Ik schrijf deze tekst omdat mij iets is overkomen wat iedereen die politiek actief is of was, kan overkomen: benaderd worden door de AIVD. De laatste maanden waren een vriendin en een kennis benaderd, toch was de gedachte niet bij me opgekomen dat het mij zou gebeuren. Dus toen het zover was, stond ik mooi met mijn mond vol tanden. Bovendien merkte ik hoe slim en manipulatief ze zijn. Ik vond het helemaal niet zo makkelijk om hiermee om te gaan. Ik heb dit dus zo eerlijk mogelijk geschreven, om je een idee te geven hoe het kan lopen en hoe het voelt als de AIVD het eens bij jou komt proberen.

Nog heel even voor ik begin: de AIVD probeert activisme te criminaliseren, en zoekt altijd informanten, mensen van binnenuit die hen meer kunnen vertellen over een beweging, een actiegroep of zelfs een bepaald persoon. lees meer

Nederland op zijn smalst. Een kleine groep jongeren vertrekt naar Syrië om te strijden tegen het regime van president Bashar al-Assad. Vervolgens buitelen ambtenaren van veiligheidsdiensten, politici en wetenschappers over elkaar heen met grote woorden als extremisten, radicalen, terroristen, getraumatiseerde kinderen (lees kindsoldaten) en ga zo maar door.

De op- en aanmerkingen hebben niets met de actuele situatie in Syrië te maken, maar met de hypothetische Nederlandse situatie in de toekomst. Want de veiligheidselite is volstrekt niet geïnteresseerd in het wel en wee van de burgerbevolking in Syrië. Nee, de getraumatiseerde jongeren zouden zomaar voor een tweede Alphen aan de Rijn kunnen zorgen, waar een jongen twee jaar geleden in een winkelcentrum een bloedbad aanrichtte door om zich heen te schieten.
lees meer

Boeken over inlichtingendiensten van ‘experts’ hebben vaak veel weg van spannende jeugdromans over groepen jongeren die de bossen intrekken om vlag verovering te spelen. Gordon Thomas is een auteur die al jaren boeken over inlichtingendiensten schrijft. Zijn studies staan hoog aangeschreven en bereiken een groot publiek. Hij is dan ook in staat om allerlei bekende en minder bekende spionnen te spreken te krijgen, zoals voormalig CIA-chef Casey, voormalig hoofd van de Mossad Meir Amit en CIA-baas Colby.
lees meer

Het vreemdelingenbeleid is de afgelopen jaren in rap tempo aangescherpt. De uitsluiting van mensen met en zonder verblijfsvergunning voert de boventoon. Nieuwkomers worden geweerd, migranten die hier al zijn worden in hun rechtspositie aangetast.

De verslechtering van het klimaat voor migranten (toenemend racisme en intolerantie) is niet zozeer gelegen in de opkomst van extreem-rechts als wel in uitspraken van beleidmakers en politici. Er zijn meer mensen slachtoffer van een aan racisme grenzend vreemdelingenbeleid dan van de politieke invloed van extreem-rechts. De laatste jaren laten een waar scala aan maatregelen zien. De identificatieplicht, strengere normen voor gezinshereniging, uitholling van het asielrecht, intensivering van het verwijderingsbeleid en strenger binnenlands vreemdelingentoezicht, vormen samen met de aanpak van illegalen de smalle marges waarbinnen de overheid migranten toelaat. Wetten zoals de nu voorgestelde Koppelingswet moeten illegaal verblijf ‘ontmoedigen’ en ook legaal verblijvenden duidelijk maken dat ze hier niet welkom zijn.
Administratieve Apartheid als pdf

Exclusive: McDonald’s sued green activists in long-running David v Goliath legal battle, but police role only now exposed

Bob Lambert posed as a radical activist named Bob Robinson.

An undercover police officer posing for years as an environmental activist co-wrote a libellous leaflet that was highly critical of McDonald’s, and which led to the longest civil trial in English history, costing the fast-food chain millions of pounds in fees.

The true identity of one of the authors of the “McLibel leaflet” is Bob Lambert, a police officer who used the alias Bob Robinson in his five years infiltrating the London Greenpeace group, is revealed in a new book about undercover policing of protest, published next week.

McDonald’s famously sued green campaigners over the roughly typed leaflet, in a landmark three-year high court case, that was widely believed to have been a public relations disaster for the corporation. Ultimately the company won a libel battle in which it spent millions on lawyers.

Lambert was deployed by the special demonstration squad (SDS) – a top-secret Metropolitan police unit that targeted political activists between 1968 until 2008, when it was disbanded. He co-wrote the defamatory six-page leaflet in 1986 – and his role in its production has been the subject of an internal Scotland Yard investigation for several months.

At no stage during the civil legal proceedings brought by McDonald’s in the 1990s was it disclosed that a police infiltrator helped author the leaflet.
The McLibel two: Helen Steel and David Morris, outside a branch of McDonald’s in London in 2005 after winning their case in the European court of human rights. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

A spokesman for the Met said the force “recognises the seriousness of the allegations of inappropriate behaviour and practices involving past undercover deployments”. He added that a number of allegations surrounding the undercover officers were currently being investigated by a team overseen by the chief constable of Derbyshire police, Mick Creedon.

And in remarks that come closest to acknowledging the scale of the scandal surrounding police spies, the spokesman said: “At some point it will fall upon this generation of police leaders to account for the activities of our predecessors, but for the moment we must focus on getting to the truth.”

Lambert declined to comment about his role in the production of the McLibel leaflet. However, he previously offered a general apology for deceiving “law abiding members of London Greenpeace”, which he said was a peaceful campaign group.

Lambert, who rose through the ranks to become a spymaster in the SDS, is also under investigation for sexual relationships he had with four women while undercover, one of whom he fathered a child with before vanishing from their lives. The woman and her son only discovered that Lambert was a police spy last year.

The internal police inquiry is also investigating claims raised in parliament that Lambert ignited an incendiary device at a branch of Debenhams when infiltrating animal rights campaigners. The incident occurred in 1987 and the explosion inflicted £300,000 worth of damage to the branch in Harrow, north London. Lambert has previously strongly denied he planted the incendiary device in the Debenhams store.
While McDonald’s won the initial legal battle, at great expense, it was seen as a PR disaster. Photograph: Image Broker/Rex Features

Lambert’s role in helping compose the McLibel leaflet is revealed in ‘Undercover: The True Story of Britain’s Secret Police’, which is published next week. An extract from the book will be published in the Guardian Weekend magazine. A joint Guardian/Channel 4 investigation into undercover policing will be broadcast on Dispatches on Monday evening.

Lambert was one of two SDS officers who infiltrated London Greenpeace; the second, John Dines, had a two-year relationship with Helen Steel, who later became the co-defendant in the McLibel case. The book reveals how Steel became the focus of police surveillance operations. She had a sexual relationship with Dines, before he also disappeared without a trace.

Dines gained access to the confidential legal advice given to Steel and her co-defendant that was written by Keir Starmer, then a barrister known for championing radical causes. The lawyer was advising the activists on how to defend themselves against McDonald’s. He is now the director of public prosecutions in England and Wales.

Lambert was lauded by colleagues in the covert unit for his skilful infiltration of animal rights campaigners and environmentalists in the 1980s. He succeeded in transforming himself from a special branch detective into a long-haired radical activist who worked as a cash-in-hand gardener. He became a prominent member of London Greenpeace, around the time it began campaigning against McDonald’s in 1985. The leaflet he helped write made wide-ranging criticisms of the company, accusing it of destroying the environment, exploiting workers and selling junk food.

Four sources who were either close to Lambert at the time, or involved in the production of the leaflet, have confirmed his role in composing the libellous text. Lambert confided in one of his girlfriends from the era, although he appeared keen to keep his participation hidden. “He did not want people to know he had co-written it,” Belinda Harvey said.

Paul Gravett, a London Greenpeace campaigner, said the spy was one of a small group of around five activists who drew up the leaflet over several months. Another close friend from the time recalls Lambert was really proud of the leaflet. “It was like his baby, he carried it around with him,” the friend said.

When Lambert’s undercover deployment ended in 1989, he vanished, claiming that he had to flee abroad because he was being pursued by special branch. None of his friends or girlfriends suspected that special branch was his employer.

It was only later that the leaflet Lambert helped to produce became the centre of the huge trial. Even though the activists could only afford to distribute a few hundred copies of the leaflet, McDonald’s decided to throw all of its legal might at the case, suing two London Greenpeace activists for libel.

Two campaigners – Steel, who was then a part-time bartender, and an unemployed postal worker, Dave Morris – unexpectedly stood their ground and refused to apologise.
Steel and Morris outside the high court at the start of the first proceedings in the McLibel trial in 1990. Photograph: Photofusion/UIG/ Getty Images

Over 313 days in the high court, the pair defended themselves, with pro bono assistance from Starmer, as they could not afford to hire any solicitors or barristers. In contrast, McDonald’s hired some of the best legal minds at an estimated cost of £10m. During the trial, legal argument largely ignored the question of who wrote the McLibel leaflet, focusing instead on its distribution to members of the public.

In 1997, a high court judge ruled that much of the leaflet was libellous and ordered the two activists to pay McDonald’s £60,000 in damages. This sum was reduced on appeal to £40,000 – but McDonald’s never enforced payment.

It was a hollow victory for the company; the long-running trial had exposed damaging stories about its business and the quality of the food it was selling to millions of customers around the world. The legal action, taking advantage of Britain’s much-criticised libel laws, was seen as a heavy handed and intimidating way of crushing criticism. However, the role of undercover police in the story remained, until now, largely unknown.

On Friday, Morris said the campaign against the burger chain was successful “despite the odds overwhelmingly stacked against us in the legal system and up against McDonald’s massive and relentless advertising and propaganda machine.

“We now know that other shadowy forces were also trying to undermine our efforts in the most disgusting, but ultimately futile ways. All over the world police and secret agents infiltrate opposition movements in order to protect the rich and powerful but as we have seen in so many countries recently people power and the pursuit of truth and justice is unstoppable, even faced with the most repressive and unacceptable Stasi-like tactics.”

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The Guardian, Friday 21 June 2013 14.54 BST

Find this story at 21 June 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Former undercover officer Peter Francis says department helped spies by providing false passports in dead children’s names

Peter Francis, the former undercover police officer turned whistleblower. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

A second police spy has said the Home Office was aware that undercover police officers stole the identities of dead children to infiltrate political groups.

Peter Francis, a former undercover officer turned whistleblower, said the Home Office helped the spies by providing false passports in the names of the dead children.

His claim comes as Britain’s most senior police officer, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, is due to publish a report on Tuesday about the secret use of dead children’s identities.

It will be released on the same day that MPs on the home affairs select committee are due to question Mick Creedon, the chief constable who is leading the police investigation into the deployment of undercover officers in protest groups over a 40-year period.

Creedon has already conceded that the theft of the children’s identities was “common practice” within a covert special branch unit which operated between 1968 and 2008.

Earlier this month, Bob Lambert, one of the leading spies of the unit, claimed that the technique was “well known at the highest levels of the Home Office”.

In a practice criticised by MPs as “ghoulish” and “heartless”, undercover spies in the unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), searched through birth and death certificates to find children who had died at an early age. They then assumed the identity of the child and developed a persona based on that identity when they went undercover for five years or longer.

The spies were issued with fake documents such as passports, driving licences and national insurance numbers in the child’s name to further bolster their credibility.

Francis, who infiltrated anti-racist groups from 1993 to 1997, discussed the technique with the head of the SDS because he had reservations about stealing the identity of a four-year-old boy who had died. He did not disclose the name of the SDS head.

“We bounced it around – what were his thoughts, what were my thoughts. It was evident that it was standard practice,” Francis said.

The head of the SDS told him the Home Office knew the undercover spies “were using the children”, he said, as it gave fake passports to the spies knowing that they were in the names of the dead children.

The SDS was directly funded by the government, which received an annual report on its work for much of its existence.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We expect the highest standards of professionalism in all aspects of policing. That is why Chief Constable Mick Creedon is leading an IPCC-supervised investigation which will ensure any criminality or misconduct is properly dealt with.”

Francis was an important source for the Guardian when the newspaper detailed the technique, dubbed the “jackal run” after Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal, in February.

Speaking then as Pete Black, one of his undercover identities, Francis said he felt he was “stomping on the grave” of the boy whose identity he stole. “A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this,” he said at the time.

Last month, he said his superiors had asked him to find “dirt” that could be used to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in 1993.

Lambert went undercover for four years in the 1980s to infiltrate environmental and animal rights groups. He adopted the persona of Bob Robinson, a seven-year-old boy who had died of a congenital heart defect.

Interviewed by Channel Four News this month, Lambert said that at the time he did not “really give pause for thought on the ethical considerations. It was, that’s what was done. Let’s be under no illusions about the extent to which that was an accepted practice that was well known at the highest levels of the Home Office.” Lambert fathered a child with a campaigner while he was undercover.

On Tuesday, Creedon is expected to be questioned by the select committee about whether the police will apologise to the parents whose children’s identities were taken. Creedon has said he has taken legal advice on whether the spies who stole the children’s identities could be put on trial.

Rob Evans
The Guardian, Monday 15 July 2013 18.35 BST

Find this story at 15 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Executive Summary

History
The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was an undercover unit formed by the
Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch. It operated between 1968 and 2008, during
which time it infiltrated and reported on groups concerned in violent protest.

Operation Herne
Operation Herne (formerly Soisson) was formed in October 2011 in response to
allegations made by the Guardian newspaper about alleged misconduct and criminality
engaged in by members of the SDS. Similar matters had been previously aired as early
as 2002 in a BBC documentary.

Operation Riverwood
On 4th February 2013 the Metropolitan Police received a public complaint from the
family of Rod Richardson, a young boy who had died in the 1970s. It is alleged that an
undercover officer working for the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) had
used this child’s details as his covert identity. This matter was referred to the IPCC. The
matter was returned to the force and is currently subject of a ‘local investigation’.

National Public Order Intelligence Unit
The NPOIU was formed within the MPS in 1999 to gather and coordinate intelligence.
In 2006 the governance responsibility for NPOIU was moved to the Association of
Chief Police Officers, after a decision was taken that the forces where the majority of
activity was taking place should be responsible for authorising future deployments. In
January 2011 the NPOIU was subsumed within other units under the National Domestic
Extremism Units within the MPS.
In January 1995 large numbers of police from London, Kent and Hampshire were
drafted to the West Sussex harbour of Shoreham in response to protests surrounding
the export of live animals to Europe. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and another
animal extremist group named ‘Justice Department’ had a strong base in the
community there. This led to a number of protests and in October 1995 there was a
further demonstration in Brightlingsea, Essex. This resulted in a record number of police
being deployed to prevent widespread public disorder. Ad-hoc protest groups emerged
and the need for first hand high quality intelligence was evident. This led to undercover
operatives being required to infiltrate these animal extremist organisations.

The purpose of the NPOIU was:
1 To provide the police service with the ability to develop a national threat assessment
and profile for domestic extremism.
2 Support the police service to reduce crime and disorder from domestic extremism.
3 Support a proportionate police response to protest activity.
4 Help the police service manage concerns of communities and businesses to
minimise conflict and disorder.

Control of the NPOIU moved to ACPO in 2006 under the direction of the ACPO National
Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism, Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell. He
was replaced by Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway in 2010. The NPOIU
worked with the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (NETCU) and the
National Domestic Extremism Team (NDET).
The NPOIU now exists as part of the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU) under
the Metropolitan Police Service Specialist Operations and is run by Detective Chief
Superintendent Chris Greaney.

Deceased identities
On 5th February 2013 the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) questioned Deputy
Assistant Commissioner Gallan about the alleged practice that SDS officers had used
the details of dead children, as part of a cover identity for undercover police officers. At
the time DAC Gallan was based in the MPS Directorate of Professional Standards and
was in overall command of Operation Herne. Her appearance before the HASC led to
considerable media coverage and some negative commentary. As a result of the media
coverage, Operation Herne has now received enquiries from fourteen (14) families
regarding seventeen (17) children.

Operation Herne review
One hundred and forty-seven (147) named individuals are believed to have served as
police officers within the SDS at all ranks from Chief Superintendent down. This covers
the forty (40) years that the unit was in existence and not all the police officers were
deployed in undercover roles.
At this stage one hundred and six (106) covert identities have been identified as having
been used by the SDS between 1968 and 2008.
Forty-two (42) of these identities are either confirmed or highly likely to have used the
details of a deceased child.
Forty-five (45) of these identities have been established as fictitious. Work continues to
identify the provenance of the remaining identities.

Neither Confirm Nor Deny (NCND)
The policy of ‘neither confirming nor denying’ the use of or identity of an undercover
police officer is a long established one used by UK policing. It is essential so as to
provide for the necessary operational security and to ensure undercover officers are
clear that their identity will never be disclosed by the organisation that asked them to
carry out the covert activity. The duty of care owed to such officers is an absolute one
and applies during their deployments, throughout their service and continues when they
are retired.
Please note that this is an interim report specifically about the use of the identities of
deceased children and infants. It does not seek to cover either all of the activities of
the SDS nor has it been able to completely provide all the answers regarding the use
of covert identities. The report clearly explains the use of the tactic and is submitted
early given the need to deal with the public concerns and is provided in agreement with
the Home Office who sought to have this matter concluded before the parliamentary
summer recess.

Find this report at July 2013

The identities of 42 dead children whose names were assumed by undercover police officers will not be revealed to their relatives, according to a report.

The Metropolitan Police offered a general apology for the “shock and offence” the practice had caused.

But Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said revealing the identities used would endanger the officers concerned.

The senior officer who wrote the report on the 1980s practice told MPs it would not be used as a tactic today.

The report’s author, Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon, was asked to investigate in 2011 after the Guardian newspaper published allegations about the conduct of undercover officers.

He told the Home Affairs Select Committee ministers did not authorise the practice but refused to condemn the officers’ actions.

“It’s irrelevant what I think,” he said. “It is not a tactic we would use these days.

“It would feel very strange for me to criticise the actions of people 20, 30, 40-years-ago without knowing what they faced at the time.”

Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that officers had stolen the identities of about 80 children who died at an early age.
Anonymity ‘vital’

Mr Creedon’s report concluded that at least 42 children’s identities had, either definitely or very probably, been used by the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and its National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU).

The earliest known use of the tactic occurred between 1976 and 1981 and it was phased out from 1994 in the SDS, the report added.

But it also found that the practice might have been used by the NPOIU as recently as 2003, and that it was “highly possible” that its use was more widespread than currently understood.

The report said: “A range of officers at different ranks and roles have been interviewed by the investigation team. The information provided corroborates totally the belief that, for the majority of the existence of the SDS, the use of deceased children’s identities was accepted as standard practice.”

Sir Bernard said 14 families had contacted the Met to ask whether the identities of their relatives had been used by undercover officers.

The Met had apologised to them, and to another family that had heard separately that it might be affected by the revelations, he said.

“Undercover officers are brave men and women” and maintaining their anonymity is “vital”, Sir Bernard said.

He explained: “There are criminals behind bars and at large today who would have no qualms in doing serious harm if they discovered a former close confidant had been working for the police.

“That’s why undercover officers spent so much time building up their ‘legend’ or false identity, and why that identity must be protected forever.”
‘Rot’

Sir Bernard added: “I believe the public do understand the necessity for police and others to do things like this to protect against a much greater harm. It was never intended or foreseen that any of the identities used would become public, or that any family would suffer hurt as a result.

“At the time this method of creating identities was in use, officers felt this was the safest option.”

But Jules Carey, a solicitor acting for Barbara Shaw, who is concerned that her son Rod Richardson’s identity was used, said: “What we heard this morning was not an apology but a PR exercise.

“The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this.

“They deserve an explanation, a personal apology and, if appropriate, a warning of the potential risk they face, in the exceptional circumstances, that their dead child’s identity was used to infiltrate serious criminal organisations.

“The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units which had officers lie on oath, conduct smear campaigns and use sexual relationships as an evidence-gathering tool.”

He added: “Ms Shaw has told me that she feels her complaint has been ‘swept under the carpet” and she has instructed me to appeal this outcome.”

UK
16 July 2013 Last updated at 16:29 GMT

Find this story at 16 July 2013

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe releases report on surveillance used since 1970s but refuses to inform any affected families

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said families of dead children whose identities were used would not be approached, as that could put undercover officers in danger. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Britain’s most senior police officer has offered a general apology for the “morally repugnant” theft of dead children’s identities by undercover spies who infiltrated political groups.

But Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has refused to tell any families if the identities of their children were stolen by the undercover officers. He said he wanted to protect the spies from being exposed.

In a report published on Tuesday, he admitted that at least 42 police spies stole the identity of children who had died before they were 14 years old.

But the total number of such spies could be far higher as he conceded that the technique could have been more widespread than initially believed.

Hogan-Howe said he “should apologise for the shock and offence the use of this tactic has caused” among the public, after the Guardian revealed details of the policing method in February.

The commissioner argued that the families could not be informed as it could lead to the exposure of the undercover officers sent to infiltrate the political groups.

“It was never intended or foreseen that any of the identities used would become public, or that any family would suffer hurt as a result. At the time this method of creating identities was in use, officers felt this was the safest option” he added.

His decision drew immediate criticism. Jenny Jones, a Green party member of the London Assembly, said: “This falls short of coming clean to all the families whose children’s identities were harvested. In giving a blanket apology they have avoided the difficult task of apologising to real people.”

The Met has sent letters of apology to 15 families whose children died young, but has neither confirmed nor denied whether identities were stolen.

One case concerned a suspected spy, deployed between 1999 and 2003, who allegedly stole the identity of Rod Richardson, who died two days after being born in 1973.

The family’s lawyer, Jules Carey, said that Barbara Shaw, the mother of the dead boy, was taking legal action as she felt her complaint had been “swept under the carpet”.

Carey said Hogan-Howe’s apology was a PR exercise. He added: “The families of the dead children whose identities have been stolen by the undercover officers deserve better than this. They deserve an explanation, a personal apology. The harvesting of dead children’s identities was only one manifestation of the rot at the heart of these undercover units.”

Peter Francis, one of the spies who originally blew the whistle on the tactic, said the police should offer a personal apology to the families in the cases of spies whose identity had already been exposed. He agreed that the spies whose work remained secret should be protected.

The report, on Tuesday, was produced by Mick Creedon, the Derbyshire chief constable who is conducting an investigation into the activities of the undercover spies over 40 years.

Creedon revealed that the technique was used extensively as far back as 1976 and was authorised by senior police. He reported that the tactic became “an established practice that new officers were taught” within a covert special branch unit known as the special demonstration squad (SDS), which spied on political groups.

“This was not done by the officers in any underhand or salacious manner – it was what they were told to do,” Creedon added.

One senior spy is quoted as saying the undercover officers “spent hours and hours … leafing through death registers in search of a name [they] could call his own”.

“The genuine identities of the deceased children were blended with the officer’s own biographical details,” Creedon said.

The spies were issued with fake documents, such as passports and driving licences, to make their alter egos appear genuine in case suspicious activists started to investigate them.

The last time the tactic was used, according to Creedon, was 2003, by a spy working for a second covert unit – the national public order intelligence unit (NPOIU) – which infiltrated political campaigns.

Creedon said it was highly possible that the tactic was used by undercover officers in other units which infiltrated serious criminal gangs. “It would be a mistake to assume that the use of identities of dead children was solely within the SDS and the NPOIU.”

He said that the use of the technique “however morally repugnant, should not detract from the [spies’] bravery”.

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 July 2013 12.22 BST

Find this story at 16 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Bob Lambert admits to adopting the identity of a seven-year-old boy and has conceded to having four affairs while undercover

Bob Lambert was deployed as an animal rights activist named Bob Robinson in the 1980s.

A former police spymaster has claimed the practice of resurrecting the identities of dead children so they could be used by undercover officers was “well known at the highest levels of the Home Office”.

Bob Lambert, who is facing a potential criminal investigation over his work for a secret unit of undercover officers, admitted that when he was deployed as a spy himself, he adopted the identity of a seven-year-old boy who died of a congenital heart defect.

He also admitted to using his false identity in court and co-writing the “McLibel” leaflet that defamed the burger chain McDonald’s, resulting in the longest civil trial in English legal history.

Conceding publicly for the first time that he had four relationships with women while undercover, one of which resulted in him secretly fathering a child, he said: “With hindsight I can only say that I genuinely regret my actions, and I apologise to the women affected in my case.”

Lambert was deployed as an animal rights activist named “Bob Robinson” in the 1980s for a covert Metropolitan Police unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) which deployed undercover officers in political campaign groups. In the 1990s, he was promoted to manage other undercover operatives.

Over the last two years the Guardian has detailed the covert work of Lambert, one of the most controversial spies to have worked for the SDS and its sister squad, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit.

Until now, Lambert has either declined to comment in detail or said the Guardian’s reports amounted to “a misleading combination of truth, distortions, exaggerations and outright lies”.

However, in a Channel 4 News interview broadcast on Friday, Lambert admitted that many of the allegations made against him were true. “My reputation is never going to be redeemed for many people, and I don’t think it should be,” he told the programme. “I think I made serious mistakes that I should regret, and I always will do.”

Lambert said he was arrested “four or five” times while undercover and in 1986 he appeared in a magistrates court charged with a “minor public order offence”. He said he had to appear in court using his alter ego – rather than his real name – in order to “maintain cover”.

He also admitted to co-writing the McLibel leaflet. “I was certainly a contributing author to the McLibel leaflet,” he told the programme. “Well, I think, the one that I remember, the one that I remember making a contribution to, was called What’s Wrong With McDonald’s?”

Asked if that was ever disclosed to the court during the long-running civil trial, he replied: “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

Although he admitted having relationships with women, Lambert denied it was a deliberate tactic in the SDS to use relationships to gain access, saying “probably I became too immersed” in his alter ego. “I’d always been a faithful husband,” he said. “I only ever became an unfaithful husband when I became an undercover police officer.”

Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer representing eight women involved in relationships with Lambert and other undercover police said that there was a systematic pattern in which operatives repeatedly used long-term relationships to build their cover.

Almost all of the undercover officers identified so far – including those known to have worked under Lambert – had sexual relationships while operating covertly.

An SDS spy who has become a whistleblower, Peter Francis, has said that when he was deployed as an anti-racist campaigner, his superiors asked him to find “dirt” that could be used to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in 1993.

His revelation has since triggered further investigations into alleged covert tactics used against the Lawrence family, their supporters and Duwayne Brooks, a friend of Stephen and the main witness to the murder.

On Friday, police chiefs admitted bugging a meeting with Brooks and his lawyer, Jane Deighton. Deighton said that Brooks, who is now a Lib Dem councillor, conveyed his concern in a meeting with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

In a previous Channel 4 News broadcast, Lambert denied the unit was involved in seeking to smear the Lawrence family during his tenure as deputy head of the unit.

He had a supervisory role when other spies, such as Jim Boyling and Mark Jenner, formed long-term relationships with people they were spying on. All are now under investigation.

The deployments of Francis, Lambert, Boyling and Jenner are detailed in a new book: Undercover: The True Story of Britain’s Secret Police.

Lambert has also been accused in parliament of igniting an incendiary device in a branch of Debenhams as part of a fire-bombing campaign by the Animal Liberation Front. Repeating earlier denials, he told Channel 4 News that the claim was “false”.

The home secretary, Theresa May, is coming under mounting pressure to announce an independent public inquiry into the affair. So far she has indicated that two pre-existing inquiries – one run by a barrister, the other an internal Met police review – are capable of investigating the allegations surrounding the Lawrences and Brooks.

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Saturday 6 July 2013

Find this story 6 July 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Bob Lambert had a five-year covert career using the alias Bob Robinson
The married office slept with four women and fathered a child with one
Lambert claims that being undercover led to his bad behaviour

Back in the day: During a covert career in which he infiltrated various groups, Bob Lambert has spoke of his disgust at some of his actions

A former Scotland Yard police officer who fathered a child with one of several targets he had relationships with while working undercover has apologised to the women.

Bob Lambert said he would always regret the ‘serious mistakes’ he made during a covert career which saw him use the identities of dead children, give evidence in court under his false name and co-author a libellous leaflet.

Mr Lambert used the alias Bob Robinson during his five years infiltrating environmentalist groups, when he was with the special demonstration squad (SDS), the Metropolitan Police unit that targeted political activists.

The revelation that the married officer slept with four women – fathering a child with one – sparked outrage.

In an interview with Channel 4 News, he said he accepts his behaviour was morally reprehensible and a gross invasion of privacy.

‘With hindsight, I can only say that I genuinely regret my actions, and I apologise to the women affected,’ he said.

‘I’d always been a faithful husband. I only ever became an unfaithful husband when I became an undercover police officer.’

The ex-officer declined to reveal whether his superiors were aware of the child – insisting he would only discuss that with an investigation into the activities of undercover police activities being led by the chief constable of Derbyshire.

Mr Lambert said he ‘didn’t really give pause for thought on the ethical considerations’ of adopting the identity of a dead child in 1984 as it was standard practice at the time.

‘That’s what was done. Let’s be under no illusions about the extent to which that was an accepted practice that was well known at the highest levels of the Home Office,’ he told the programme.

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Baby snatched from its pram and thrown to the floor outside a hospital by teenager who was on a legal high called Salvia

He confirmed that he had appeared in court as Bob Robinson but could not say whether the judiciary was made aware by the police that he was doing so.

‘On occasions I was arrested as Bob Robinson and to maintain cover I went through the process of arrest, detention, and on occasions, appearing in court,’ he said.
Lambert insists he was unaware of any campaign to smear family and friends of Stephen Lawrence

He denied it amounted to perjury as ‘the position was that I was maintaining cover as Bob Robinson’.
But asked if the court was ‘made aware’, he added: ‘Well, that’s what needs to be established.’

Mr Lambert also confirmed that he helped write a libellous leaflet that attacked fast food giant McDonald’s and triggered the longest civil trial in English history.

McDonald’s famously sued two green campaigners over the leaflet in a landmark three-year high court case.

It was not disclosed during the costly civil legal proceedings brought by McDonalds in the 1990s that an undercover police officer helped write the leaflet.

‘I was certainly a contributing author to the McLibel leaflet. Well, I think, the one that I remember, the one that I remember making a contribution to, was called What’s Wrong With McDonalds?’, he told Channel 4.

Over the line: Bob Lambert in a more recent picture, fathered a child with one of his targets

Asked if that fact was disclosed during the proceedings, he said: ‘I don’t know.’

He repeated his rejection though of claims that he planted an incendiary device in a Debenhams store in Harrow in 1987, calling that a ‘false allegation’.

Mr Lambert, who was an SDS manager for five years, earlier this week insisted he had not been aware of any campaign against the family of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Those claims were made by another veteran of the unit, Peter Francis, who alleges he was told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family – who are calling for a public inquiry to examine the issue.

Home Secretary Theresa May has said they would be looked at by the Derbyshire probe and a separate inquiry led by barrister Mark Ellison QC into alleged corruption in the original Lawrence murder investigation, but has left open the possibility of other action.

‘My reputation is never going to be redeemed for many people, and I don’t think it should be,’ Mr Lambert said.

‘I think I made serious mistakes that I should regret, and I always will do. I think the only real comfort I can take from my police career is that the Muslim Contact Unit was about learning from mistakes.’

Belinda Harvey, one of eight women who are suing the Metropolitan Police over relationships with men who turned out to be undercover officers, rejected his apology.

‘Almost everything he said to me was a lie; why would I possibly believe what he says to me know.’ she told Channel 4.

‘If it hadn’t been for the case we’re bringing against the police, he would never have apologised and I would have lived the rest of my days not finding out the truth.’

Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald of River Glaven said the latest evidence strengthened the case for a judge-led public inquiry.

‘It is as bad as I think we thought it was,’ he said.

‘He seems to have admitted a great deal of the conduct that people feared had been taking place.

‘It now sounds as though not only senior police officers but senior civil servants may have known what was going on.

‘It’s no good having this multitude of inquiries that are going on at the moment, one of them conducted by the police themselves which is pretty hopeless in my view.

‘We need a single public inquiry under a senior judicial figure to examine what happened, what went wrong, who authorised it and most of all to reassure us that its not going on still.’

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 00:37 GMT, 6 July 2013 | UPDATED: 01:06 GMT, 6 July 2013

Find this story at 6 July 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

Investigation into covert policing has found widespread use of the practice.

Senior police leaders are set to make an unprecedented national apology after hundreds of names of dead children were used to create false identities for undercover officers.

An investigation into covert policing has found widespread use of the practice.

Undercover officers told The Times that they were trained to use names of the dead and it had become “standard practice”.

Special branch units used the names while infiltrating criminal gangs, animal rights activists and football hooligan firms, it is claimed.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, will be questioned about the method after it was revealed that officers were told to gather “dirt” on the family of Stephen Lawrence.

Sources say that the practice may have been used in MI5 and MI6 and that several thousand identities of dead infants, children and teenagers may have been assumed by undercover officers.

An apology will be made senior police in the coming days.

Tom Foot
Friday, 5 July 2013

Find this story at 5 July 2013

© independent.co.uk

Police chiefs are expected to formally apologise for using the names of dead children to create fake identities for undercover officers.

It had been thought that only officers in secret police units such as the Met Police’s Special Demonstration Squad, which was closed in 2008, had adopted dead children’s names as a new identity.

But Operation Herne, an ongoing investigation into the conduct of undercover police, has revealed that the practice was more widespread than originally thought and used by forces across the country.

Standard practice: It had been thought that the practice of using dead children’s names as identities for undercover officers was restricted to Scotland Yard’s Special Demonstrations Squad, but the practice is now said to have been more widespread

According to sources, undercover police officers infiltrating criminal networks and violent gangs were given dead people’s identities as ‘standard practice’, reported The Times.

The technique, which was regularly used in the 1960s and 1990s, is thought to have been last used in 2002.

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But it is thought that the technique was not restricted to police forces with other agencies such as HM Revenue & Customs said to have adopted the practice.

The apology could come as early as this month but police are not expected to contact families of the dead people whose names were used through fear that it could put officers who have taken part in undercover operations in the past in danger.

A way in: Dead children’s identities were used by undercover offices to infiltrate violent gangs and demonstration groups

A source told The Times: ‘This wasn’t an anomaly, it wasn’t something that was used in isolation by just one unit.

‘If you are infiltrating a sophisticated crime group they are going to check who you are, so you need a backstop, a cover story that has real depth and won’t fall over at the first hurdle.

Disapproving: Policing minister Damien Green has expressed his disappointment at the use of dead children’s names by police units

‘The way to do that was to build an identity that was based on a real person.’

It was reported earlier this year that around 80 names were used by officers over a 30 year period.

Set up in 2011, Operation Herne, which is expected to cost around £1.66million a year, will examine the conduct of all ranks of officers and even look at the actions of former Home Secretaries.

Both The Home Affairs Committee and Police minister Damian Green have spoken of their ‘disappointment’ that dead children’s names were used in investigations.

Back in may, Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon admitted that the practice had been widespread

A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer who spied on environmental protesters as Mark ‘Flash’ Stone – and had at least one sexual relationship with a female activist.

The revelation comes before Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe appears before MPs to answer questions over a number of controversies including claims last month that the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence were targeted by undercover officers who were assigned to ‘get dirt’ on them.

Quiz: Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will face questions from MPs over a number of controversies

It also emerged that police admitted bugging meetings involving Duwayne Brooks, the friend who was with Stephen the night he was attacked.

The claims affecting Mr Brooks came after former undercover officer Peter Francis alleged that he had been told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family.

Mr Francis, who worked with Scotland Yard’s former Special Demonstration Squad, spoke out about tactics that he said were used by the secretive unit in the 1980s and 1990s.

Investigation: A raft of allegations have been made since former PC Mark Kennedy was unmasked in 2011 as an undercover officer who spied on environmental protesters as Mark ¿Flash¿ Stone ¿ and had at least one sexual relationship with a female activist

By Steve Nolan

PUBLISHED: 11:07 GMT, 6 July 2013 | UPDATED: 11:13 GMT, 6 July 2013

Find this story at 6 July 2013

© Associated Newspapers Ltd

WASHINGTON — Four Central Intelligence Agency officers were embedded with the New York Police Department in the decade after Sept. 11, 2001, including one official who helped conduct surveillance operations in the United States, according to a newly disclosed C.I.A. inspector general’s report.

That officer believed there were “no limitations” on his activities, the report said, because he was on an unpaid leave of absence, and thus exempt from the prohibition against domestic spying by members of the C.I.A.

Another embedded C.I.A. analyst — who was on its payroll — said he was given “unfiltered” police reports that included information unrelated to foreign intelligence, the C.I.A. report said.

The once-classified review, completed by the C.I.A. inspector general in December 2011, found that the four agency analysts — more than had previously been known — were assigned at various times to “provide direct assistance” to the local police. The report also raised a series of concerns about the relationship between the two organizations.

The C.I.A. inspector general, David B. Buckley, found that the collaboration was fraught with “irregular personnel practices,” that it lacked “formal documentation in some important instances,” and that “there was inadequate direction and control” by agency supervisors.

“While negative public perception is to be expected from the revelation of the agency’s close and direct collaboration with any local domestic police department, a perception that the agency has exceeded its authorities diminishes the trust placed in the organization,” Mr. Buckley wrote in a cover memo to David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A. director.

The declassification of the executive summary, in response to a Freedom of Information Act suit, comes at a time of intense interest in domestic spying after leaks by a former contractor for the National Security Agency.

It also comes amid lawsuits against the Police Department alleging unconstitutional surveillance of Muslim communities and mosques in New Jersey and New York. And a group of plaintiffs from a 1971 lawsuit over harassment of political groups by the Police Department’s so-called Red Squad has asked a judge to tighten guidelines stemming from that case on police investigations involving political or religious activity.

Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said that the lawsuits were without merit. He also said that the inspector general had found nothing illegal and that the last embedded C.I.A. official left the police in 2012.

“We’re proud of our relationship with C.I.A. and its training,” he said, saying it was partly responsible for the absence of casualties from a terror attack in New York in the years since Sept. 11 and the anthrax attacks. He added that the terrorists “keep coming and we keep pushing back.”

The C.I.A.-Police Department partnership dates from 2002, when David Cohen, a former C.I.A. officer who became deputy commissioner for intelligence at the Police Department after the Sept. 11 attacks, reached out to his former agency in building up its counterterrorism abilities.

The inspector general’s office began the investigation in August 2011 after The Associated Press published an article about the C.I.A.’s relationship with the Police Department’s intelligence division. It was part of a series about New York police surveillance of Muslims that was later awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.

When the classified report was completed in 2011, spokesmen for the C.I.A. and the Police Department said it had concluded that the C.I.A. had not violated a law and an executive order that prohibited it from domestic spying or performance of law-enforcement powers. But the document shows that that conclusion was not the whole story. The inspector general warned in his cover letter that the collaboration raised “considerable and multifaceted” risks for the agency.

This week, it released an executive summary and cover memo in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit civil-liberties group, which provided it to The New York Times.

“The C.I.A. is not permitted to engage in domestic surveillance,” said Ginger McCall, the director of the group’s Open Government Project. “Despite the assurances of the C.I.A.’s press office, the activities documented in this report cross the line and highlight the need for more oversight.”

Dean Boyd, a C.I.A. spokesman, said the inspector general found no legal violations or evidence that the agency’s support to the Police Department constituted “domestic spying.”

“It should come as no surprise that, after 9/11, the C.I.A. stepped up its cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism issues or that some of that increased cooperation was in New York,” he said in an e-mail. “The agency’s operational focus, however, is overseas, and none of the support we have provided to N.Y.P.D. can rightly be characterized as ‘domestic spying’ by the C.I.A. Any suggestion along those lines is simply wrong.”

The report shows that the first of the four embedded agency officers began as an adviser in 2002 and went on an unpaid leave from the agency from 2004 to 2009. During that latter period, it said, he participated in — and directed — “N.Y.P.D. investigations, operations, and surveillance activities directed at U.S. persons and non-U.S. persons.”

The official received a Police Department paycheck. He told the inspector general that he “did not consider himself an agency officer and believed he had ‘no limitations’ as far as what he could or could not do.” C.I.A. lawyers said that officials on unpaid leave who are “acting in a personal capacity and not subject to C.I.A. direction” are not constrained by the law barring the agency from domestic security functions, the report said.

Another C.I.A. analyst was detailed to the Police Department in early 2008 and remained on the agency’s payroll. From about February to April 2008, he told the inspector general he had received daily files, including the police intelligence division’s investigative reports “that he believed were unfiltered.”

That meant they had not been prescreened to remove information unrelated to foreign intelligence information, like evidence of domestic criminal activity. Later, the report says, the system was changed and police analysts gave him printouts of only those reports deemed to have potential foreign-intelligence information — about 10 to 12 a day.

Still, a former Police Department intelligence analyst who now works for the C.I.A.’s National Clandestine Service maintained that the embedded C.I.A. official had not had “unrestricted or unfiltered access” to the reports. The inspector general did not clear up the discrepancy.

Meanwhile, the Police Department sent a detective to the C.I.A. from October 2008 to November 2009 to “receive agency operational training to enhance the capability” of its intelligence division’s counterterrorism efforts in the metropolitan area.

Two other agency officials also worked for a period at the Police Department. One “spent considerable time and effort trying to help N.Y.P.D. improve its volatile relationship with the local F.B.I.,” and the report said senior agency officials expressed concern that the arrangement had “placed the agency in the middle of a contentious relationship.”

“The revelation of these issues,” Mr. Buckley wrote, “leads me to conclude that the risks associated with the Agency’s relationship with the N.Y.P.D. were not fully considered and that there was inadequate direction and control by the agency managers responsible for the relationship.”

June 26, 2013
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Find this story at 26 June 2013

© 2013 The New York Times Company

The Central Intelligence Agency played an important role in the arrest in 1962 of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader who was jailed for nearly 28 years before his release four months ago, a news report says.

The intelligence service, using an agent inside the African National Congress, provided South African security officials with precise information about Mr. Mandela’s activities that enabled the police to arrest him, said the account by the Cox News Service.

The report, scheduled for publication on Sunday, quoted an unidentified retired official who said that a senior C.I.A. officer told him shortly after Mr. Mandela’s arrest: ”We have turned Mandela over to the South African Security branch. We gave them every detail, what he would be wearing, the time of day, just where he would be.”

Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the agency, declined to comment on the news-service report. ”As a matter of policy, we do not discuss allegations of intelligence activities,” he said.

Protecting Pretoria’s Rule

Reports that American intelligence tipped off the South African officials who arrested Mr. Mandela have circulated for years. Newsweek reported in February that the agency was believed to have been involved.

Mr. Mandela is scheduled to visit the United States beginning June 20 for a five-city tour that will include talks with President Bush and a speech before a joint meeting of Congress.

The news-service report said that at the time of Mr. Mandela’s arrest in August 1962, the C.I.A. devoted more resources to penetrating the activities of nationalist groups like the African National Congress than did South Africa’s then-fledgling security service.

The account said the American intelligence agency was willing to assist in the apprehension of Mr. Mandela because it was concerned that a successful nationalist movement threatened a friendly South African Govenment. Expansion of such movements outside South Africa’s borders, the agency feared, would jeopardize the stability of other African states, the account said.

Arrest at a Roadblock

A retired South African intelligence official, Gerard Ludi, was quoted in the report as saying that at the time of Mr. Mandela’s capture, the C.I.A. had put an undercover agent into the inner circle of the African National Congress group in Durban.

That agent provided the intelligence service with detailed accounts of the organization’s activities, including information on the whereabouts of Mr. Mandela, then being sought as a fugitive for his anti-apartheid activities.

The morning after a secret dinner party with other congress members in Durban, Mr. Mandela, dressed as a chauffeur, ran into a roadblock. He was immediately recognized and arrested.

The retired official said that because of concern over the propriety of the C.I.A.’s actions in the Mandela case, ”higher authorities” required that the State Department approve any similar operations in the future. The report said the State Department refused on at least three occasions to allow the agency to provide South African officials with information about other dissidents.

By DAVID JOHNSTON, Special to The New York Times
Published: June 10, 1990

Find this story at 10 June 1990

Copyright 2013 The New York Times Company