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Spying game still thriving

Nick Paton Walsh, Richard Norton-Taylor & Ewen MacAskill

LEFT NEAR a tree on a nondescript street on the outskirts of Moscow, the fake rock at the centre of the most embarrassing espionage scandal between Britain and Russia since the end of the Cold War looks innocuous enough.

Light brown, 30 centimetres wide, and hollowed out to allow a waterproof box to fit snugly inside, the rock on Monday took on Gibraltar-sized proportions as Russia accused Britain of using it as a covert transmitter to pass messages to agents.

An x-ray of the box, shown on Russian state television, showed four big batteries and a radio transmitter-receiver tightly packed together — a device of such crude simplicity it would have made Q, James Bond's technical wizard, shudder.

"First the Russian asset would walk past the stone," Nikolai Zakharov, deputy spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB), as the KGB is now known, told the Guardian. "He would send information to the stone from his palmtop, and later the embassy employee would pass by and collect it from another palmtop."

He said the device, a 21st century version of the "dead letter drop," had a range of up to 20 metres and could send and receive coded signals to or from small palmtop computers, almost identical to those available on Britain's high streets. It enabled British diplomats to communicate indirectly with their alleged Russian agents: it meant they never had to be in the same room as them. Four members of the British embassy staff were identified by the Russians and accused of being part of a spy ring.

Interfax, the Russian news agency, reported that the FSB had fanned out across Moscow to check other potentially suspicious rocks. Sergei Ignatchenko, chief spokesman for the FSB, told the agency that a second device had been spotted but was retrieved by British agents.

The echoes of Ian Fleming and John le Carre will raise a smile in Britain and elsewhere. But there is serious side to this, and not only for the alleged Russian agent being held in Moscow accused of handling state secrets. Though old Cold War enemies — such as Britain and Russia — have set up procedures to cooperate quite closely on counter-terrorism, they still indulge in a mutual spying game.

The British Government still wants to know what nuclear or other military developments the Russians are up to, or Moscow's real attitude towards Iran, Iraq, and how it intends to use its gas resources as a geopolitical weapon. Moscow, meanwhile, is stepping up activities in Britain. MI5 says Russia has as many spies in London now as it did during the Cold War.

Mr. Ignatchenko said British intelligence told the Russians in 1994 they would stop spying on the country but still "as a rule they send their most talented men." Once the alleged spy ring was discovered last year, he added, the FSB asked Paul Crompton — described by the Foreign Office as third secretary (political affairs) at the embassy but by the FSB as the Moscow desk officer for MI6, the British secret service — to desist. Mr. Crompton denied the spying allegations and, said Mr. Ignatchenko, the agents continued their activities.

The state TV documentary broadcast on Sunday showed Christopher Pirt, 30, a secretary archivist in the embassy, walking past the rock, his eyes shifting wildly as he is secretly filmed by FSB counter-intelligence. Mr. Crompton was also named as having repeatedly visited the rock, as did Marc Doe, 27, the second secretary (political affairs). Andy Fleming, 32, another secretary archivist, was filmed picking up the rock after kicking it with his foot. The men were dressed in tracksuits and woolly hats and carried rucksacks.

"We have a gentlemen's understanding that official intelligence representatives won't engage in espionage. The agreement seems to have been breached. We have been deceived," Mr. Ignatchenko said. A decision was then taken to expose the unit. Mr. Zakharov said no official complaint had been made by the Russian Government about the men's activities. He added that any future reaction would come "from governmental level."

Russia holds the G8 chairmanship this year and it will be reluctant to risk this with a full-scale diplomatic rift with Britain. The FSB decision to hand the material over to state TV is primarily a domestic political move, aimed at undermining links between the British Government and non-governmental bodies it funds to help promote democracy and human rights.

There is little need for a formal protest by Russia given how this week's high-profile accusations will make the diplomats' continued work near-impossible. Moscow may also be keen to avoid tit-for-tat expulsions from its London embassy.

The U.K. Foreign Office described the allegations as "surprising," which is not a denial. Tony Blair, when questioned at his monthly press conference, said he had only heard about it on Teletext and did not comment "on security matters."The recording rock is one of more than half-a-dozen occasions in the last six years in which Britain has been accused of carrying out intelligence operations against countries regarded as friends — or at least no longer enemies. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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