Uk Rocked By Moscow Charge Of Espionage
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday January 24, 2006
LONDON: James Bond had exploding briefcases and a homing device in a Faberge egg. Now the British secret service has allegedly found a new way to spy on the Russians, via a fake rock.
Sixteen years after the end of the Cold War, Russian state television on Sunday broadcast video footage of what it said were British diplomats spying in Moscow.The program interviewed people identified as Russian intelligence officers who said British agents had planted a transmitter in an imitation rock on a Moscow street.They said British embassy officials and a Russian recruited by the British secret service had then walked past the "rock", downloading data from its transmitter onto palm-top computers.Hidden camera footage appears to show individuals walking up to the rock, while a man is seen lugging it away. The program said the Russian was later arrested.A spokesman for Russia's internal security service, the FSB, said yesterday: "I can confirm that everything that was shown was true and based on our information. The diplomats were shown to be involved in activities that were incompatible with their diplomatic status," - diplomatic jargon for spying. Britain denied improper conduct and said it was "concerned and surprised" at the claims.The program also alleged that one of the embassy officials involved had authorised regular payments to Russian non-governmental organisations. The Foreign Office said Britain openly made payments to Russian human rights organisations but denied any impropriety.The defence editor of The Times, Michael Evans, told the BBC that the rock "must have been aiming at some particularly sensitive and interesting building which contains intelligence".
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald