British intelligence agents spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war, a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet said yesterday.
Clare Short, who resigned as international development secretary following the campaign to topple former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, said she had read transcripts of Annan's conversations.
"The UK in this time was also getting, spying on Kofi Annan's office and getting reports from him about what was going on," she said.
Blair's office said it would not comment on intelligence matters, adding that British agents always acted within the law.
"We never comment on intelligence matters," said a spokesman for Blair, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Our intelligence and security agencies act in accordance with national and international law at all times."
When asked to clarify her comments, Short repeated her allegation.
"These things are done. And in the case of Kofi's office, it's been done for some time," she said.
Asked whether Britain was involved, she said: "Well I know, I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. In fact I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking `Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.'"
Asked explicitly whether British spies had been instructed to carry out operations within the UN on people such as Kofi Annan, she said: "Yes, absolutely."
Short's comments came as she was interviewed about the decision made Wednesday to drop legal proceedings against a former intelligence employee who leaked a confidential memo raising concerns about spying in the UN.
Katharine Gun, 29, a former Mandarin translator with Britain's Government Communications Headquarters listening station, allegedly leaked a memo from US intelligence officers asking their British counterparts to spy on members of the UN Security Council before the Iraq war.
The charge against Gun was dropped after prosecutors said they would offer no evidence against her.
But opposition politicians have questioned whether the decision was politically motivated, and whether the government intervened to stop the case, fearing disclosure of further embarrassing details about the case for war.
The government has in recent months been criticized for its presentation of intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
"My own suspicion is that the attorney general has stopped this prosecution because part of her [Gun's] defense was to question the legality and that would have brought his advice into the public domain again and there was something fishy about the way in which he said war was legal," Short said.
The memo, leaked to The Observer, asked the British listening agency for help bugging delegates' home and office telephones and e-mail. At the time, the US was seeking to win Security Council backing for war in Iraq.
The Observer quoted the memo, dated Jan. 31. 2003, as asking British and US intelligence staff to step up surveillance operations "particularly directed at ... UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)."
Gun's lawyers speculated the case was dropped because they had demanded the government disclose advice it received from Attorney General Lord Goldsmith on the legality of going to war. Ministers have repeatedly refused to make the advice public.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
RSS