access reports directly from her database. A Sunday Times’ source claimed the firm paid her £120,000 a year .

Le Chêne recruited at least half a dozen agents to infiltrate CAAT’s headquarters at Finsbury Park, north London, and a number of regional offices. During the four year infiltration that these records cover Le Chêne submitted thousands of pages of reports to BAe, which kept the company fully briefed on CAAT’s meetings, demonstrations and political contacts.

Some of the information was gathered by spies attending CAAT meetings posing as activists. However, the files also show that Le Chêne’s agents gained access to CAAT’s IT system and databases. Le Chêne reports to BAe that diskettes full of information from within CAAT have been acquired. One agent downloaded the entire contents of a CAAT headquarters computer including a membership list, personal folders and details of private donations.

Another striking aspect of the files is the repeated offer by one of the infiltrators to install a new computer system at CAAT’s offices and members homes.
Bank accounts were accessed, and Evelyn Le Chêne traced back anonymous donations to the bank where they were made. “A legacy has come through for Treat [Trust for Research and Education on Arms] for £4,000. The legacy money was anonymously donated through Draper, Crellings, Solicitors, Weybridge. This has gone into the Treat account which now stands at £4,000”. [22 August 1997]

Desks were rifled, diaries were read and address books photocopied so information could be passed to BAe. CAAT members were often followed. One such target was Anna B., described in one report as a “good-looking” 25-year-old, who was a key activist and networker for CAAT and student groups. The Sunday Times heard a tape recording of a phone conversation between Le Chêne and a senior officer in BAe group security which reveals that they discussed having Anna B. followed. Reports on Anna B. give details of her addresses, housemates, hairstyles, the contents of her diary and her alleged habit of smoking marijuana in the corridor.

Lessons to be learned

Given the level of infiltration and surveillance of CAAT on behalf of BAe what are the likely consequences for the activities of the organisation? Below I will try to explain how the information was used to counter and undermine CAAT’s campaigning work.

Lobbying

The Sunday Times wrote that Le Chêne’s agents were instructed to take a particular interest in connections between anti-arms trade pressure groups and the House of Commons. Meetings and correspondence with MPs of all three parties was closely monitored and advance warnings of any parliamentary events were forwarded to BAe.

According to a Sunday Times source, the agents collected a series of letters, many private, which were supplied to BAe. They included correspondence discussing British policy on the sale of arms to Indonesia with a number of leading Labour politicians such as David Clark, then shadow defence secretary, Jeremy Hanley, then Foreign Office minister, and Jack Straw, then home secretary.

When CAAT and two other pressure groups hired solicitors Bindman and Partners to seek a judicial review of the granting of export licences for arms companies, BAe was alerted to the contents of a letter sent by the firm to the then trade minister, Ian Lang.

BAe’s security department filtered the information and passed it on to their in-house government relations teams so they could be one step ahead of the campaigners when lobbying in parliament.

Direct action

Information on demonstrations and actions planned by CAAT was also highly prized by BAe. Often the reports detailed plans for upcoming demonstrations by activists at BAe’s sites. At one point the files give precise information on how a small group planed an ‘incursion’ of a BAe plant. They intended to walk through the site, leaving behind some signs or traces of their action (varying from symbols of protest to the destruction of a Hawk). In one case, the files outline where the group was to assemble, the route of their walk, who was taking part, and what they would bring. A map with the planned route to take was attached to the report.

In other cases Evelyn Le Chêne provided BAe with elaborate advice on how to deal with certain situations. In March 1996 CAAT set up a Rapid Response Network to organise a ‘die-in’ outside Parliament on the first Thursday after BAe announced the delivery of Hawk-fighters to Indonesia. Le Chêne’s advice was to carefully plan the timing of the announcement, counselling that the longer BAe delayed the announcement the more effective the CAAT protest would be. Le Chêne suggested that BAe announced the delivery to coincide with the Parliamentary recess. That way, the effect of the ‘die-in’ – lying dead in front of the Parliament – would be reduced to zero.

By infiltrating CAAT so thoroughly BAe were well placed to ‘respond’ to activists’ protest tactics.
Every occasion required a different tactic. Where it was activists’ strategy to have themselves arrested in order use the resulting court case to draw more attention to their cause, Le Chêne suggested that BAe pressure the police to make as few arrests as possible.

A similar pattern is evident in the BAe response to CAAT’s ‘snowball’ strategy, which planned that each direct action that resulted in arrests would lead to further and larger actions. The resulting court cases were to be used to argue that activists were committing a crime (criminal damage) in order to prevent a greater crime (genocide) and that they were therefore not guilty. This defence was successful for Chris Cole in his 1993 ‘BAe Ploughshares’ protest, and Evelyn Le Chêne was afraid that it would work for the four women activists awaiting trial for ‘disarming’ a Hawk fighter with hammers on 29 January 1996.
Le Chêne advised that the corporate response to these actions ought to be framed with reference to its effects on the longer-term protest.

When two protesters went to a BAe site seeking to be arrested, the police merely confiscated their wire cutters. They were reported to be annoyed, not least because they failed to generate publicity. “It is therefore difficult not to conclude that arresting activists does play into their hands and leads ultimately to larger protests in the future. On the other hand one does accept that to offer no counter would be unsustainable from a company point of view. Alternatives need to be discussed.” [8 March 1996] BAe also used Le Chêne’s insider knowledge to manage larger protests. Demonstrations outside more than 60 UK BAe sites were thwarted by tip-offs from infiltrators, a key tactic being the ambush of trespassers who were then served injunctions preventing them from returning.

Counterwork

CAAT’s work was opposed and stymied by BAe on other levels. When Evelyn Le Chêne heard that CAAT always received BAe press releases immediately after they were sent out through the BBC, her advice was to stop that procedure immediately: “Don’t send them or leave them to the last when it no longer matters.” [11 June 1997]

When CAAT campaigners requested a copy of the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) members list Evelyn Le Chêne was consulted by the Director General of DMA. She advised him not to cooperate. In her report to BAe she comments: “ My reply was that having such a comprehensive and up-to-date listing of all the defence support industries would cut down their own research time by 100% and likewise their expenditure for it by 200%. We are of the opinion that the recommendation was not heeded.” [14 May 1997]

According to the Sunday Times, the sophistication of BAe’s management of the activist threat was such that the names and addresses of activists were routinely run through the BAe computers to check if any were shareholders. In addition, the BAe switchboard was configured to flag up any calls from telephone numbers associated with the activists.

Disinformation

On several occasions Evelyn Le Chêne proposed feeding CAAT disinformation in order to cast them in a bad light. In February 1996 she referred to the climb-down Greenpeace made over the Brent Spar (when they mistakenly overstated the damage to the environment of dumping the oil platform into the ocean):
“On the question of sighting Hawks in the sky above Indonesia, we discussed an idea or two I had some weeks ago. You will recall that Greenpeace had an embarrassing climb-down recently because they cried wolf too often. It might be time now to have another think on the idea I had about discounting the Hawks in Indonesia story.” [20 February 1996]

By the end of January 1997, CAAT had joined the Clean Investment Campaign, which targeted organisations owning shares in military hardware production companies. CAAT prepared a public document with the help of – amongst others – Corporate Watch. Le Chêne commented: “Interestingly, they still appear not to have all their facts correct which could be a point worth encouraging” [27 January 1997]. The strategy appears to have been to encourage CAAT to make claims (in good faith) which could later be used to discredit the campaign. It would be interesting to know what became of these suggestions, and what other disinformation operations have been taken into effect. A fuller analysis of the Threat Response files may be able to shed more light on this matter.

Agent provocateur

Adrian Franks/ Le Chêne made a habit of proposing more radical actions than other campaign members. He repeatedly tried to incite people towards using more violence than they intended (given the pacifist origins of the group they tend to eschew violence). This was one of the reasons why he was not trusted by various people in different activist groups back in 1998.
The account in the files of one occasion when Adrian irritated other activists with his proposals for a more radical approach, showed his disappointment about the fact that there was “no sign of any interest” for his suggestions. This “assessment” (marked “Addressee – eyes only”) revealed he was sent there with a purpose.

“As at time of writing this report there would appear to be NO sign of any action taking place at the Paris Air show against any company including your own… The issue of doing something was raised three times. To have pressed harder would have been impolitic from a security point of view.” [19 May 1997]
He knew he risked his cover by pushing the issue, but he kept trying. One can only guess the strategy behind this. It could have been a tactic to provoke police action at a picket line and thus disturb the peaceful character of the protest. However, Adrian’s proposals had a disturbing influence on the ‘spadework’ of CAAT: people got irritated and vital coalition building, with organisations like Amnesty International, was thwarted due to an alleged lack of agreement on basic issues such as the character of direct action. In that sense, Adrian was more than an infiltrator; we could call this the work of an agent provocateur.

True Spy

The most important informer working for Evelyn Le Chêne was Martin Hogbin, referred to as her ‘excellent source’. Hogbin was an active volunteer with CAAT from spring 1997 before joining the staff in November 2001. He resigned and left early October 2003, as soon as the initial internal investigation implicated him as a suspect of spying.

Neither Hogbin nor Le Chêne co-operated to the investigations carried out by CAAT Steering Committee and the Information Commissioner. .
The Information Commissioner confirmed that Martin Hogbin was forwarding information by email to a company with links to Le Chêne. Ironically, the Data Protection Act 1998 prevented the Information Commissioner from giving CAAT details of the company concerned.
Research by the CAAT Steering Committee comparing the spy files with events that Hogbin had taken part in, confirmed that he started his surveillance work soon after he became actively involved with CAAT as a volunteer in spring 1997. A report on a trip to Farnborough attributed to Hogbin was dated 19 June that year. It was dated one day after the event, and it was a long and detailed report.

Administering professional reports so soon in his activist career within CAAT implicates Hogbin was brought in as an infiltrator, as opposed to someone who was ‘turned’ c.q. persuaded to secretly pass on information. The Threat Response files cover the period between June 1995 and December 1997; no spy reports are available that document the period after that. But since it was proven that he continued to forward emails until the exposure in the Sunday Times in September 2003, it can be assumed that he also filed his reports detailing CAAT activities until that date. This leads to the tentative conclusion that Martin Hogbin was a spy from beginning to end.

The fact that he was one of the few paid staff campaigners meant that Hogbin had access to almost anything that past through the office. This could be reports, plans, correspondence and other paperwork, but also address books, contact files, computers, diskettes and banking details.
As national campaigns and events co-coordinator Martin Hogbin was involved in much if not all campaigning against arms trade. He was the main organiser of protests at BAe annual meetings. CAAT supporters bought token shares in BAE so that they could attend the annual meeting and publicly challenge directors on arms sales to repressive regimes. He was involved in organising protests against BAe plants and arms fairs, his work varying from mobilising to the practical preparations, such as taking part in ‘recces’ to explore the terrain of action or organising the transport of fellow activists to demonstrations.

Hogbin also was a key networker in the movement, both in the UK as on the European level. He usually represented CAAT at the on meetings of the European Network Against Arms Trade and coordinated the mobilising against EuroSatory in the UK. (Many ENAAT meetings in 1997 and 1998 were attended by Adrian and Martin, both working for Evelyn Le Chêne) . Martin also played an important role in mobilising against the DSEi Arms Fair, considered the hugest anti militaristic event in the UK

At the CAAT office Hogbin was a well respected colleague and a very much liked member of the small staff. People thought they knew him well, including his family and children. Martin, in his fifties, seemed like an open and honest person, devoted to the cause. He made no secret of his past career at the South African arms manufacturer Denel; his apparent change of views only added to his credibility.
The fact that he was trusted not only complicated the investigations against him. Hogbin continued to come to anti-arms trade events since he left CAAT. The fact that the Privacy Commissioner linked him to Evelyn Le Chêne, didn’t stop people from other campaigns, both anti-arms trade and environmental from working with Martin Hogbin. In July 2005 he was reportedly still working for the Disarm DSEi campaign.

Remaining questions

It is important that there is some understanding of the difficult and painful choices the CAAT Steering Committee has recently faced. Hopefully there will be a time for further research. The opportunity to investigate a case from both sides does not arise very often. There is a lot left to be learned as so many questions remain unanswered. CAAT has started procedures against one of the alleged spies, but what happened to the five (perhaps seven) others? Who else was identified? Did they play a minor role within the organisation, or have they left CAAT since? Does that make it less important to find out where they have gone? Or is it too difficult to trace them after all these years?

It would surely be worth making a formal damage assessment and issuing a report that other groups could benefit from. How did CAAT deal with the internal frictions the exposure caused? How much damage was done, or rather, how did they find the resilience to continue their work? These questions relate to security issues that many activist groups need to deal with. How can openness be balanced against sensible caution? Do activist groups facing powerful and well-resourced opponents need to screen every volunteer and newcomer, and if so, how? How can activists avoid paralysis and live with the fact that they may be under surveillance?

From what we have seen above, it is shocking to realise how much time, effort and resources British Aerospace invested in undermining CAAT. That so many people infiltrated this relatively small network suggests that BAe were very concerned by the potential consequences of CAAT’s activism.
CAAT’s campaigning work signified a threat to BAe’s reputation. In addition, a successful campaign could mean the loss of large orders. Dick Evans, BAe’s then chief executive, received regular verbal briefings on the contents of Le Chêne’s reports from Mike McGinty, an ex-Royal Air Force officer who headed security, the Sunday Times was told. This tells us something about the importance of the intelligence material for BAe.

Le Chêne also claimed to target other groups such as Earth First! and Reclaim the Streets. The close connections and mixed membership of such groups meant she acquired information on Friends of the Earth, the Green Party, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the World Development Movement and animal rights charities, to name just a few. So, how close was the surveillance of these groups? Le Chêne herself boasted a database of 148,900 “known names” of CND, trades unions, activists and environmentalists (and this was back in 1996!). The most relevant to BAe was a ‘hardcore grouping’ of about 200 on whom she developed full biographies and profiles including national insurance numbers and criminal records where possible. To what other parties did she offer this information? And who accepted?

Road Protests

CAAT was not the only group Treat Response spied upon. The road protests against the Newbury Bypass for instance, receive more than average attention in the surveillance reports. Important events are reported on in great detail, apparently to warn BAe against the danger of an involvement of the anti defence groups with the environmental movement.

In the late 1990s the Newbury bypass became the focus of anti-roads groups when thousands occupied woodland were earmarked for destruction. The 8_-mile bypass finally opened in 1998 after years of protests delayed completion. The total cost of the project was £74m, of which nearly a third, £24m, was spent on security. Group 4 carried out work on behalf of the Highways Agency as well as construction companies such as Costain and Tarmac. This helped police many of Britain’s most controversial road-building projects.

The Sunday Times heard tape-recorded conversations involving Le Chêne reveal that she regularly passed information from her network of agents to Group 4. She said she had agents posted permanently at Newbury and passed on highly confidential personal information about protesters to the company. These included accommodation addresses, vehicle registration details, National Insurance numbers, unemployment benefit details and income support information.

The Spy Files reflect this work for Group 4. The detailed reports show that advanced warnings about the road protesters’ plans had been forwarded to the police and the private security forces involved. Much to her frustration, Le Chêne’s information was not used in the most adequate way – or rather: the way she thought was best:

“The policing level was low for the amount of people present and the security guard reaction was insufficient. In fairness to the latter, it has to be said that there were not enough of them to reasonably expect control of the situation with even half the protesters present. In addition the company concerned lacks a background of control to such groups and it showed. For protesters, this is an ideal double situation. On the police site it was evident that they tried to make up for the lack of numbers by the use of horses – environmentalists being animal lovers. But this showed as well and when the police, on the second occasion, charged the oncoming handslinked protesters, the horses naturally bumped them and this let to an increase in tension and the rest is history.”

The eviction of the protesters camp ended in an extremely violent confrontation with the police, now remembered as the Third Battle of Newbury (the first two took place in the 17th Century). Had the authorities listened to Le Chêne’s advise, it wouldn’t have come that far – or so it seemed:

“The numbers expected and what they would be doing and how they would do it, was known well in time and notified. It was apparently a decision on the part of the Highways Authority on how to deal with the situation that led to the low manning of police and security guards, although we are of opinion that where security guards were concerned, it was more a case of penny-scrimping by cash-strapped Costain.”

Le Chêne claimed she had at least two people infiltrated in the Newbury Bypass camp:

“According to two sources at Newbury on Saturday – neither of whom knows the other – the incident that led to the arsons was the police rush with horses. This would not explain, however, the police discovery of petrol-can-type Molotovs although this latter can be made up fast anyway.”

This last quote also reveals how easily Le Chêne assumed the discovered molotovs may just as well have been planted evidence.

Why a report to BAe would include such a detailed coverage of police dealing with anti road protests is not entirely clear. With anti-defence groups increasingly involved in the anti-road protest movement, Evelyn Le Chêne tried to promote herself and her knowledge of both movements. “Exactly who can be anyone’s guess who has a good knowledge of the background to both BAe’s problems and the anti-road protest movements.”

Group 4

An unnamed Group 4 spokesman admitted buying information on protesters. He told the Sunday Times: “We’ve certainly been obtaining information about protests at our customers’ sites. It is the sort of information that would be obtained in the pub about activities that may affect our customers; people or property”, he said. “We were getting information about where protesters would be and what times in advance. We would have paid for that information.”

On the board of Threat Response from the very beginning, was Barrie Gane, who also worked for Group 4, Britain’s largest security firm whose clients range from the prison service to the royal family and the government, and advertises its ability to guard its customers against espionage, sabotage and subversion. . Barrie Gane is a former deputy head of MI6, tipped to succeed Sir Collin McColl. However, he decided to leave the Service on early retirement after a rationalisation in 1993, and open up his knowledge and network for privatised intelligence companies. Corporate Watch called Barrie Gane one of the most important former intelligence men now working for the private branch of the business. At the time The Times concluded the appointment of Mr. Gane signals an upgrading of its international operation. “Mr Gane can bring the company knowledge of international terrorism, commercial espionage and risk assessment.” [3]

Was Group 4 the only party involved in the Newbury Bypass buying information from Threat Response International? In her reports, Evelyn Le Chêne claimed the police was well informed about the numbers of activists and their plans, and that she had agents posted permanently in Newbury.
Many environmental campaigners long suspected they were the subject of spying operations.

The Highways Agency explained in the Sunday Times that the government had funded security operations around road-building sites but it was the responsibility of the contractors involved. “Clearly we worked closely with the police and the contractors to ensure that this was carried out in a lawful way,” a spokesman told the paper in 2003.

The transport department working on orders from Treasury solicitors, spent more than £700,000 in the early 1990s employing the Southampton-based detective agency Bray’s to help them identify protesters. Private detectives were seen filming people and noting down public conversations. “Despite this, campaigners believed this type of surveillance alone could not account for some of the information contained in the dossiers issued by the department to support legal injunctions against them.”

In 2002, BBC Two reporter Peter Taylor made a series of documentaries called True Spies. In one of the issues he revealed how a hired spy stopped the Newbury protest. On TV, Sir Charles Pollard, then Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, explained why Newbury was a line in the sand. The protesters could not be allowed to win once the government had approved the building of the bypass the previous year. “The ones who were planning and tried to carry out seriously illegal acts are very subversive in a sense of subversive to democracy,” he says. On the BBC website summarising the documentary, Peter Taylor also wrote: “Special Branch resorted to their usual methods of gaining information on the opposition’s plans. They recruited informers and paid them anything from £25 to larger sums of money – even up to £1,000 a week.

Such sums may seem breathtaking but they’re a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of policing such a protest. A piece of vital intelligence might, for example, save tens of thousands ds. Despite this, stalemate still loomed and costs were rising, Thames Valley took the unprecedented step of recruiting an agent outside normal procedures. They’d heard of a particular individual who worked for a private security company with unique skills and a perfect pedigree to infiltrate the protesters. The police normally keep such private security companies at arm’s length as they’re in the business of making money from intelligence they gain.

Despite these reservations, Thames Valley decided to bite the bullet and hire the agent. The Chief Constable gave the go-ahead for a contract to be drawn up with the individual and the security company for which he worked, calculating that the value of his intelligence would far outweigh the cost of hiring him.
With the contract agreed, the agent’s main task was to get as close as possible to the leaders and in particular to let his handlers know of the best time to take the main tunnel that was holding up the contractors’ operations.”

Whether the company involved in this particular infiltration operation was indeed Threat Response International proved next to impossible to verify.
Peter Taylor went through his old notebooks, and came back with three other companies involved in the road protests: “Reliance Security plus Brays and Pinkertons both of whom apparently ran their own agents.” A Freedom of Information request about the possible involvement of Evelyn Le Cheyne with Thames Valley Police came back negative. Nor was it possible to “trace or locate any specific records or documents to answer the question whether or not Thames Valley Police hired an agent to infiltrate the protest groups during the building of the Newbury bypass”. The chief constable who confirmed contracting the private agent on BBC television in 2002, Charles Pollard now claims he can’t remember any details. He is however not surprised no paper trail can be found: “Of course at the time it was a very closely-guarded secret….so secret in fact that the company was only referred to within the few people who knew about it under a codeword!”

Whatever happened to the Newbury agent? “His cover was so good and his information so accurate, that Special Branch then directed him to infiltrate the animal rights movement”, BBC‘s Peter Taylor wrote. This correlates with the interests Adrian voiced at the time. But then again, Adrian was interested in everything that involved radical activism.

Conclusion

This case, The Threat Response Spy Files, reveals the need for a new cartography to map the shifting grounds of so-called corporate intelligence, as the boundaries between government surveillance and corporate intelligence have become blurred. Once a group is seen to pose a serious threat to powerful commercial or political interests it is at risk of special operations orchestrated by its opponents, whether or not such assessments are factually based.

In the past state intelligent programmes have tried to undermine successful campaigns or destabilize activist groups. Now private or privatised spy shops can access the same tools, sometimes with the support of state intelligence agencies. Though their goals may differ depending on their clients’ needs, corporate and state intelligence agencies often use the same methods of surveillance. Wider exposure, discussion and awareness of such tactics are necessary if public interest groups and campaigners are to protect themselves and the causes to which they are committed. The Threat Response Files offer us a rare and important opportunity to open up this debate.

Cast off the Cloak

Ellie Keen — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:05:56 +0000

When Tony Blair intervened to get the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE’s alleged corruption in Saudi Arabia stopped on grounds of national security, few people believed a legal challenge could succeed. When it comes to protecting the lives and security of the nation, the courts allow the executive “an especially wide margin of discretion”, noted the judges in this case. Yesterday’s judgment that the SFO director acted unlawfully in dropping the inquiry is therefore a major blow to the government – and its ability to sweep controversial issues under the carpet.

The ruling has seriously constrained the government’s ability to invoke national security without scrutiny. The courts have increasingly been standing up to the government in relation to terrorism cases and slowly staking out the limits to its powers. But a challenge to a decision to quash a prosecution on national security grounds through a judicial review is unprecedented.

The high court has made clear that national security arguments cannot be used to override the rule of law. “It is obvious,” it says, “that the decision to halt the investigation suited the objectives of the executive. Stopping the investigation avoided uncomfortable consequences, both commercial and diplomatic.” The judges in effect accused the government of abusing national security arguments as a cloak for other more cynical motives.

Just two weeks before the judgment was delivered, the government mounted an attempt to preserve its powers. In a breathtakingly cynical move, it introduced draft legislation creating a power for the attorney general to halt prosecutions on national security. The bill concentrates power for making such decisions in the hands of the executive and makes a judicial review of a decision virtually impossible.

Under the proposed law, the attorney general will not have to provide information to parliament that impacts on national security or international relations. If anyone questions that decision, the attorney general will merely have to get a minister to provide a certificate stating it is to be considered “conclusive evidence of act”.

One of Gordon Brown’s first acts on taking over from Blair was to launch a major series of consultations on constitutional renewal. It was seen as an attempt to distance himself from what were regarded as the worst excesses of Blair’s rule. By letting these new powers for the attorney slip into the draft bill, Gordon Brown has shown himself to be no different to his predecessor.

Giving in to Saudi demands to drop the SFO inquiry looks grubby and self-serving, and has damaged Britain’s reputation irreparably. The decision can only have given succour to those corrupt regimes whom Britain repeatedly lectures on cleaning up their act.

Last week the OECD visited the UK, in a form of visit reserved for those countries deemed not to be complying with its anti-bribery convention. That is a damning reflection on the government. But yesterday’s judgment also offers an opportunity: it could decide it is serious about standing up for the integrity of the justice system and the independence of its prosecutors. It could decide to accept proper scrutiny of its national security decisions. It could decide that it means business on enforcing its corruption laws regardless of threats, regardless of who is accused, and regardless of who it upsets. Let us hope so.

Lord Avebury, a Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign affairs, is vice-chair of the parliamentary human rights group; Susan Hawley is an analyst for The Corner House, an anti-corruption campaign group

Arms and the Man

Ellie Keen — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:12:54 +0000

The British government was desperate to sell a batch of Eurofighter/Typhoon warplanes to bolster its special relationship with Saudi Arabia – a relationship built on fantastically lucrative arms deals. To justify dropping the investigation into Britain’s biggest arms company and a prominent Saudi prince over allegations of bribery and corruption, Tony Blair cited “national security”, the last refuge of an arrogant, frustrated executive.

Yesterday, Lord Justice Moses, a judge who has more experience than most of Whitehall deception, saw through it. One may have some sympathy with Robert Wardle, the hapless director of the Serious Fraud Office, for surrendering to Blair and Lord Goldsmith, his attorney general, who passed on the extraordinary claims from Downing Street.

These claims were that the heads of MI5 and MI6 feared Saudi Arabia would deprive them of vital intelligence that could save the lives of scores of people on London’s streets if the investigation into BAE Systems and Prince Bandar, went ahead. Indeed, we were told, the Saudis had already privately threatened to do so.

Riyadh has consistently exaggerated the significance of the intelligence it has on terrorist groups. But let us just imagine that it did come up with genuine and credible information about a planned terrorist plot in Britain. Would it really withhold that information? Would any foreign regime, however brutal, do that?

In a devastating passage in their long judgment, Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan, say:

“No one suggested to those uttering the threat that it was futile, that the United Kingdom’s system of democracy forbad presure being exerted on an independent prosecutor whether by the domestic executive or by anyone else; no-one even hinted that the courts would strive to protect the rule of law…

“If, as we are asked to accept, the Saudis would not be interested in our internal domestic constitutional arrangements, it is plausible they would understand the enormity of the interference with the United Kingdom’s sovereignty, when a foreign power seeks to interfere with the iternal adminstration of the criminal law”.

Driving the point home, they continue: “It is not difficult to imagine what they would think if we attempted to interfere with their criminal justice system”. There is no fear of that. The British government did not interfere when its citizens were tortured when wrongly accused of bomb attacks. The furthest the UK government goes is to allude in annual Foreign Office human rights reports to Saudi practices of torture and beheadings.

With characterstic wit and irony, Moses concludes the judgment by referring to Blair’s claim when the then-PM announced that the Serious Fraud Office had dropped the investigation. The judges note that Blair had said “this was the clearest intervention in the public interest he had seen”. They add: “We agree”.

Blair set the pattern, and ministers have since demonstrated they are prepared to play fast and loose with torture, whether it is colluding with the US practice of rendition or deporting suspects to such places as Jordan and Libya. On Wednesday, the courts stopped the deportation of the Jordanian, Abu Qatada, and two Libyans, regarded as threats to Britain’s national security.

This case has all the exotic ingredients – arms deals, alleged corruption, and claims that our national security is at stake. Ministers are now hatching a plot to introduce a law whereby the courts will not be able to intervene whenever the attorney general hoists the flag of “national security”. I wonder what Moses and his peers will think of that.

Aerotoxic Updates

Ellie Keen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:57:38 +0000

In the last issue of the Corporate Watch Newsletter we revealed how the air supply aboard commercial jet airliners is regularly contaminated with highly toxic chemicals which can poison and seriously injure pilots and passengers. This contamination can happen because, as a cost-saving measure, airliners take compressed air for the cabin from the engines. Jet engine oil, however, contains powerful toxins, including organophosphates, a chemical linked to Gulf War Syndrome.

In spite of a powerful and growing body of evidence presented by aircrews, campaigners and independent doctors and scientists, the airline industry has issued blanket denials of all such allegations. Meanwhile government committees such as the UK’s Committee on Toxicity seem determined to ignore any evidence that might threaten airline profits.

Now two recent stories threaten to blow the lid off the industry’s dirtiest secret… or would if the mainstream media had the guts to write it up.

FLYBE PILOTS ‘FUMING’ PROTEST

In October, news broke that crew working for Flybe were boycotting some of the airline’s planes, after several very serious toxic fume incidents. According to BBC Five Live, ten incidents had occurred on Flybe’s ageing BAe 146 planes in the last 15 months. Several of these incidents resulted in hospitalisations, when air crew were incapacitated by fumes, and in one case a plane flying from Belfast was forced to make an emergency landing on the Isle of Man, with the pilots using emergency oxygen supplies.

A well placed source told Corporate Watch that a number of Flybe air crew have been given letters by the company doctor saying that they should not fly on particular planes for health reasons.

Flybe, which has been rebranding itself under the slogan ‘low cost… but not at any cost’, is reluctant to talk about the issue. Flybe’s press enquiries are handled by The Red Consultancy, a leading UK PR company.

We asked them the following questions (which they would only take in writing):

Can you confirm or deny that Flybe’s company doctor has issued letters for air crew saying that they should not fly on particular planes for health reasons?

Does Flybe accept that there were hazardous ‘fuming incidents’ aboard flights, (as described in the Radio 5 report ‘Cabin Fever’)?

Has Flybe conducted any cabin air monitoring tests aboard its BAe 146 aircraft? Did the company’s crisis communications plans include dealing with ‘fuming events’ aboard the aircraft? If so, how long has this been planned for?

Flybe (and Red) directly refused to answer these questions. Instead they issued the following statement:

Flybe is completely confident that its aircraft are operated and maintained to the highest industry standards. We have over 700 commercial pilots within Flybe and to date, not a single one has ever refused to fly one of our aircraft.

In line with many previous public announcements, Flybe took a commercial decision several years ago to reduce the number of aircraft types it operated from three to two. As a result the BAe 146 fleet will have been withdrawn by February 2008.

In spite of the seriousness of this potentially lethal hazard, this appears to be the only statement made to the press at the time of writing.

BAEs GOLDEN GAG

In another twist to the tale, documents were recently presented to the Australian Senate which show that the manufacturers of the planes, BAe Systems, were aware of the fuming problem with the 146 model as early as 1993 and acted to suppress the story. Two Australian airlines, Ansett and EWA, had brought legal action against BAe claiming that a design fault in the BAe 146 airliner was producing ‘obnoxious oil and other fumes’ in the cabin. The documents show that BAe agreed to pay out A$750,000 in a settlement. Allied Signal, the US company which manufactured the engine parts responsible for the leaks, also paid out US$1,235,000. Confidentiality clauses were included in both deals so that the story was kept out of the public domain.

The agreement also blocked any future actions: ‘Ansett and EWA hereby jointly and severally agree that the said sum of A$750,000 shall be paid by BAe to EWA as liquidated damages in full and final settlement of any and all claims which Ansett or EWA may have against BAe either now or in the future in respect of oil or other fumes adversely affecting the cabin environment’.

In 1999 Ansett gave evidence to the Australian Senate’s Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, which was investigating the contaminated air issue. An Ansett executive said that Ansett had not initiated any legal proceedings against BAe.

It is currently unknown what other similar deals may have been made between other airlines and aircraft manufacturers.

COT

Research into the contaminated air issue is currently being conducted by the government-appointed Committee on Toxicity (COT). Their most recent report, released in September 2007, proved inconclusive and recommended further research. The campaign group the Global Cabin Air Quality Executive (GCAQE) is fiercely critical of COT’s work and produced a detailed report on errors in COT’s research. We asked COT for a response to the GCAQE’s accusations that their report is ‘industry biased’ and ‘contains many technical inaccuracies and misinformation which were previously highlighted to the Committee On Toxicity and the Department of Transport by the GCAQE, other unions, interested parties, doctors and scientists from around the world.’ We also wanted to know why COT has ignored so much evidence submitted by GCAQE and other independent scientists.

The contact person for the committee, Khandu Mistry, was unreachable, despite repeated calls. We subsequently tried the Department of Health press office who said they would get back to us. They did not. We called back; the press officer responsible had gone on holiday. We were told that it wasn’t really their responsibility and that we should talk to the

DoTR. The DoTR press office didn’t think it was their responsibility either and sent us to the Health protection Agency who also denied responsibility. After some discussion of transparency and public accountability the HPA spokesman promised to get back to us, with some answers. He did not. After two weeks of failed inquiries we again tried Khandu Mistry, the committee’s contact person, and were surprised to catch him in the office. He also claimed that it was not his responsibility to answer press enquiries and that he would pass on our questions to the DoH’s press department.

A few days later we received a reply to one of our two questions, asserting that the ‘COT review process was open for discussion… There were many observers at all meetings where this item was discussed. Importantly the COT review was considered a good piece of work by BALPA who submitted the original evidence.’ They failed to answer the more important question as to why so much input from GCAQE and others has been ignored.

For more information see the website of the Aerotoxic Association.

Martin and Me

Tim Holmes — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 18:01:05 +0000

If I were to count the cuts that killed my friendship with a man called Martin Hogbin then the thousandth came within a solitary line of a legal document. This document, dated October 2007, had a dull, dry title: “A Consent Order”. And when I read it, years of trust and love slipped away.

But first I had better go back to the beginning.

A sizeable chunk of my work, be it writing, performing or making TV shows, has been about the arms trade, and I met Martin shortly after he joined the peace group I was involved with, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). Martin was 45 when he joined CAAT as a volunteer in 1997; in 2000, he became a member of staff as the group’s national campaign and events coordinator.

We hit it off: Martin was a breath of fresh air in a world that can sometimes become a tad pious and self-congratulatory. Unlike the mass of anti-arms-trade activists, he played golf and wore Pringle sweaters – you don’t tend to see many Pringle sweaters on protests against international merchants of death.

I wasn’t the only one to like and trust him, and to be impressed by his work. One of those close to Martin was Steve, who says now that, “for the younger activists, Martin was like a father figure”. Martin always seemed to be the last one to leave the police station if a protester was arrested. He always made sure they got home safely – and normally with a drink inside them. He was rude, warm and had a wonderful sense of mischief. He would often come along to my live stand-up shows to help run the stalls, handing out leaflets and flogging books. I would sometimes even refer to him in the shows.

This is one of the stories I told about him. I phoned him one morning to hear his Kent twang bark: “Can’t talk, I’m chained to a petrol pump!”

“What?”

“Protest to shut down Esso stations!” he replied.

Whether the cause was climate change or Iraq mattered less than the vision of his ruddy frame strapped to a pump.

“What have the cops done?” I giggled.

“Two of them came over and asked us how long we would be here. I said probably all day. They said, ‘All right then, as long as you don’t do anything illegal, we’ll leave you to it,’ and then fucked off!”

“Bloody hell, mate! They could have had you on aggravated trespass.”

“I know, I know, but I thought if they weren’t going to say anything, neither was I!”

There was a pause before he continued in a matter-of-fact tone: “They did get a bit narky when I tried to light a fag.”

Above all else, Martin would always turn up and lend a hand. He seemed to be everywhere: getting kicked out of a company annual general meeting, helping to run a mock fire sale of the Iraqi national bank in the City, dressed as a devil on May Day or organising press conferences at the start of the London Arms Fair. We were friends; I knew his family. He became an integral part of my life.

Then, in September 2003, the Sunday Times exposed a “spy network” run by a woman called Evelyn Le Chêne on behalf of BAE Systems, the giant, multinational arms manufacturer. The story claimed that Le Chêne had a database of more than 148,000 names and addresses of activists, peace campaigners, environmentalists and union members, and that she was running spies who posed as activists to obtain confidential information from pressure groups. According to the story, reports on CAAT were at one point being sent daily to BAE’s security group from within the organisation.

Martin phoned that morning: “Fucking hell! Have you seen the papers? There’s a spy! Who do you reckon it is?”

“I’ve got no idea, mate, no idea,” I replied.

A week later, however, Martin was suspended from CAAT. An inspection of his computer by staff at the CAAT office had shown he had forwarded emails to a strange email address that no one recognised, with no surname or company name, and he had fallen under suspicion.

His closest friends were furious: not at Martin, but at CAAT. “How could they get it so wrong?” we thought. “How could they think Martin was a spy? Martin is our mate and a great campaigner.”

But amid the bar-room bluster lurked a few tiny doubts. I phoned Martin during the first days of the furore.

“You have got to take legal action,” I said. “You have been slandered. Take them on.”

“Nah, fuck ‘em,” he rasped back.

“You have to, Martin. Is it the money? We can do benefits – we can raise the money.” I wanted him to fight, to prove them wrong.

“Nah, it ain’t worth it, if that’s what they want to believe, there’s nothing I can do about it. Fuck ‘em.”

I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to fight the allegations. Later, in the same phone call, I asked him directly.

“Martin, did you do it?”

“Fuck off! Course I didn’t.”

“I have to ask, you understand.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

I took his word for it. Martin had said the accusations were bollocks, so even to look at the file of evidence people said they had on him would be to suspect a friend and that would be an act of treachery on my part. For more than a year, in fact, I defended him and once again, when it was time to tour with my stand-up show, Martin came along. Touring the country, sharing hotel rooms and kipping on the floor in a sleeping bag, Martin helped raise thousands of pounds that funded anti-arms-trade groups and trade unionists visits to Colombia.

But still I had doubts. There were the logical worries, such as: why had he not gone to the CAAT inquiry to clear his name? And there were the instinctive: had his voice sounded weird when he asked: “Who do you reckon it is then?”

The questions never left me. So in 2005 I climbed the narrow stairs to an empty room at the top of CAAT offices in London and sat alone at a wooden table reading the confidential and internal emails Martin had forwarded to a mystery address while working at CAAT. He had always admitted forwarding them, insisting they were to go to an ex-CAAT volunteer. How had they been sent to this mystery address, then – an address unrelated to the ex-volunteer?

Martin has said it was by mistake. But when I looked at the file, I wondered how anyone could make this many “mistakes”. I was shaking my head – I don’t know if it was an attempt to clear it or a register of disbelief. There were hundreds of emails sent “by mistake”. And slowly I became aware that I actually wanted to vomit with the fear that my friend might be a spy.

Shortly afterwards, CAAT revealed that the government’s independent information commissioner, Richard Thomas, had investigated the case and found that “a former member” had been forwarding information to an email at a company with links to Le Chêne. He refused to name Martin, stating there was insufficient evidence to do so.

Then last year, CAAT – alongside the environmental and human rights NGO, the Corner House – opted to bring a judicial review of the Serious Fraud Office’s decision to drop the investigation into the allegations of bribery between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. A month later, in January this year and out of the blue, BAE Systems lawyers contacted CAAT’s lawyers and said words to the effect of: “Terribly sorry, old bean, but we appear to have your confidential legal strategy for the judicial review.” For non-legal laymen, having possession of the other side’s legal work is considered exceptionally bad form, akin to a doctor groping a patient. It’s the kind of thing that can get lawyers kicked out of their profession.

The peaceniks at CAAT, not unreasonably, wanted to know how a multinational arms dealer had come by their confidential documents. The company refused to tell them. So CAAT took BAE Systems to court, and there the company was forced to admit that the document had been sent to them, unsolicited, by Paul Mercer, whose company, LigneDeux Associates, was paid by BAE Systems to provide “media and internet monitoring” on CAAT. In essence, they admitted that they had been paying for CAAT to be spied on – an extraordinary admission. Normally, campaigners’ tales of being infiltrated by corporations are seen as the imaginings of paranoid conspiracy theorists. The company’s admission has changed that. (Mercer claims CAAT’s confidential documents were sent to him anonymously in a brown paper envelope. CAAT are continuing legal proceedings against him.)

What makes this even more unprecedented, though, is the company’s legal promise not to spy on CAAT in the future. BAE Systems has undertaken “not to intercept by any unlawful means … [and] not to solicit, voluntarily receive or procure any confidential communication or document” belonging to CAAT. The big picture is that a multimillion-pound arms firm has been humiliated, it has been caught and forced to admit to paying for spying on a peace group comprised primarily of students and Quakers, and has promised not to do it again.

And in the corner of the big picture is my friendship with Martin. Amid all the legalese, in that document marked “A Consent Order”, BAE Systems admitted to hiring two people in particular, Paul Mercer and Evelyn Le Chêne. Those were the three words, the name “Evelyn Le Chêne” – they were the 1,000th cut. Le Chêne was a spy organiser living in Kent. Martin Hogbin, my trusted friend, was passing information “by mistake” to a company linked to her. Those were the facts.

Now, four years after the allegations against Martin emerged, I stand on the platform at Paddock Wood waiting for the Maidstone connection. I am heading to Martin’s home. I want him to tell me the truth.

Some CAAT supporters believe Martin joined the group with the aim, right from the start, of passing on information – a view I find strangely comforting. This interpretation of events means he befriended us to do his job, and get information, ergo there was no betrayal, as there was no real friendship. But life is messier than that. “It’s not black and white, Mark,” says Em. She has been one of the key organisers for the protests and direct action against the arms fair in London; Martin Hogbin is the godfather of her son. “I have not spoken to him in nearly two years,” she says. “But whatever happened, there were moments in our friendship that are genuine.”

Another activist, Gideon, was particularly good friends with Hogbin. In 1999, they spent an afternoon in the Houses of Parliament “dungeon” after they hurled photocopied money covered in fake blood at MPs from the public gallery. “To this day I would still call him a mate,” says Gideon, even though he too suspects Martin. “I don’t think he did it out of sympathy to the arms dealers,” he says. “Maybe it was power.”

As I stand in front of Martin’s front door, I realise I am scared. Not of the truth, but scared he will open the door and I’ll see him as a friend again. I’m scared I’ll let him off the hook. I want to ask, if he was a spy, how much we were worth? How much did he get paid for us? I want to know if it was ideological or if it was about the money, or just the thrill of betrayal? Waiting on the concrete patch by his front door, I run through the questions one more time, determined rational fact should triumph over latent affection.

Martin’s wife opens the door. “Mark!” she blurts out. “Come in, come in.”

“Is Martin in?” I struggle to keep it business-like.

“No, he is at work. Come on in.”

There is barely room for us to keep a proper distance as we stand facing each other.

“I’m writing about Martin,” I say. “He needs to read this letter.” I hand her my letter, in which I outline what I’m going to say about him in this article and ask him to respond. She looks pained, as if expecting the worst.

“I wish this was under different circumstances. I really don’t want to drag you into this,” I say.

Her hands are held up to her neck, and in a torn voice she exclaims, “I can’t say anything, Mark, I daren’t say anything.”

Awkward and incapable of offering comfort, I say: “How is he?”

“Not good,” she says. “He lost all his friends, you, everyone … We have to make ends meet. You can see …” She gestures around the tiny house.

If Martin was a spy, his circumstances suggest he got considerably less than 30 pieces of silver. Maybe he is just another victim of the arms trade.

Six days later I get a text from Martin. He accuses me of threatening his wife and then says: “I hope and wish all my old friends health, success and happiness. I miss you all and cherish our achievements and time together. Please do not try to continue to contact me.”

And with that text the tale comes to an abrupt end. Martin is the only person who can tell me what he did, if anything, and why, but he doesn’t want to talk. I suspect he was a spy and until he decides to speak I can never know the truth about that, or about our relationship. But sometimes when a memory of him emerges unheeded or I catch a glimpse of him in an old photo, I remember that once upon a time a man called Martin Hogbin was my friend … then I shake my head and get back to work.

The gnat and the elephant

How a tiny peace group irritated Europe’s biggest arms company

It seems curious that BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest arms company with sales of £13bn a year, should have felt the need to spy on the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a small peace group with a budget of less of £250,000 a year. BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) is enormously influential within the highest reaches of government; so much so that Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, once said he never knew Downing Street make any decision that displeased BAE.

CAAT, meanwhile – with its seven paid staff and a limited number of activists – does its best to influence those in power by organising demonstrations and vigils outside the offices of government departments and arms companies. If one is an elephant, the other is a gnat.

But it would appear that gnats can irritate elephants, because in 2003 it was alleged that BAE Systems was paying out £120,000 a year to spy on the peace group. The alleged spy organiser, a woman in her 60s called Evelyn Le Chêne, was understood to have been hired in the mid-1990s, when CAAT was intensifying its campaign against BAE’s plans to sell Hawk fighter jets to the repressive regime in Indonesia.

As well as demonstrations, CAAT was writing letters to ministers and MPs, and it was alleged that Le Chêne obtained copies of some of these letters from inside CAAT and passed them to BAE Systems. Her reports were also alleged to contain details of how the activists were seeking to recruit celebrities such as Helen Mirren to their cause.

BAE Systems has in the past refused to comment on the allegations, but it has made clear that it considers anti-arms trade groups such as CAAT a “threat to the company’s security”. In a recent court document, Mike McGinty, BAE’s security director, said: “Some of these groups have, as a result of direct action, caused significant damage to the company’s property, put the employees of the company in fear and at risk and disrupted the company’s business.”

He cited, as examples, activists who caused £1.5m of damage to a warplane and the occupation of an airfield by 60 protestors, which forced it to be closed for a day.

Rob Evans