Archives:
M16 Officer Inquest Hears Claim of Third Party Role
The body of Mr. Williams, from Anglesey, London, was dead a week before he was found in his flat in 2010, padlocked inside a holdall duffel bag in his bathtub. His inquest is now weighing the evidence that a third party was involved in the death. The inquest was shown footage of two experts’ struggling unsuccessfully…
TWO RUSSIAN PROFESSORS TO BE TRIED AS CHINESE SPIES
A pair of professors on the faculty of the State Military Mechanical University in St. Petersburg will soon stand trial in that city for espionage, in what promises to be one of the most noteworthy spy cases there since Alexander Nikitin was tried in the late 1990s on allegations of supplying top secret information to Norwegian…
Iranian Doctoral Student Being Tried In His Country ...
By Daria Carmon
Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies…
Georgia President’s Photographer, Four Others ...
The official photographer for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Irakli Gedenidze ,and four other suspects, were taken into custody by Georgian authorities on suspicion of working for a foreign government. Gedenidze’s wife Natia, Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs photographer Giorgi Abdaladze and European PressPhoto Agency photographer Zurab Qurtsikidze were identified as the other arrestees, while an unnamed…
Russian Double Agent Who Brought Down Sleeper Ring ...
Huffington Post Op Ed 6/30/10
Huffington Post Op Ed 7/8/10
Colonel Alexander Poteyev, the Russian double agent instrumental in the arrests of ten Russian spies in the United States last June 27, was convicted of treason and desertion in absentia by the Moscow District Military Court, which handed down a prison sentence of 25 years. The conviction of…
Raymond Davis is a Spy? Not So, Says U.S.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan are heating up as the details surrounding an imprisoned American become less clear. Raymond Davis was arrested by Pakistani officials in January on murder charges after shooting and killing two men. He claims that they approached him in his car with guns drawn in an attempt to rob him…
Libya Arrests Two on Spying Charges
Libya’s security service announced on January 18, 2011 that two men, members of the country’s Amazigh Berber minority, had been arrested on charges of spying for a foreign intelligence agency. Mazigh and Maghris Bouzahar, who happen to be twin brothers, are being investigated by the state prosecutor while in detention.
Same Story, Different Day: Germany to Investigate N ...
On Monday, German prosecutors stated that a preliminary investigation had been opened concerning whether a former KGB colonel who had moved with his wife to Germany three months ago had been poisoned. The inquiry comes after a weekly magazine, Focus, wrote that doctors treating the couple found lethal amounts of mercury in their blood after arriving…
Top North Korean Nuclear Researcher Arrested on Spy ...
According to The Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper based in Seoul, North Korea’s chief nuclear scientist has been arrested on charges of espionage. The senior researcher, Kim So-in, is rumored to have been arrested in May and taken to the Yodok concentration camp. It is also believed that his family was arrested with him.
So-in…
Lebanon Breaks Up Alleged Israeli Spy Ring
Last week, Lebanon’s military intelligence agency reported the arrest of a Palestinian man, purportedly a spy recruited by Israel. Sources say that the suspect was recruited by Mossad to gather information on terror groups and Lebanese Army movements. Allegedly, he was also told to search for details about Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force navigator. Arad…
Italian Prosecution Looking for More Spy Conviction ...
An earlier ruling by an Italian court that convicted 23 American and 2 Italian citizens has been appealed. The defendants were accused of kidnapping a terrorism suspect. Now, the Italian prosecution is trying to reverse some of the lower court’s decisions. They have opened an appeal in hopes of incriminating the 5 other Italian agents who had been acquitted…
Iran Blames West for Stuxnet; Arrests Spies
In the aftermath of the discovery of the complicated and effective Stuxnet worm, Iran’s intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi blamed western intelligence agencies for developing and unleashing the virus on thousands of Iranian computers. He has now announced on Iranian TV that his own intelligence team has captured “several spies” implicated in the plot to derail Iran’s…
Dead Russian Spy: Accidental Drowning or Murder?
52-year-old General Yuri Ivanov’s decomposing body washed up on the shores of southern Turkey on August 12. On August 30, an official Russian eulogy reported that he had drowned while swimming “several days ago.” Various sources indicate he had been missing for ten days when his body was turned into the authorities by Turkish fisherman from…
New AMC Spy Show: Seriously Smart Stuff
If you’re on the prowl for a new action-packed, fast-paced spy series, this is not the one for you. However, if you’re curious about what sort of person, with what sort of past and psychology, goes into the spy line of work anyhow, AMC’s Rubicon might just be up your alley.
A word of caution: The pace is what…
Russian Spy Infiltrates Czech Military
Turns out the U.S. is not the only country targeted by post-Cold War Russian spies. A Czech newspaper just reported that in 2009, three Czech generals were forced to leave the army as a result of the activities of a Russian spy who infiltrated their respective offices.
The Czech Republic, once a Soviet satellite state and now…
Israeli spies arrested in Lebanese telecoms industr ...
Lebanon has arrested a telecoms company transmissions engineer, Tareq Raba, on suspicion of spying for Israel. His arrest follows on the heels of last month’s arrest of Charbel Qazzi, a telecoms technician at the same state-owned cellphone company, Alfa.
It seems very likely that Qazzi gave up Raba’s name during interrogation by Lebanese security and intelligence agents,…
A Russian-U.S. Spy Swap: What’s the Rush?
By Haggai Carmon
At this very moment, there are growing rumors about plans for a prisoner swap that would return ten suspected Russian spies to Russia, in exchange for an imprisoned Russian military researcher Igor Sutyagin, who was convicted of espionage in 2004. The rumors also suggest that the U.S. has compiled a list of 11 Russian…
Obama Forces U.S. Spy Chief to Retire?
On Thursday May 20, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair resigned from his post as head of the sixteen agencies that together create the U.S. intelligence community. Although his resignation was originally attributed to his security…
CIA to Improve Intelligence Gathering Techniques
Just about everything about the CIA is classified – including its budget – but occasionally we get a little insight into how it’s spending its money: This week, the agency announced plans to pour millions of dollars over the next five years into improving intelligence gathering techniques, technologies and communications.
Number 1 on the agenda is upping…
In China, Telco/Internet Companies Forced to Spy
While in other countries, government places limitations on businesses to help protect citizens’ privacy, China seems hell-bent on doing exactly the opposite…that is legally enforcing telco and internet companies to spy on users and disclose private information to the government.
Indeed, China is on the verge of passing a law that would require telecommunications and internet companies…
Two suspected spies executed in Gaza
On Thursday April 15, two Gazans convicted by Hamas’s military courts in 2008 and 2009 of collaborating with Israel, were executed by firing squad and dropped off at the main hospital in Gaza City, their bodies riddled with bullets. According to Palestinian law, spying…
S. Korean drug trafficker spies for enemy
Accused of spying for North Korea in China, a 55-year-old South Korean man was arrested last Thursday while on a brief trip to South Korea. The China-North Korea border is a hotbed of activity for North Koreans looking to escape the clutches of an authoritarian government..
15 yrs in slammer for China-born engineer
Seven months after Dongfan ‘Greg’ Chung, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen in his seventies, was put on trial for economic espionage, he has been issued a sentence of 15 years. His trial was a quick affair – 10 days in Santa Ana, California – and he was declared guilty of…
A Dangerous Tit-for-Tat
By Haggai Carmon
Iranian officials are accusing the United States of trying to encourage a “velvet revolution” in Iran. That term was first used in 1989 to describe the nonviolent revolution in Czechoslovakia that overthrew the communist government. And indeed, as part of its velvet war against Iran, the United States is broadcasting cultural programs in Farsi…