Moscow: The British embassy in Moscow came under renewed Russian criticism on Sunday night when state television claimed the ambassador was in the company of an alleged MI6 agent when he had lobbied Russian MPs not to adopt a controversial new law cracking down on non-governmental organisations.

For the second Sunday in a row, Russian state television showed a lengthy, heavily publicised documentary about the so-called ``spy-rock'' incident, in which Russian security services accuse four British diplomats of running a hi-tech spy ring using a transmitter hidden in a rock.

Last weekend Rossiya TV said that Marc Doe (27), the second political secretary who liases with NGOs in Russia, was an MI6 agent, a claim seized upon to justify new restrictive laws against NGOs.

On Sunday night the state-run channel NTV ran a 20-minute programme in which Sergei Popov, a Russian MP who had helped draft the new NGO law, said Mr. Doe had ``accompanied the British ambassador ``for a meeting in which the two British diplomats tried to persuade him to drop the proposed bill. The timing of the alleged meetings was not clear, although it is likely the veteran diplomat Anthony Brenton was U.K. ambassador at the time. The British embassy could not be reached for comment, but has persistently and publicly voiced its opposition to further controls on NGOs and regularly meets Russian officials to express its opinions.

Mr. Popov told the programme: ``It is strange to me that a spy and the ambassador come here on the question of NGO laws to give the position of the E.U.'' He added: ``From my point of view diplomats must be a lot more careful.''

Sunday night's programme said two men, presumably Russian citizens, had been arrested for working with the alleged British agents and would be tried this spring.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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