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more comments on indymedia re Slaven.

What The Papers Say
by Erin Cairde - Cairde na hÉireann Tue Jan 17, 2006 21:03
It's in the papers so it must be true, I suppose? The point made about 'evidence' was not that the newspaper articles did not exist but that the conclusions that are being drawn from them are nothing more than wishful thinking based on malicious gossip and innuendo. It seems that the reaction of certain people and political groupings in Scotland who have now lost their previous position and standing within the republican movement is to point the finger and start shouting 'tout, agent and grass' at anyone that they perceive to be their enemy. It's playground politics.

loadsamoney
by carl spence Tue Jan 17, 2006 23:49
slevin was involved with racketeers and dealers for years. then he became self sufficient financially. must have been saving his pennies.

same reaction as to scappaticci
by richard sorge III Wed Jan 18, 2006 00:07
sorry erin, but your reaction reminds me of the reaction by sinn fein to the scappaticci-saga...nonono and then he ran away...my question isnow: how long was donaldson in the international dept.? ah yes by the way, go to the tal mag no.7 page 11 and to fighting talk mags no.12-15: there s some coverage about poor jims arrest, the campaign against his possible jailing and the deal in court to save him from the open university...sanctus spiritus

playground politics
by Barry Wed Jan 18, 2006 00:44
your complaints are a bit rich to say the least, coming from a party leadership that has routinely denounced anyone who doesnt agree with them as "securocrat puppets" and MI5 agents out to destroy the " peace process" . For the past 12 years theyve routinely described anyone who doesnt agree with them as a Brit agent .

You people are most definitely NOT the republican separatist movement .
Youse have surrendered arms on a British demand and are on the verge of joining the British police . To dismiss peoples disgust at that as mere jealousy at not being involved in the opportunity to do Britains dirty work is a disgrace .

Punctuation Errors!!!!
by BS - Bart Wed Jan 25, 2006 19:47
A freelance journalist didn’t do the article. Check out the spelling and grammar mistakes. No educated journalist would make such errors. The person that wrote this should maybe learn to spell and find out where to put punctuation marks. They could maybe even use the computers built in spell checker facility if they get really stuck!

Police Agents
by EX Scottish Republican Thu Jan 26, 2006 09:37
Tearing me in two but for the good of the Republican Movement that i walked away from last year (without passing any true comment) these things have to be said .

I was pulled by a security section (they wouldnt ever say which one) in the summer of 2005 offering me payment & asking me to keep an eye on certain on goings and certain peoples actions amung everything else and all the things & PEOPLE ! they were asking me, I eventually came to the conclusion to walk away from my political beliefs Because they (the security service involved) i felt made a huge blunder in not mentioning Jim during their approaches, "why ask me to keep an eye on this and that and NOT jim" ???? that and other suspisions that have came together like a bad jigsaw since brought me to my thinking that , this movement is riddled with Police Agents & that i had to get out .

I believe JS to be so, but sadly i dont think he is on his own, i truely believe that their is many not only in Ireland but in Scotland , Liverpool & the rest of the mainland,.

Where do we go from here, well !! the country itself ie media is starting to unravel the truth, as every week we here more and more allegations of treason, we have to hope they are all exposed and bannished then we will one day be strong once more .

TAL ( I Hope )

SLAVEN
by Glasgow Irish Fri Jan 27, 2006 09:27
SO VERY TRUE, THE BRANCH ARE LIKE THE FOG WITH OUR PEOPLE , THEY ARE ALL OVER US ! AND NOW THEY HAVE THAT MANY GRASS'S THERE IS A WAITING LIST !
BUT ITS THE ONES AT THE TOP WHO COUNT FOR THEM .
TOO MANY ORDINARY FOLK HAVE WEAKNESS'S AND JIM SLAVEN IS RENOUN FOR HIS LUXURYS , MAYBE HIS MISTAKE WAS TO STICK HIS HEAD OUT TOO FAR !! BUT THIS TALK IS RIFE ABOUT JIM SLAVEN
EVERYONE KNOWS HOW THE COPS WORK, GET A MAN AT THE TOP - BRIBE AND BLACK MAIL THEN GET HIM TO PLAY THINGS THE WAY THEY WANT IT PLAYED INSIDE THEIR STRATEGY TO DEFEAT US, WELL MANY SEE THIS NOW HAPPENING .

DIVIDE AND CONQUER !! EH JIM !!!!!!!

glasgow irish
by pat c Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:00
if you shout LIKE THIS. then it annoys people and they may miss the message you wish to convey. please dont put your entire message in upper case.

Ex-Scottish repubican
by historian Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:10
Surely if the security agencies were protecting Slaven they would have asked you to watch him just as much as anyone else. They don't tend to blow their agents cover in such a haphazard fashion.

slaven
by On looker Sat Jan 28, 2006 23:53
Think that was the guys point and why he reacted the way he did .

slavin/donaldson
by john Mon Jan 30, 2006 14:39
as a scottish republican who was involved with pdf and wosba to my knowledge donaldson was not involved in the restructuring of scotjand although he had been present at a republican function in scotland

Slaven
by historian Mon Jan 30, 2006 14:47
MY point is that the Branch/MI5 or whoever are not stupid enough to blow their agent's cover by deliberatly NOT asking people about them when they are being interrogated. They're not fools you know.

Slaven
by onlooker Tue Jan 31, 2006 01:01
Maybee he was no interest to them at the time or they had no reason to watch him !! as they didnt find him dangerous enough or at the time active enough !, the point That the guy is making is
They never ! and he obviously new things about JS for him to wonder why not !!

This could go round in circles but the point is people are coming out and making points about JS , never enough to find him guilty (i dont think) but its certaianly enough for people to draw suspision about him .

Get Scap he'll sort it out !!! oops ! forgot about him !!!! :-(



THE MOVEMENT
by SPOOKS Thu Feb 02, 2006 03:10
We all know that MI5 & 6 have the whole situation in the palm of their hand,
on both sides ! if you are at the front of your political group especially within the irish conflict the mob will be right on your case , blackmailing and presurising you to turn informer (or they will kill you !! lol ) on occasions they have stated , if you dont we will put it about that you are ! is this maybee who scap was working for, for years ? how many innocent men were capped or even worse through HM Forces Dirty War ? they can black mail with money or even just digging up a wee skeleton from your past , they are determined people under pressure to get results and over the past 5 years my god have they got them, on both sides of the political divide .
As i said anyone who is at the top of their political group is fair game to them, the foot soldiers are no good , its the top men who hold all the cards and have access to all the info the thing we all need to understand and ask our selves is how many of those at the top have actually resisted their approach and how many actually gave in to their presure and lapped up their luxurious offers ?

Lifes a bitch when you've no wife
and the man next doors got 2

Mr Slaven
by Padraig - none YET ! Thu May 04, 2006 13:17
Slaven is playing British Cards
Jim Slaven is a British Agent , this has grew legs since the raised profile of Donaldson, Trust JS and you Trust the British

JIM SLAVEN IS AN INFORMANT, JIM SLAVEN IS A GRASS !!!
 
Is China Complicit in North Korean Currency Counterfeiting?
by John J. Tkacik, Jr.
WebMemo #1046

April 20, 2006 | |



When it comes to North Korea, the United States has concerns about more than just nuclear weapons. For over 25 years, Pyongyang’s state-supervised currency printing plants have been churning out high-grade counterfeit U.S. dollars as well as counterfeit Japanese yen, Thai baht, and in recent years, euros. A more recent concern is the increasing evidence that China has not been an innocent bystander in North Korea’s traffic in bogus bills.



In the 1990s, Pyongyang purchased advanced high-speed banknote presses similar to those used by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing and began to print extremely high-quality copies of foreign currency notes dubbed “supernotes” by the U.S. Secret Service. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in 2003 that North Korea earned as much as $100 million a year from counterfeit currency.[1] In 2005, an interagency U.S. task force broke a number of North Korean counterfeit cases. The task force estimates that $45 million to $60 million in Pyongyang’s counterfeit currency (primarily in U.S. $100 bills) is in circulation today.[2]



China enters the picture through Macau. Prior to 2000, Macau was under Portugal’s colonial administration. In 1994, Portuguese police arrested several North Korean trading company executives, who carried diplomatic passports, for depositing $250,000 in counterfeit notes in a Macau bank.[3] Otherwise, counterfeit currency laundering there was not pronounced. This began to change sometime after control over the area was transferred to China in late 1999 and it became the Macau Special Administrative Region. From that time until September 2005, when a U.S. law-enforcement case known as “Operation Smoking Dragon” traced a large quantity of counterfeits to a Macau bank known as Banco Delta Asia, North Korea’s state-run global money-laundering operations were based in Macau.[4]



The United States Treasury Department quickly imposed strict financial sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, naming it as a “a willing pawn for the North Korean government to engage in corrupt financial activities through Macau, a region that needs significant improvement in its money-laundering controls.” [5] Although a Treasury spokesperson was candid about the Banco Delta Asia sanctions, she had “no comment” about whether Treasury was also investigating Beijing’s Bank of China branches in Macau.[6] U.S. law enforcement officials involved in the “Smoking Dragon” case were initially frustrated by a Justice Department decision, apparently made for diplomatic reasons, not to name China and North Korea as the sources of counterfeit currency and other goods. Oddly, indictments in an August 2005 counterfeiting case referred to source countries only by numbers.[7] North Korea was subsequently named, but China’s role remains shrouded.



Macau sources told U.S. officials that when Banco Delta Asia ceased passing supernotes for Pyongyang, North Korea’s agents moved their accounts to Chinese state-owned banks in the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone adjacent to Macau.[8] According to the Los Angeles Times, immediately following the U.S. Treasury action in Macau, North Korea’s flagship front-company there, Zokwang Trading Co., closed its headquarters on the fifth floor of an office building near Banco Delta Asia, and “most of its personnel have relocated to Zhuhai, just across the border in China proper.”[9]



Another intriguing piece in the North Korean counterfeit supernote puzzle came in October 2005 when U.S. prosecutors indicted Sean Garland, a member of Ireland’s radical left, for procuring supernotes directly from North Korean officials.[10] Garland’s connections in China had long been a focus of U.S. criminal surveillance. According to “top secret” U.S. intelligence reporting, reportedly based on telecommunications intercepts by the National Security Agency, Garland may have been introduced to his North Korean contact in 1997 by a Chinese Communist Party official, Ms. Cai Xiaobing, while visiting Beijing. Ms. Cao was identified as director of the International Liaison Department, the bureau within the Chinese Communist Party structure that supports communist parties abroad. U.S. intelligence analysts reportedly believe that the "unidentified business opportunities" that Garland discussed with Ms. Cao related to North Korea.[11]



A clear trail of supernote American $100 bills extends through China and back to North Korea. In February 2006, South Korean police arrested three people who had purchased supernote counterfeits with a face value of $140,000 from “a broker in Shenyang, China.”[12] That same month, a South Korean legislator said he had obtained Series 2003 supernote counterfeits in the Chinese city of Dandong. “I paid $70 to get each of these [counterfeit $100 bills], but you can get them for as little as $50 in China,” the legislator told a South Korean parliamentary meeting.[13] And much earlier, in 1994, U.S. Secret Service investigators had tracked the chief of the North Korean counterfeiting ring to China where, according to press reports, “the trail went cold”—at the least an indication of a lack of Chinese police cooperation.[14]



In 1998, the Japanese Navy seized a North Korean spy-ship with a multi-million dollar consignment of supernote U.S. and Japanese currency.[15] Since then, Japanese maritime forces have been alert to the movements of North Korean ships in their waters. By December 2001, Japanese and American intelligence officials had become aware that North Korean spy-ships were regular visitors to Chinese naval bases.[16]



Conclusion

A considerable amount of circumstantial evidence points to Chinese complicity in North Korea’s counterfeit currency networks. The nature of the evidence, especially the ease with which North Korean counterfeiters were able to relocate from Macau to more secure offices inside China, indicates that China gives aid and asylum to North Korean counterfeiting operations as a matter of policy. If so, there is little hope that North Korea’s criminal activities can be brought to heel until China changes its ways—whether by diplomacy or by litigation of its banks and officials.



Administration law-enforcement and intelligence agencies must be encouraged to brief Congress on the extent of Chinese cooperation with U.S. investigations into North Korean counterfeiting—or the lack thereof. U.S. prosecutors, meanwhile, must be encouraged to pursue leads involving Chinese complicity.



John J. Tkacik, Jr., is Senior Research Fellow in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] “Country Profile 2003; South Korea, North Korea,” Economist Intelligence Unit, p. 85.

[2] For a comprehensive look at North Korea’s counterfeit currency industry see Balbina Y. Hwang, “Curtailing North Korea’s Illicit Activities,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1679, August 25, 2003, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Asiaan ... bg1679.cfm.

[3] See prepared statement of William Bach, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, “Hearing on Drugs, Counterfeiting and Arms Trade: The North Korean Connection,” before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Management, The Budget, and International Security, May 20, 2003.

[4] For more background see “The Macau Connection: The Former Portuguese Colony was a Terrorist Base for Pyongyang,” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 13, 2003, at http://www.asiapacificms.com/articles/n ... a_banking/.

[5] “U.S. Says Bank Laundered Money for Pyongyang,” The Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2005, p. A12, at http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB112682938731042431,00.html.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Glenn R. Simpson, Gordon Fairclough, Jay Solomon, “U.S. Probes Banks' North Korea Ties”, The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2005, p. A3, at http://online.wsj.com/article/
0,,SB112612365849834354,00.html.

[8] Private conversations with U.S. officials.

[9] Barbara Demick, “No More Gambling on N. Korea; China's Macao, its casinos looking for U.S. funds, has dropped a pariah bank client,” The Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2006, at http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/
la-fg-macao6apr06,1,7483991.story.

[10] Bill Gertz, “U.S. accuses North Korea of $100 bill counterfeiting”, The Washington Times, October 12, 2005, P. A-04, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/
20051011-102257-5167r.htm. See also Mark Sherman, “Irish Man Charged in Counterfeit Scheme,” The Associated Press, October 12, 2005.

[11] Bill Gertz, “China supports foreign leftists, Irish communist visited party official in 1997, NSA says,” The Washington Times, May 10, 2001, Pg. A7. See also Bill Gertz, “Irish forgery suspect fights U.S. extradition,” The Washington Times, November 17, 2005, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/
20051116-105810-1699r.htm.

[12]“Seoul 'Concealed U.S. Information on N.K. Dollar Fakes',” Chosun Ilbo (Seoul), February 12, 2006, at http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/
news/200602/200602120009.html.

[13] “S.Korean Lawmakers Give Details on North Fake Money,” Reuters, February 22, 2006.

[14] John K. Cooley, “The rogue money printers of Pyongyang,” International Herald Tribune, October 23, 2005.

[15] Ibid.

[16] David Ibison, “Pyongyang's spy ship reveals a dark secret,” Financial Times, May 28, 2003, p.3. See also “U.S. photos show mystery ship look-alike,” Japan Times, March 2, 2002, citing Asahi Shimbun. p.1; “Japan ends ship probe,” Japan Times, March 2, 2002 (citing Kyodo News Agency).


http://www.heritage.org/Research/Asiaan ... wm1046.cfm
 
Macau focus of push on NK activity
By Mike Chinoy, CNN Senior Asia Correspondent


Thursday, May 18, 2006; Posted: 9:28 p.m. EDT (01:28 GMT)


These fake U.S. notes were seized in the Philippines.
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Counterfeit allegations surround North Korea (6:11)
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Manage Alerts | What Is This? MACAU, China (CNN) -- The Chinese enclave of Macau is known for its gambling, sex trade and Chinese gangsters, with intrigue and shady deals long part of its landscape.

But now the former Portuguese colony is at the center of an aggressive and expanding campaign targeting illicit activities by North Korea, which has long used this territory as a base of operations.

Next to a sauna and attached to a casino is one of the eight branches of Macau's Banco Delta Asia. Last year, the U.S. government blacklisted the bank, accusing it of laundering money for North Korea. This is a charge the bank denies.

"Banco Delta Asia provided a tolerant environment for illicit North Korean activities," said Daniel Glaser, from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The North Korean companies laundered money and attempted to pass it through the bank, he said.

The fake $100 bills are of such high quality it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real thing. U.S. officials contend the regime of Kim Jong Il has manufactured and put into circulation tens of millions of these counterfeit bills, labeled supernotes, around the world.

These charges are backed up by the U.S. secret service, which says it has made a connection between the highly deceptive counterfeit notes and North Korea.

"Our investigation has revealed that the supernote continues to be produced and distributed from sources operating out of North Korea," said Michael Merritt, from the U.S. Secret Service.

Dirty deals
At the heart of North Korea's illicit operations, U.S. officials and law enforcement sources say, is the Zokwang trading company. It is staffed by North Koreans with diplomatic passports. In the mid 1990s, several Zokwang officials were arrested by Macau police on suspicion of passing fake U.S. bills, some of which were traced to Banco Delta Asia.

The accused North Koreans used their diplomatic status to leave Macau without ever going on trial. But the U.S. government is convinced the counterfeiting continued. When the sanctions against Banco Delta Asia were announced, there was a run on the bank, with thousands lining up to get their cash out.

The U.S. move and the resulting panic led the Macau authorities to take control of the bank and freeze dozens of accounts linked to North Korea worth more than $20 million.

"They have already stopped all transactions of those North Korean accounts," said Deborah Ng from the Macau Monetary Authority.

American officials say Pyongyang's dirty deals go well beyond counterfeiting U.S. dollars.

"It's amazing the quality of counterfeit cigarettes being produced in North Korea. Counterfeit Viagra -- major market. These items are providing income that goes right to the top," says David Asher, a former state department official.

Until recently, Asher was in charge of what the Bush administration called its Illicit Activities Initiative, which last year also led to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Like Macau, it is known for its casinos and its waterfront.

Fake wedding
It is in Atlantic City that a joint FBI and secret service investigation called Royal Charm reached its climax. Chinese gangsters operating in America but linked to North Korea came under the spotlight.

"There was a Chinese, ethnic-Chinese-organized crime group existing on the East Coast and the West Coast that was able to procure large amounts of counterfeit U.S. currency, the so-called supernote," said Asher.

Asher says it was likely the suspects procured these extremely high quality notes on the Chinese border. But the notes have been forensically linked to North Korea, and officials suspect North Koreans were involved in the network.

In a bid to crack down on the crime ring, the FBI created a fake Mafia front family to penetrate the Asian gangs and invited the suspects to Atlantic City.

"It was amazing how many crooks showed up to this wedding wearing tuxedos, bringing gold Rolex watches and even narcotics for the bride and groom, who they had no idea were undercover agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said Asher.

The rouse proved to be a success.

"They thought it was going to be a wedding. They thought transport was going to be provided for them. It was provided for them, by agents of the FBI, who took them not to a wedding, but to jail," said Charles McKenna, assistant U.S. district attorney in New Jersey.

Irish connection
As the charges made their way through the courts, the U.S. investigation led to the battle-scarred streets of Northern Ireland. The U.S. Justice Department indicted a long-time senior figure in the IRA, Sean Garland, on charges of distributing North Korean-made supernotes.

"He was tied to several KGB operatives as well as to North Korean intelligence agents who were providing the notes that he was then distributing throughout Europe and Eastern Europe," said Asher.

Garland, who is now in the Irish Republic, insisted he is innocent of the counterfeiting charge.

For its part, the government of North Korea has also vehemently denied the allegations. But the U.S. moves have already had a huge diplomatic impact.

Pyongyang says it won't return to six party talks on its nuclear program unless its money at Banco Delta Asia is unfrozen and the United States halts the financial pressure.

American officials say Pyongyang's agitated response shows the pressure is hitting home.

"I think the targeted actions that we've taken have had a tremendous effect on the ability of North Korea to engage in illicit activity around the world. I think it's been a wake-up call for the international community," said Glaser.

Back in Macau, the Zokwang Trading Company has shut its doors and disappeared from view. Rumor has it the company has relocated across the border in mainland China, but there is no way to confirm the secretive company's whereabouts or activities.

Meanwhile, Banco Delta Asia is struggling to stay afloat as international financial institutions across the globe, under relentless American pressure, cut their ties to North Korea.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... index.html
 
Just when you thought it was safe to use your Super Dollars..

US seeks extradition of Seán Garland
Sat, Jan 31, 2009

THE UNITED States is seeking the extradition of former Workers’ Party president Seán Garland over his alleged involvement in a large-scale operation to make high-quality counterfeit US dollars, the High Court heard yesterday.

Mr Justice Michael Peart remanded Mr Garland (74) in custody to Cloverhill Prison to appear again before the court next Wednesday.

The US authorities claim that Mr Garland, Beldonstown, Brownstown, Navan, Co Meath, conspired with others outside the United States as part of a counterfeiting operation involving almost perfect copies of US dollars.

It is also alleged the counterfeiting involved the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).

In court yesterday, a detective from the Garda Extradition Unit told Jeremy Maher SC, for the State, that Mr Garland was arrested at 12.35pm yesterday afternoon at Mountjoy Square North in Dublin on foot of a warrant for his extradition.

The detective said Mr Garland had confirmed his identity and, when asked if he knew about the allegation contained in the warrants, replied: “Yes”.

In applying for a remand in custody, the detective said any application for bail would be objected to.

Michael Forde SC, for Mr Garland, said his client had a medical condition and he hoped to be in a position to apply for bail sometime next week.

Counsel added that he would require time to consider the allegations and his client would be seeking legal aid under the Attorney General’s scheme.

Mr Garland was elected president of the Workers’ Party in 2006. He retired from the presidency in May last year, but remains a member of the party’s central executive committee and is its national treasurer.

Following the arrest, the Workers’ Party described Mr Garland’s arrest as “politically motivated”. Speaking outside the court, a party spokesman, Malachy Steenson, claimed the extradition application was an attempt by the authorities to divert attention from the country’s economic crisis.

Senator Eoghan Harris yesterday condemned the arrest of Mr Garland. “Although there are deep and bitter divisions between myself and Seán Garland, that go back to my resignation from the Workers Party in 1989, I deplore the singling-out of an old, sick republican, who led the Official IRA to ceasefire in 1972 and who is charged with a major, but bloodless, crime of alleged forgery,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 79572.html
 
Chef case agency 'must be named'

The SDLP are meeting Sir Alasdair Fraser
The Director of Public Prosecutions must name the agency that would not disclose evidence over the Castlereagh police break-in, the SDLP has said.

The case against Larry Zaitschek over alleged involvement in the 2002 break-in collapsed three weeks ago.

An SDLP delegation met the head of the PPS, Sir Alasdair Fraser, on Friday.

Speaking afterwards, the party's Alex Attwood said the director "flatly declined" to tell them which other agency was involved in the case.

Police were planning to bring Mr Zaitschek to trial over the break-in at police headquarters, when special branch files were stolen.

Mr Zaitschek had worked as a chef at the base.

Mr Zaitschek had always denied all the charges against him and denied having anything to do with the break-in.

He has been living in the United States since shortly after the raid.

However, two weeks ago police said they could not disclose all relevant material and conceded he would not receive a fair trial.

They said they were prepared for their evidence to be disclosed, and that the issues arose from evidence outside their jurisdiction.

The party also talked to Sir Alastair about what they call "the culture of plea-bargaining".

He cited the recent cases of the Harry Holland and Gerard Devlin cases from west Belfast, where the charges were reduced.

Mr Attwood said there would be more talks about the issue, but that there must be more disclosure on why cases are dropped and why charges can be reduced.

"How the Public Prosecution Service entered into plea bargains which saw very serious criminal offences being reduced to very weak criminal offences is not a way, without proper explanation, and not a way to earn the confidence of grieving families or a doubtful community," he said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/nort ... 166563.stm
 
Call to police after protest trial collapse

By Matt Dickinson, PA

Monday, 10 January 2011

Police need to answer "serious questions" about the use of an undercover officer who infiltrated a group accused of trying to shut down one of Britain's biggest power stations, their defence lawyer said today.

Mike Schwarz was speaking after the collapse of the trial of six people charged with conspiring to shut down the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire in 2009.

Their case was due to be heard at Nottingham Crown Court today but was abandoned after the defence told the prosecution it planned to pursue disclosure relating to Pc Mark Kennedy before the trial judge.

Mr Schwarz said: "My clients were not guilty. They did not agree to join in any plan to occupy the power station. The evidence of Pc Kennedy presumably confirmed this.

"Yet that evidence, had it been kept secret, could have led to a miscarriage of justice.

"Serious questions must be asked relating to the whole policing of this protest, from the use of undercover police officers, to the use of expensive and legally questionable mass pre-emptive arrests, to the use of pre-charge unaccountable bail conditions, to the seemingly arbitrary nature by which the 114 initially arrested were reduced to the final 26 who were eventually charged."

Earlier this month, 20 protesters were sentenced to a mixture of community orders and conditional discharges after they were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe.

Mr Schwarz said the prosecution told the defence last Friday, almost 20 months after the investigation began, that "previously unavailable material that significantly undermines the prosecution case came to light on Wednesday January 5".

He continued: "The discovery of this material came at a time when the prosecution were informed that we planned to pursue disclosure of the evidence relating to Pc Kennedy before the trial judge.

"Unsurprisingly, the prosecution have declined to confirm whether the new material relates to Pc Kennedy. In my opinion however the two are obviously connected. The timing speaks for itself.

"These events beg wider serious questions. Would this evidence have been uncovered had the defence not become aware of it through other avenues?

"Is it appropriate that access to and decisions about disclosure of key evidence should exclusively be in the hands of a prosecution whose primary function is to secure convictions?"

The lawyer said the case raised "key questions" over the cost of the undercover officer and whether it was reasonable to incur "hundreds of thousands of pounds" to "infiltrate peaceful, accountable, open, democratic protesters who are concerned about a very pressing issue - climate change".

He continued: "This is a serious attack on peaceful, accountable protest on issues of public and pressing importance like climate change.

"One expects there to be undercover police on serious operations to investigate serious crime. This was quite the opposite.

"This is civil disobedience which has a long history in this country and should be protected."

He said it was the efforts of the campaigners, who knew Pc Kennedy as Mark Stone, which led to him being uncovered.

Asked about his contact with Pc Kennedy, he said: "He was willing to speak to me with a view to assisting the defence. We took the issues to the prosecution in autumn of last year and asked them for information of his involvement."

He said the role of a police officer as an "agent provocateur" was of the "deepest concern", adding: "This ought to be a party of some inquiry, conducted about Mark Stone specifically and police tactics generally, because this is a murky, unknown area which has only become known, not through police volunteering the information but through the persistence and endeavour of peaceful, accountable, democratic protesters."

Mr Schwarz said it would be speculating to say whether the officer "went native" but that he thought he had been persuaded by the arguments on climate change and the "appropriateness" of civil disobedience to tackle it.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the new information which led to the collapse of the trial was "not the existence of an undercover officer".

In a statement, the CPS said: "Previously unavailable information that significantly undermined the prosecution's case came to light on Wednesday, 5 January 2011.

"In light of this information, the Crown Prosecution Service reviewed the case and decided there was no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.

"There will be a hearing on Monday at which we will offer no evidence, thereby discontinuing the case."

Hundreds of activists were arrested when police raided the Iona School in Sneinton, Nottingham, on the morning of Easter Monday, April 13, last year.

The protesters planned to trespass at the coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station and shut it down for a week, a trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The undercover officer involved has been named as Pc Mark Kennedy, a former member of the Metropolitan Police who has spent the past seven years undercover in the environmental protest movement.

He is said to have recently resigned from the force and moved abroad.

Some activists have claimed that his role went beyond that of a police observer and that he helped fund the protest and planned to take on a main role in disrupting the power station.

Danny Chivers, a defendant in the collapsed second trial, said: "The pre-emptive arrest was controversial enough at the time, but we now know it was even worse than we realised.

"The police appear to have waited for the opportunity to arrest over 100 people, hold them for 24 hours, and take their DNA, before releasing them on to the streets of Nottingham in the middle of night with money and phones confiscated.

"Political protest of the kind being planned that day presents no risk to the public, yet the police consistently resort to the most extreme tactics they can muster. Hopefully the collapse of our trial will rule out the pre-emptive arrest of protesters for good."

The Met Police said it was "not prepared to discuss" Mr Kennedy.

A Labour member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee called for Home Secretary Theresa May to make a statement to MPs if the case.

Senior backbencher David Winnick said: "The concern is not the fact that the Metropolitan Police, and possibly other police forces, use undercover agents. No-one is so naive as to believe that that hasn't been the case since time began.

"My concern is the manner in which it has been alleged that Kennedy acted almost as an agent provocateur. In these circumstances, I think Mrs May should come to the Commons and make a statement."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 80527.html
 
The Guardian comments board had a lot of hysterical comments about a fascist/Stasi state. Personally I'm unsurprised that the police infiltrate radical groups and, where as here there is a risk to continuity of power supplies etc, I don't have an issue with it. What is very wrong is the suggestion that this guy went beyond infiltration to become an agent provacateur.
 
What is very wrong is the suggestion that this guy went beyond infiltration to become an agent provacateur.

Precisely. That sort of thing happened all too often in NI in both republican and loyalist groups.
 
Quake42 said:
What is very wrong is the suggestion that this guy went beyond infiltration to become an agent provacateur.

To me the interesting thing is that it looks like this policeman "went native", seeing as he was prepared to appear as a witness for the defence, it wasn't just that he'd used dodgy procedure to bring charges against protestors.
 
To me the interesting thing is that it looks like this policeman "went native", seeing as he was prepared to appear as a witness for the defence, it wasn't just that he'd used dodgy procedure to bring charges against protestors.

He'd been living this double life for nearly a decade. My guess would be that people in such a position "go native" more often than you might think. It must be a very odd position to be in.
 
Just look at Patty Hearst for a more extreme example. Different circumstances, same result.
 
What were his original instructions though and what immunity did he have? If he proposed illegal acts then imho it would amount to provocation.
 
Revealed: Second undercover police officer who posed as activist

Spy spent four years living in Leeds and played a central role in planning a demonstration to shut down the Drax power station

Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 January 2011 21.30 GMT

Undercover activist The undercover police officer is from a force in the south-east.

The controversy over a police surveillance network embedded in the environmental protest movement deepened dramatically tonight after the Guardian identified a second undercover officer who spent years living a double life as an activist.

The woman's name has been known to a group of six activists since Mark Kennedy – the police infiltrator identified by the Guardian on Monday as having spent seven years inside the movement – claimed she was also a police officer when confronted by them about his own identity last October.

Senior police chiefs said tonight that they were concerned for the safety of the second spy, and a major operation involving several UK forces is now under way to identify other operatives whose safety may have been compromised by Kennedy.

The second spy spent four years living as an environmental activist in Leeds, gaining the trust of dozens of activists and playing a central role in planning a demonstration to shut down Drax power station in North Yorkshire.

Her deployment ended in 2008, when she told activist friends she was leaving town for personal reasons. The Guardian has established the identity of the officer, who is from a force in the south-east of England, but has decided, after representations from senior police officers, to refer to her only as Officer A, and to use pixellated pictures of her.

Meanwhile politicians across Europe demanded information about the activities of Kennedy, the first undercover operative identified, who was on Tuesday accused of having had several sexual relationships with activists while undercover – relationships denounced as "unacceptable" by senior police sources today.

His UK-based handlers have flown to the US in an attempt to find an agent now accepted to have "gone rogue".

Aside from questions over his conduct while undercover, Kennedy, a Metropolitan police officer, committed a serious breach of protocol when he told friends from the protest movement that Officer A was his colleague. A police chief with detailed knowledge of the deployments of undercover officers in the protest movement said Kennedy's breach of protocol could lead to the "relocation of a considerable number of people".

That included undercover officers currently involved in ongoing police investigations across the UK and their families. "This is serious stuff," the police chief said. "Lots of people are at risk – their lives are at risk."

Kennedy, who has expressed remorse over an operation he told friends was "wrong", now appears to have been a key player in a pan-European network of leftwing and environmental groups.

Using a fake passport, he travelled to more than 22 countries from his base in Nottingham. A parliamentarian in Germany said today Kennedy had been "operating on the border of illegality" in the country, and demanded disclosure about the operation. Kennedy's activities in Iceland, Ireland and Italy are also coming under scrutiny.

Documents obtained by the Guardian also suggest that, after quitting the Met last March, Kennedy attempted to continue to use his adopted identity to infiltrate protest groups. In an indication he planned to turn his hand to corporate espionage, Kennedy, who is said to have had money problems, set up two companies. One is connected to an individual who previously worked at Global Open, a private security firm set up by a former special branch detective. The company specialises in keeping a "discreet watch" on protest groups.

Today, police chiefs discussed the unfolding crisis at a meeting of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which has limited company status and to which Kennedy and Officer A were seconded.

It is now believed several undercover police officers have been living long-term in the environmental movement, feeding intelligence back to the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), an Acpo body that runs a nationwide intelligence database of political activists. After concerns were raised about the accountability of NPOIU, police chiefs came up with a plan to move the unit to Scotland Yard. Subject to agreement, the unit will be taken over by Met officers next month.

However, a major review will now be under way into the oversight of officers such as Kennedy. Explaining why he and Officer A had spent so long undercover, the police chief said: "It is simply because of the environment. If you are a deeply ideologically motivated person … then getting close to you to understand your thought processes – and some idea of what you're doing – takes a lot longer."

He added that Kennedy's numerous sexual relations with women would not have been officially sanctioned. "That is conduct that is not acceptable," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/1 ... ce-officer
 
Living in Nottingham, this story is of some interest.

While the arrest and conviction of the activists may be understood as preventing damage and supply of power (and potential harm to the protestors themselves), it is the long term use of an undercover copper that most people have questioned here.

Questions are being asked - even in the Notts force itself - along the lines of "Were the plans to disrupt the power station nine years in the making or was the obbo being put into place with no clear objective or an unspecified, open-budget time-frame?"
It isn't the morality of using undercover fuzz - it's the practicality of using deep cover operatives in organisations of a low-risk sort. If it was a violent, organised crime gang, then ten years is probably essential to secure valuable intelligence. A hardened gang of vegetarian eco-activists with dreds and facial piercings* might require less ... er ... serious? professional? intense activity. The common phrase being used in conjunction is sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

His "going native" and wrecking the prosecution or not, this isn't the talking point. It's his deployment which is at issue.

The accountants are studying the bills for covert intelligence gathering while various senior bobbies are furiously reviewing operation overviews, wondering if the Sherwood W.I. really is the hotbed of right-wing activists and the home of the paramilitary wing, known as The Blue-Rinse Brigade.


* I, myself, do not consider these activists under this description but I would guess that many people - including police - would describe them thus.
 
Living in Leeds and having some links to 'deep green' people here, i'd be surprised if I don;t know someone who knows something about this, though I think most of them are too busy making money out of saving the world to get involved in anything contraversial... perhaps something will sneak out after a few drinks sometime ;)

Worth noting, the comments thread on the guardian link above has been closed down for legal reasons.
 
Eco-spy infiltrated Irish protests
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 77245.html
LORNA SIGGINS and MARY FITZGERALD

Sat, Jan 15, 2011

A BRITISH undercover police officer who infiltrated protest movements across Europe over seven years made several visits to Ireland, during which he spent time with objectors to the Corrib gas project in north Mayo and met protesters opposed to US military use of Shannon airport.

According to Irish activists, PC Mark Kennedy, a Metropolitan police officer who infiltrated several environmental and anti-capitalist campaigns in Britain and other countries after he adopted the fake identity of Mark Stone in 2003, also took part in the Dublin May Day protests in 2004. Several said he encouraged more confrontational tactics.

Kennedy spent several days in north Mayo in March 2006 and participated in a workshop for the Shell to Sea campaign. Former members of the Rossport solidarity camp, established after the jailing of the Rossport Five in 2005, recall that he advised on the merits of direct action. He also visited the home of one of the Rossport Five, Willie Corduff, with a group of British and Icelandic activists sympathetic to the campaign.

“It’s unfortunate that you take people in good faith,” Mary Corduff said yesterday. “What we would like to know is who he was working for while he was here?”

One former Rossport camp member, who did not want to be identified, said he remembered Kennedy participating in a direct confrontation with gardaí during the Dublin May Day demonstration in 2004.

“I remember him taking off his balaclava in the thick of it . . . which is something we never did,” the activist said.

This allegation was repeated by a Dublin-based activist with the Workers Solidarity Movement, who said Kennedy had stayed at his home twice.

The activist, who did not wish to be identified, said he had met Kennedy several times between 2004 and 2006, both in Ireland and at the G8 protests in Scotland in 2005. “He was very encouraging of the more militant end of direct action,” the activist said.

In an interview given to a Rossport camp member and published by Indymedia, Kennedy stressed it was “really important for campaigns not only in Ireland, in Mayo or in Iceland but also campaigns in Spain, in Italy [to] work together”.

“We need to network and we need to be working on these issues together, exchanging information and ways of doing things, and looking at the ways corporations are putting the pressure on us and sharing that information so that we can go forward and win our struggles,” he said.

“In the future, when things happen, we can carry on and have a better idea of how to protest against these corporations.”

Kennedy visited the gas terminal site at Ballinaboy, including the protest “trailer”. At the time, work by Shell EP Ireland on the terminal had been suspended.

One activist said he met Kennedy at a protest over former US president George Bush’s attendance at the EU-US summit at Dromoland Castle in June 2004.

Another activist, Ciaron O’Reilly, one of five anti-war protesters acquitted of criminally damaging a US military aircraft at Shannon airport in 2006, said he met Kennedy twice in Ireland, including at an event organised by Gluaiseacht, a social justice movement, in Clare in 2005.

Activists in Ireland have been aware of Kennedy’s real identity since last October. “My main concern is not that the police in the UK and Ireland collect information on activists, but that they sometimes act as agent provocateurs in order to discredit the peace movement,” said anti-war activist Ed Horgan.

Labour TD Michael D Higgins has written to the Department of Justice regarding Kennedy’s activities in Ireland. “It is of grave concern,” he said. “This type of activity undermines respect for the law and it is very sinister in that it can damage good causes.”

A spokesman for the department said it had “no information on any alleged activities in this jurisdiction by the person in question”.
 
Even now someone is pitching this as a a TV series or movie. I wonder if Max Clifford is in touch with him?
 
He'd been living this double life for nearly a decade. My guess would be that people in such a position "go native" more often than you might think. It must be a very odd position to be in.

Reading the coverage in today's Guardian it seems he's also set up a private company or two to provide industrial espionage; so he has to be a bit of a tortured soul, if he thinks he did wrong before, but now wants to freelance.
 
balding13 said:
He'd been living this double life for nearly a decade. My guess would be that people in such a position "go native" more often than you might think. It must be a very odd position to be in.

Reading the coverage in today's Guardian it seems he's also set up a private company or two to provide industrial espionage; so he has to be a bit of a tortured soul, if he thinks he did wrong before, but now wants to freelance.

He wrestled with his conscience and he won.
 
Third undercover police spy unmasked as scale of network emerges

• 44-year-old infiltrated Cardiff anarchist group
• Former girlfriend tells of 'colossal, colossal betrayal'

Paul Lewis, Matthew Taylor and Rajeev Syal
The Guardian, Saturday 15 January 2011

Following revelations about Mark Kennedy, the Guardian has identified a third undercover police spy. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

The unprecedented scale of undercover operations used by police to monitor Britain's political protest movements was laid bare last night after a third police spy was identified by the Guardian.

News of the existence of the 44-year-old male officer comes as regulators prepare two separate official inquiries into the activities of this hitherto secret police surveillance network.

The latest officer, whose identity has been withheld amid fears for his safety in other criminal operations, worked for four years undercover with an anarchist group in Cardiff.

Last night a former girlfriend and fellow activist said she felt "colossally betrayed" by "Officer B". The 29-year-old, who had a relationship with him for three months in the summer of 2008 while he was working undercover, said: "I was doing nothing wrong, I was not breaking the law at all. So for him to come along and lie to us and get that deep into our lives was a colossal, colossal betrayal."

The woman, who did not want to be named, said "Officer B" arrived in Cardiff in 2005, becoming a key member of the 20-strong Anarchist network in the city and "one of her best friends". They had known each for three years before their relationship and she said she did not suspect his true identity until after he left Cardiff in October 2009, claiming he had been offered a job as a gardener on Corfu.

According to the woman Officer B's flat was very empty, with no pictures of friends or family and he rarely talked about his past. "He always said he could not tell his family or friends about us because of the age difference ... if it had been anyone else I would have thought that was strange, but because [he] had been such a good friend for so long it really did not enter my mind that he was anything but a stand-up honest man."

Before he left for Corfu he held a goodbye dinner. His former girlfriend said she kept in touch with him for about a month via email, text message and the occasional postcard. Then the contact dried up.

"At first friends started messaging him asking if he was all right, then when there was no response, a few messaged him to say they were worried he was a spy, but we never heard anything."

The woman said that the experience had rocked her confidence and made her suspicious of other campaigners.

"I am incredibly, incredibly angry," she said. "Obviously to do that to anybody is pretty low, but to do that to someone who trusted you and cared about you and did their best to look after you is just unspeakable. I cannot imagine the kind of person who would lie to someone they were having a relationship with for that long and that seriously ... I strongly suspect that he felt very bad about what he was doing, but that is not an excuse."

The latest developments came as the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced it was widening its inquiry to include the controversy surrounding PC Mark Kennedy, who was the first officer unmasked by the Guardian and who also had sexual relations while undercover.

It is understood a second inquiry is to be launched by Her Majesty's Chief Inspectorate of Constabulary on Monday into whether the undercover surveillance was disproportionate.

Last night it was reported that the trial of six campaigners accused of trying to shutdown a power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar collapsed because police had withheld secret recordings featuring Kennedy and the activists.

The Times said the Crown Prosecution Service abandoned the trial when it was informed that Nottinghamshire police had suppressed tapes that "fatally undermined the case against the protesters".

More details on the scale of Kennedy's key role in protest movements across Europe emerged yesterday, with allegations that he acted as an agent provocateur in Ireland, Germany and Iceland. It was also revealed that the second undercover agent – "Officer A" – was arrested for glueing herself to the Department for Transport during a protest against Heathrow's expansion in February 2008.

In a twist that will further unnerve senior police officers, it emerged that Kennedy has asked the public relations agent Max Clifford to sell his story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/1 ... py-cardiff

see also:
http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/2011/01/14/m ... n-cardiff/
 
Mark Kennedy 'played key role in forming green movement in Iceland'

Undercover police officer made himself indispensable to movement, activist claims

Amelia Hill
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 January 2011 19.48 GMT

Iceland's environment movement had barely established itself when Mark Kennedy appeared on the scene in 2005.

Campaigners had the determination to fight environmental threats but little experience of effective protest – so Kennedy's help and knowledge was welcome.

But his activities – under the pseudonym Mark Stone – are coming under scrutiny in Iceland after his unmasking as an undercover police officer by the Guardian. Green activists describe him as a key figure in creating the Iceland movement.

On Monday, Ogmundur Jonasson, the interior minister who is also in charge of the police, will begin an investigation into where exactly there was collaboration between the Icelandic government and the British authorities regarding Kennedy's presence.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an MP for the Movement party, has called Kennedy's activities "a complete mockery of democracy" and challenged the UK police to hand over details of his operation in Iceland.

Jónsdóttir said: "It is unacceptable to pre-persecute people and try to make them guilty by initiating a course of action that might not have occurred to them without the agent's influence.

"I challenge the British authorities to hand over the information to clarify how they came to send an agent to this country to try to destroy an environmental movement which is trying to raise public awareness in a perfectly democratic manner."

Back in 2005, Olafur Pall Sigurdsson, founding father of Saving Iceland, the country's first direct action network, set out across Europe in search of expertise to build an effective green movement.

His ''international SOS'' tour was a success. Sigurdsson raised international awareness of Iceland's problems, forged links and met Kennedy.

The undercover policeman played his part to perfection. When Sigurdsson introduced him to Iceland in early 2005, members of the embryonic network were delighted: not only did Kennedy have an enviable list of contacts and friends in activist groups across Europe, but he was keen to share everything he knew about campaigning and protesting.

"Mark was instrumental in forming activism in Iceland," said one activist who knew Kennedy for many years. "He made himself indispensable. He was one of the key people in the early years. He helped nurture what was an embryonic movement and helped it evolve. He played a big role in furthering the movement.

"When he went to Iceland, Saving Iceland was very young. Mark was very willing to encourage people to participate, and to share techniques and tactics that had been very effective in the UK."

Saving Iceland sprang into life to protest against the building of the Kárahnjúkar dam in the island's east. Kennedy quickly became a vocal and key decision-maker.

But although the campaign – the first direct action protests the island had experienced — were big news, Kennedy thought the network could go further.

At public meetings Kennedy was often on an "adrenalin rush". The activist said: "He was very keen to play a very decisive and key role in all aspects of organisation and participation. He was always more likely than the average member of the group to suggest radical actions that could be perceived as aggressive by the mainstream media and the police."

It was during this campaign that Kennedy showed the Icelandic activists the techniques of ''lock down'' – when protesters attach themselves to an immobile object – and how to block roads by constructing tripods from scaffolding, placing a protester at the apex.

But the Guardian has seen private emails suggesting Kennedy was at the same time trying to drive a wedge between the group's members. In one email, he suggested a prominent member of Saving Iceland had become a liability.

"[A prominent member of Saving Iceland] was once again annoying," he emailed. "I was left with a feeling that the tour group was fragmenting …[he] seems extremely tired and I think he does not cope well with the way that groups like ours like to do things. Despite our best efforts he will not let go of the reins."

Although Saving Iceland declined to be interviewed it disputes the level of Kennedy's involvement.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... intcmp=239

no turn unstoned - more here:

Sleeping with the enemy: How undercover cop who went native with eco-warriors used double life to seduce idealistic young women

By Andrew Malone
Last updated at 5:19 PM on 15th January 201

As a base for an eco-warrior, Tamarisk, a traditional narrowboat, could hardly have been better. ­Bobbing gently on the water inside Nottingham’s gated ­Castle marina, the craft provided a private sanctuary for plotting operations.

The captain was ‘Mark Stone’, an unkempt, long-haired mountaineer committed to direct action against environmental targets. And it was aboard the pristine green and black Tamarisk, in a haze of cannabis smoke, that he held court with fellow members of the underground network.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... women.html
 
Mark Kennedy: 15 other undercover police infiltrated green movement
An undercover policeman who spent seven years living as an environmental activist has claimed that at least 15 other agents had infiltrated the movement and disclosed that sexual entanglements with them were commonplace.
Mr Kennedy acknowledged for the first time that during his time undercover he had been sexual relationships with two activist women
By John Bingham 3:45PM GMT 16 Jan 2011

Mark Kennedy, 41, a former Metropolitan Police officer who posed as a climate change protester known as "Mark Stone", spoke out about the “grey and murky” world of undercover policing in which he said “really bad stuff” was secretly going on.

Last week the £1 million trial of six environmental activists accused of plotting to break into the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire collapsed amid questions over Mr Kennedy’s involvement.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is now investigating whether Nottinghamshire Police withheld secret recordings made by Mr Kennedy showing that those accused were innocent of conspiracy from the prosecution.

Lawyers for 20 others who have already been found guilty over the planned sabotage said last night that Mr Kennedy’s disclosures suggested they had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Kennedy, whose estranged wife Edel and two British-born children live in the west of Ireland, fled to the United States after his double life was exposed by green activists.

He is now understood to have private security officers keeping a “discrete” watch on him after he voiced fears for his life and is being represented by Max Clifford, the public relations specialist.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday the former policeman said he had been “hung out to dry” by his former handlers in the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) which sent him to infiltrate radical environmental groups in 2003.

He insisted that he had been instrumental in preventing “bloodshed” amid clashes between police and protesters and claimed that key intelligence he had gathered had been passed to Tony Blair and other European leaders.

He acknowledged for the first time that during his time undercover he had been sexual relationships with two activist women, admitting that what he had done was "wrong".

Fellow protesters have questioned whether the women truly gave their consent as they did not know his true identity.

But Mr Kennedy said other undercover police had also become sexually entangled with their subjects in a promiscuous environment in which some people had up to six lovers at a time.

“I was offered sex repeatedly,” he told the newspaper.

“And I was not the only undercover operator having a relationship but our handlers never asked.”

He added: “That is the problem about this whole undercover police operation. There seem to be no guidelines, no rules – I was pretty much left to fend for myself.”

Mr Kennedy also disclosed that he knew of at least 15 other undercover police who had infiltrated the movement and said that by the time he left in 2009 there were at least four others.

“The world of undercover policing is grey and murky," he said.

“There is some bad stuff going on, really bad stuff.”

The scale of public money invested in such operations was also laid bare as he disclosed that in addition to his £50,000-a-year salary, his handlers paid up to £200,000 a year into a secret bank account to help him maintain his cover.

Mike Schwarz, the lawyer who represented the Ratcliffe-on-Soar protesters said that the convictions of the 20 people already found guilty of conspiring to take over the plant might now be unsafe.

“Potentially it looks like a miscarriage of justice and a lot depends on the prosecution doing what they should have done at the beginning and establishing what Kennedy’s wider role was and making the information available.”

He is calling for a judicial inquiry into the affair.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... ement.html
 
Clean-up of covert policing ordered after Mark Kennedy revelations

Home Office minister Nick Herbert says Acpo will lose control of three teams involved in tackling 'domestic extremism'

Alan Travis, Paul Lewis and Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 January 2011 21.38 GMT

The government said today that a private company run by police chiefs should be stripped of its power to run undercover spies in the wake of a Guardian investigation into the police officer Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist.

The Home Office minister Nick Herbert and senior police officers acknowledged for the first time that "something had gone very wrong" in the Kennedy case, which led to the collapse last week of the trial of six people accused of planning to invade a Nottinghamshire power station.

Herbert said that the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), a limited company with responsibility for some sensitive national operations, is to lose control of three teams involved in tackling so-called "domestic extremism". Ministers and senior officers hope the decision may defuse the controversy surrounding revelations of long-term undercover surveillance of peaceful protest groups.

Later in the day the national policing watchdog announced the launch of an official inquiry into undercover police work carried out by Acpo. The review by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) will investigate Acpo's decade-long infiltration of the protest movement, assessing whether operations have been "authorised in accordance with law" and "proportionate".

The review, which will be conducted by Bernard Hogan-Howe, a former chief constable, is now one of three formal inquiries triggered by the Guardian's investigation into Mark Kennedy and up to 15 other police spies. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has already announced an investigation into Nottinghamshire police over allegations it suppressed secret surveillance tapes – recorded by Kennedy – that would have exonerated six activists police tried to prosecute. And today it also emerged that the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, which has responsibility for major cover operations, has begun a simultaneous inquiry into "the conduct of Mark Kennedy".

It is the Metropolitan police that is now set to take control of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), the largest of Acpo's domestic extremism units, and today its acting commissioner, Tim Godwin, said that the force would from now on examine whether operations to infiltrate allegedly dangerous groups are necessary and proportionate, and would ensure that officers like Kennedy were not left undercover too long.

Godwin said that Acpo, which owned the unit, had already identified it as needing better governance, and that negotiations were under way to bring it into the Met "so that it would come within our command and control system, which would ensure a) compliance with law, b) compliance with rules, c) compliance with ethics".

There would "undoubtedly" be a review of the code of conduct and rules for undercover officers in collaboration with bodies like HMIC. "We need to make sure that the controls are in place, that we look after them properly, that we don't over-expose them," he said.

"For that particular unit [the NPOIU] we will be looking at all these issues around necessity, proportionality, about looking after the officers themselves, making sure that we don't leave them too long if that's the case."

Meanwhile Herbert, the minister of state for police and justice, told MPs the Kennedy case demonstrated strongly that Acpo should no longer have the responsibility for national organisations such as the unit that runs covert operations gathering intelligence on protest groups in England and Wales. "The Government is strongly of the view that there needs to be proper accountability for Acpo and its successor body," he said.

"Units like this should not be operated by Acpo and they should be operated either by a lead police force or in future the National Crime Agency where there is proper governance in place."

Acpo president, Sir Hugh Orde, said that chief police officers firmly supported the government's aims. "What is vitally important is that national units have a transparent accountability framework that provides public confidence," he told the Guardian.

"As president, I have publicly committed to that reform and we hope government will provide the support necessary to secure it."

The units to be merged into a new domestic extremism command of the Met are: NPOIU, the national domestic extremism team and the national extremism tactical co-ordination unit.

It will leave Acpo with the police national information and co-ordination centre, national community tension team, and the vehicle crime intelligence service known as Truckpol. The move was first floated last November and is expected to be confirmed by the Acpo council meeting of all chief constables later this month.

The police minister told MPs he had no knowledge of the case until the Guardian disclosed that the prosecution of six activists planning to invade Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station collapsed because of Kennedy's role in it.

He refused to comment on claims by MPs that the names of the business secretary, Vince Cable, and the Green party leader, Caroline Lucas, were listed on the domestic extremism database just because they had been at peaceful protests.

The home affairs committee chairman, Keith Vaz, who said Kennedy was "no James Bond", also pressed the minister to investigate the alleged £200,000 expenses bill run up by Kennedy.

Herbert said: "In this case it is clear that something operationally has gone very wrong and that is now the subject of an IPCC investigation."

"I think everybody is concerned by the Kennedy case and we have an IPCC precisely to investigate this kind of thing. It is right that the IPCC should look into it and then we should take note of that."

Today two protesters involved in the Ratcliffe-on-Soar station case – the last of 20 found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespasss last month – were given community service orders.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/1 ... eanup-acpo
 
Undercover policeman married activist he was sent to spy on

Chief constable says relationships with targets in environmental movement 'grossly unprofessional'

Paul Lewis, Rob Evans and Rowenna Davis
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 January 2011 21.30 GMT

A police spy married an activist he met while undercover in the environmental protest movement and then went on to have children with her, the Guardian can reveal.

He is the fourth spy now to have been identified as an undercover police officer engaged in the covert surveillance of eco-activists. Three of those spies are accused of having had sexual relationships with the people they were targeting.

The details of the activities of the fourth spy, who is still a serving Metropolitan police officer, emerged as the senior police officer managing the crisis in undercover operations insisted that officers were strictly banned from having sexual relationships with their targets.

Jon Murphy, the chief constable of Merseyside, told the Guardian it was "never acceptable" for undercover officers to sleep with people they were targeting.

"Something has gone badly wrong here. We would not be where we are if it had not," he said, referring to three inquiries into undercover policing that have been launched in response to the Guardian's investigation into the first spy, Mark Kennedy, an undercover officer who had several sexual relationships during his seven-year deployment.

Murphy, who is the national lead officer on serious and organised crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers, declined to speak about the Kennedy case directly but said officers who infiltrated the environmental movement were not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with activists.

"It is grossly unprofessional. It is a diversion from what they are there to do. It is morally wrong because people have been put there to do a particular task and people have got trust in them," he said.

Meanwhile the ex-wife of the fourth undercover police officer spoke to the Guardian. The woman was married to Jim Boyling, a serving Metropolitan police officer who spent five years living undercover with environmental campaigners between 1995 and 2000.

Using the false identity "Jim Sutton", Boyling infiltrated Reclaim the Streets, an environmental group famed for bringing streets to a standstill in unruly protests against cars.

During his time undercover, when he is said to have become a key organiser, Boyling met a 28-year-old woman and began a relationship with her. He later disappeared from her life.

It was only when he reappeared a year later that he told the woman he was a police officer. They later married and had two children but divorced two years ago.

Speaking for the first time, the woman gave the Guardian a detailed account of their relationship and alleges that Boyling:

• Encouraged her to change her name by deed poll, apparently to conceal their relationship from his seniors at the Met. Her deed poll certificate is signed by Boyling, who lists his occupation as "police officer".

• Told her a ruling from seniors that undercover operatives should not have sex with targets was unrealistic, and developing relationships with activists was "a necessary tool in maintaining cover".

• Only informed a senior officer that he was in a relationship with an activist in 2005, around the time they married using her new identity.

• Named at least two other police officers who served as undercover operatives and indicated other political activists who he believed to be police officers.

Kennedy, who is in hiding in the US, is also believed to have "outed" a fellow spy – an allegation he denies. Police chiefs, who have been unable to establish contact with Kennedy have said any such breach of protocol constitutes "heresy".

Boyling and the Met were given a detailed account of the woman's allegations, but neither provided a response. The woman said tonight she hoped her story would reveal how deep infiltration of the protest movement "wrecks lives". "Everybody knows there are people in the movement who aren't who they say they are," she said. "Being too paranoid would hinder everything. But you don't expect the one person you trust most in the world not to exist." Senior officers say any suggestion they tacitly allowed operatives to have relationships are unjustified, and argue examples of inappropriate behaviour are rare.

Murphy defended the police tactics of infiltrating the environmental movement today. He said the group had a small number in their midst "intent on causing harm, committing crime and on occasions disabling parts of the national critical infrastructure". "That has the potential to deny utilities to hospitals, schools, businesses and your granny," he said.

Senior officers privately admit there was widespread confusion over accountability at the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which ran both Kennedy and Boyling. "We are left to regulate it ourselves and we think we do a good job of it," said Murphy today. "Sometimes things go wrong, it is a volatile area of police work."

The Guardian also today fully identifies two of the other undercover officers involved in spying on the eco-activists, previously called Officer A and B.

Their names and photographs were not used after representations from senior police, but both have now been extracted from undercover roles in other investigations, and they can be named as Lynn Watson and Mark Jacobs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/1 ... tivist-spy
 
Mark Kennedy infiltrated German anti-fascists, Bundestag told

Police chief tells German MPs in secret sitting that undercover police officer broke law while in Germany

Amelia Hill and Luke Harding
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 January 2011 22.51 GMT

Mark Kennedy A German police chief says Mark Kennedy committed at least two crimes while in Germany, but the cases against him were dropped at the behest of authorities

The international row over undercover police officer Mark Kennedy escalated tonight after the full scope of his activities were revealed in a secret sitting at the German parliament.

Germany's federal police chief, Jörg Ziercke, was forced to admit to MPs at the Bundestag that not only had Kennedy had a long-term lover in Berlin – in direct violation of a law forbidding police officers to have sexual relationships while undercover – but that he had been invited to Germany by the authorities to infiltrate the anti-fascist movement.

Ziercke also revealed that Kennedy, the Metropolitan police officer at the centre of a controversy over the infiltration of peaceful environmental groups across Europe, worked for three German states during at least five visits to the country between 2004 and 2009.

He said the agent committed at least two crimes, but the cases against him were dropped at the behest of German authorities who knew Kennedy's true identity.

Kennedy first broke the law during protests at Heiligendamm, the town near Rostock where the G8 meetings took place in 2007. He later committed arson, Der Spiegel said, during a demonstration in Berlin at which he set fire to containers.

The revelations are published today in Der Spiegel, which says Kennedy's involvement in criminal activity during his time in Germany highlights concerns that he was working as an agent provocateur and not just an observer of the activists.

In addition, the newspaper says, the fact that investigations into both crimes were shelved suggests police authorities wielded an unacceptable influence over the country's judicial process.

Kennedy spent long periods in Germany and lived with individuals in the "black block" anarchist movement during his time in the country. At the same time, he entered 22 different countries across Europe using a fake passport, including Spain, Italy and Iceland – where he helped found the activist movement.

The revelations about Kennedy's role in Germany came despite the government maintaining its refusal to answer a series of parliamentary questions from opposition politicians.

The Bundestag said "operational reasons" prevented them answering any questions about the country's co-operation with undercover police officers from other countries, and Kennedy in particular.

But Ziercke admitted Kennedy had been hired by police in three German states: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , where the G8 meeting was taking place, Baden-Württemberg and Berlin.

The agent was working on a contract brokered directly by the German parliament, Der Speigel claims. He was, the newspaper adds, considered to be a "trusted agent" and safe pair of hands by the authorities.

Kennedy, who has already been revealed as having conducted numerous sexual relationships with female activists across Europe, is also revealed to have conducted a long-term, long-distance relationship with a woman living in Berlin.

Such behaviour, said Ziercke, directly contravenes German laws, which forbid undercover agents conducting "tactical love relationships" with those under surveillance. Ziercke went on to acknowledge that Kennedy's behaviour revealed there were obviously "control-deficits" when it comes to foreign undercover officers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -bundestag
 
The debate continues in Ireland. One guy who has a grudge against Indymedia posts outrageous allegations about us. EG:

British agent, Mark Kennedy was not the only agent to penetrate the media in Ireland, in fact fresh evidence has come to light that several of his colleagues was involved in threesomes and orgies with male and female members of the Indymedia Ireland collective. According to a leading Irish activist the community has always known there were British undercover agents embedded in all of the Irish media, which has caused a considerable amount of division in Ireland

Not all Indy editors find it funny so his contributions get hidden.
 
Gateway 303: Police Disinformation on UK Indymedia

Sheffield Indymedia | 22.01.2011 22:35 | History | Indymedia | Repression | Sheffield

In the wake of the outing of 4 undercover police infiltrators into the UK activist scene, SchNews, have broken a story about police posts to Indymedia. For over two years suspected police articles and comments have been tracked by filters that are triggered by matching IP addresses, the first comment tracked in this manner dates from August 2008 and the last from January 2011. The full lists of gateway 202 and 303 posts has now been published so activists can do their own analysis on the police posts. A feature article about the abuse has also been published by Birmingham Indymedia, this feature article, first started in in December 2009, has been the subject of a huge amount of internal discussion within UK Indymedia and has been one of the reasons behind the decision to fork the project. Sheffield Indymedia supports the use of anti-abuse features to track and remove disinformation from the site and long argued for the feature article exposing the state abuse to be published.

Articles: Full list of Gateway 303 and 202 posts to IMC UK | Advocating Domestic Extremism - Cops on Indymedia - An Exposé | INTER-NETCU: Government Agency Caught Infiltrating Activist Media Outlet | State infiltration and attempted disruption of activist websites | UK Police Agent Provocateurs Exposed | Nottingham Indymedia statement on recent events | IMC London Statement on the recent Schnews Article | Bristol Indymedia's position on IP logging

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/01/472575.html
 
Sixth police spy in protest movement unmasked

Mark Kennedy, the first infiltrator to be exposed, says he may sue Scotland Yard for causing post-traumatic stress disorder

Simon Hattenstone Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 26 March 2011

Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, says undercover officers have been ostracised. Photograph: Philipp Ebeling for the Guardian

A sixth police officer has been unmasked as an undercover spy in the protest movement as it emerged that Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years posing as an environmental activist, is considering suing Scotland Yard.

In an interview with the Guardian Weekend magazine, Kennedy, who went "rogue" and offered to help environmental campaigners accused of planning to break into a power station, says he has suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder and has been suicidal. His lawyers have been instructed to consider legal action against the police.

The latest officer was reported to have been embedded in an anti-capitalist group for four years under the fake name of Simon Wellings. Newsnight on BBC2 reported that his true identity was discovered through a police blunder.

Wellings inadvertently phoned a campaigner with the Globalise Resistance anti-capitalist group on his mobile phone while discussing photographs of demonstrators with another officer at a police station.

The call was recorded on the campaigner's answerphone and Wellings is heard being pressed to identify protesters at demonstrations, according to Newsnight. He is recorded saying: "She's Hanna's girlfriend – very overt lesbian – last time I saw her, hair about that long, it was blonde, week before it was black."

The infiltration of police spies became controversial after the identification of Kennedy and four others who had posed as members of a variety of political groups including environmental, anti-racist and anti-globalisation campaigns.

The infiltration is the subject of four official investigations after police chiefs and ministers admitted the undercover operations had gone "badly wrong".

Kennedy believes that other undercover officers have been similarly ostracised. "The way the police handled the whole extraction .. is absolutely thoughtless from a psychological point of view and from a safety point of view."

He argues that the damage caused by such undercover work is too great, and that the police should rely more on electronic rather than human intelligence.

Wellings pretended to be an activist with the group between 2001 and 2005. He always seemed to have enough money to go to many demonstrations in London, New York, Paris, Seville and other cities.

Guy Taylor, a member, told Newsnight: "He didn't have much of a backstory. We never met any of his friends or his family." He volunteered to be the group's photographer and took "plenty of photographs".

Wellings vanished after being rumbled by the other activists.

The accidental phone call also highlights the role of police units which take photographs of protesters to be stored in secret databases such as Scotland Yard's CO11 public order branch.

The other police officer is heard on the tape pressing Wellings to put names to the photographs, according to Newsnight. "Thing is we've got the CO11s. They're like – who are these people ? Do you know who they are ?"

Last night the Metropolitan police said:"The use of undercover officers is a valuable tactic in the fight against crime and disorder to keep people and communities safe.

"Their use is highly regulated and governed in law through the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and must be necessary, proportionate and lawful.

"The deployment of undercover officers is also overseen by the Surveillance Commissioner who must be satisfied by their use."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... y-unmasked
 
Donaldson family say handler key to killing
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 69673.html
GERRY MORIARTY and CONOR LALLY

Thu, Apr 14, 2011

THE FAMILY of Denis Donaldson have released a police document which they say “precipitated” the circumstances that led to his exposure as a British agent and ultimately resulted in his murder.

They have indicated that his handler, called “Lenny”, could hold the key to solving his murder.

As Garda detectives continued to question two men in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, last night about Donaldson’s murder five years ago, his family have demanded his police special branch handler and his associates must be properly investigated.

Donaldson was murdered in Co Donegal in April 2006. The Real IRA said it killed him.

One security source described as “significant” the arrest of two men, aged 69 and 31, on Tuesday.

The man in his 30s is being questioned about allegedly handling the gun used to kill Donaldson while the other was arrested on suspicion of withholding information.

The younger, more significant, suspect is regarded as a long-time member of the Real IRA and senior Garda sources say members of that organisation are now the only suspects in the murder.

The younger man has been questioned before about alleged Real IRA membership. He has been close to men from Dublin regarded as members of the same organisation and who have convictions for armed robbery.

Meanwhile, Donaldson’s family have complained that five years after his murder little progress appears to have been made in the Garda investigation. They also said that the intelligence agencies, particularly PSNI special branch, have serious questions to answer about his exposure as a British agent and subsequent murder.

Through Belfast solicitors Madden Finucane they released a copy of a “police message” allegedly given to Donaldson in December 2005. The message states: “Members of the media believe that Dennis (sic) Donaldson is an informant.”

“We are today releasing the document that precipitated the circumstances of Denis’s exposure and ultimate murder,” the family said. “The chain of events flowing from this document culminated in Denis’s murder. The document was issued by one of the agencies which handled Denis as an informer.”

The family said after receiving the document from the police Donaldson “spoke privately with Sinn Féin over several days and admitted his role as an agent”.

They added: “An unprompted telephone call to Denis from his former handler, so-called Lenny, happened five days later on the afternoon of Thursday 15 December, 2005. This call caused Denis to secretly flee from Belfast with immediate effect. After publicly admitting his role as an agent in Dublin the next day, Denis then went back into hiding until three months later, when he was again publicly exposed and soon afterwards murdered.”

The family said that this information, including the document, ought to have been obtained by investigating gardaí from the PSNI. “Lenny is intimately informed about the events surrounding Denis’s murder. ‘Lenny’ holds answers to many questions.”
 
DPP asks power station protesters to appeal against trespass convictions

Keir Starmer says Ratcliffe-on-Soar demonstrators must appeal in the light of involvement of undercover officer Mark Kennedy
Sam Jones
guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 April 2011 12.50 BST

The 20 protesters convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass after a demonstration at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station have been invited to appeal against their convictions by the director of public prosecutions.

Keir Starmer QC ordered a review of the convictions three months ago after revelations in the Guardian about the role played by PC Mark Kennedy, who was allegedly at the centre of a £250,000-a-year undercover operation within the climate change movement.

Using the name Mark Stone, the former Metropolitan police officer spent seven years infiltrating environmental groups across Europe.

The 20 protesters were among more than 100 people arrested when police raided the Iona school in Sneinton, Nottingham, on the morning of Easter Monday, 13 April 2009.

Although they were convicted and given a mixture of community orders and conditional discharges, the cases against six of their fellow demonstrators collapsed because Kennedy offered to give evidence on their behalf. The trial led to claims that police had withheld significant, secretly recorded tapes from the defence and the court.

Starmer said inviting the demonstrators' legal representatives to appeal was "the only proper course of action".

In a statement, he said: "I instructed Clare Montgomery QC to review the safety of the convictions of the individuals convicted at Nottingham crown court on 14 December 2010 in light of non-disclosure of material relating to the activities of an undercover police officer.

"Ms Montgomery has now completed her review and, having carefully considered her conclusions, I believe that the safety of the convictions should be considered by the court of appeal as soon as possible."

The DPP said that as the prosecution had been unable to lodge an appeal to the court of appeal, he had invited the defence to lodge one – "and to include the issue of non-disclosure of material relating to the activities of an undercover police officer in any grounds of appeal".

He added: "I have also indicated that the CPS will assist in any steps necessary to expedite the appeal.

"The safety of the convictions is a matter that can only be dealt with by the court of appeal.

"I am satisfied that, despite the ongoing reviews into what happened in this case, this is the only proper course of action. It would be wrong if, having reached this conclusion, I waited until the reviews were completed before contacting the defence about a possible appeal.

"As reviews into the handling of this case have yet to report, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on any issues involving the undercover officer."

In February this year, the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said undercover policing operations should have to be authorised in advance by a judge.

Sir Hugh Orde, the Acpo president, said the change was needed to restore public confidence amid concerns about the role played by Kennedy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/18/police-protest
 
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