Amendments to the law on foreign intelligence discussed by media and experts in Russia
| |
|
 |
|
| SVR Head Office, Moscow |
|
In the connection with the second reading of the amendments to the federal law On Foreign Intelligence to be reviewed by the State Duma of the Russian Federation, online paper Blotter.ru writes that the members of parliament are willing to to specify the status of staff members of foreign intelligence emphasizing that a citizen of the Russian Federation having a dual citizenship should not serve in this agency. Experts note that the amendment will not influence the methods of the work of intelligence. Members of parliament are going to bring a number of changes in the law and to add regulations, saying that only a citizen of the Russian Federation who does not have foreign citizenship can become an employee of the country’s foreign intelligence. The developers of the draft say that the main task of the foreign intelligence is protection of the state secrets and protection of national security of the state, therefore their specification is "pertinent".
Nikolay Leonov, one of the authors of the draft bill, the member of the State Duma, in due time himself worked for the foreign investigation and describes an essence of the amendment as follows: «A part of the staff members work under legal coverings: as diplomats, journalists, businessmen and all of them are citizens of Russia. Other thing is the "illegals", who also are citizens of Russia, but temporary, for the period of execution of their official duties, they obtain other citizenship. However, the Russian authority knows that they are Russian citizens. Accordingly, during their intelligence activity under the decision of the intelligence leadership they can change their citizenship, not ceasing thus to be citizens of Russia».
By the way, according to article 23 of the law, a foreigner rendering «confidential assistance» to Russia’s foreign intelligence, can receive citizenship of the Russian Federation according to his/her "application", writes the Moscow-based daily Noviye Izvestiya. In a law amendment it is also said that staff members of the foreign intelligence are covered by the country’s labour legislation, and besides the intelligence officers may receive special conditions of a payment and additional social guarantees and advantages.
The amendments do not concern the professional activity of the Russian intelligence officers. As before, they have the right to apply "open" and secret methods and means. However these methods should not harm life and health of people, and cause damage to an environment at the same time. That means that the spy cannot eliminate a terrorist searched by the Russian authorities by him/herself. However, this March a law on counteraction to terrorism was adopted, according to which the Armed forces of the Russian Federation can be applied to suppress international terrorist activity outside the country. Earlier there was no law, connected with security forces, stating such legal grounds. The law On Foreign Intelligence also foresees that the state is obliged to promote release of an intelligence officer and his/hers family members, arrested outside Russia in connection with the realization of intelligence activity.
The law recommends the journalists writing about the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), «to address the corresponding body of foreign intelligence that will establish presence or absence» of the classified information in the material before its publication. Media is also warned about its responsibility for disclosure of the state secret.
Discovered diary uncovers plot to save last Russian tsar
British secret services planned in spring 1918 to rescue the last Russian tsar and his family from the house in Ekaterinburg where he was imprisoned by the communists and later executed, The Sunday Times writes. A newly discovered diary of Captain Stephen Alley, second in command of the British intelligence mission in St Petersburg, has uncovered a plot by to extract the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian imperial family from the House of Special Purpose where they were held. The diary shows that, after they had been sprung from custody, the tsar and his family were to be taken by train to Murmansk and then shipped to safety by the Royal Navy. According to the paper, on May 24, 1918, Alley wrote to the War Office in London naming the six Russian- speaking officers he wanted to carry out the rescue, however, his apparent reluctance to activate the plot as Alley supposed his telegrams to London might have been intercepted by the Bolsheviks led to his sacking and recall to Britain.
Alley’s diary was found accidentally by his descendants in a trunk of his papers and will be featured in Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren, a documentary to be shown on British Channel 4 in December.
Russian and Armenian secret services to further cooperate to combat terrorism
Representatives of the Federal Security Service of Russia and National Security Service (SNB) of the Armenian government in the framework of a conference in Essentuki (Stavropol area of Russia) signed two protocols on counteraction to terrorism, news agency ITAR-TASS reports.
The news agency quotes representative of the Russian delegation, Colonel-General Viktor Komogorov, as saying that “the documents are devoted to cooperation of both agencies in the struggle against international terrorism and other expressions of extremism”. In his turn, the head of the Armenian delegation, Lieutenant-General Goryk Akopyan, emphasized that “these were regular steps to strengthen mutual strategic partnership”. ITAR-TASS says Akopyan was satisfied with the proceeding of cooperation with the FSB of Russia and he indicated that in total there are signed 18 protocols amended to the main agreement.
Former Russian intelligence generals comment on Russian spy case in Nigeria
| |
|
| |
 |
| |
Yury Kobaladze |
Moscow-based daily Kommersant has interview a few former members of the Russian intelligence community to clear out their views on the “Russian espionage chain” allegedly revealed in Nigeria. Yury Kobaladze, Managing Director of the Renaissance Capital company, Major-General of the Foreign Intelligence Service, suggests that one has to behave accurately with the Nigerians. “These guys are refined financial speculators who use to masterly win confidence and masterly disappear with stolen financial means,” he says. “And, in general, for the beginning it is necessary to check up carefully all the reports on detention of the Romanian-Russian community on espionage as this a very strange espionage tandem.” Kobaladze underlines that as Nigeria is no Georgia, Russia would not enter tactics of blockade against Nigeria. “More delicate approach is necessary here,” concludes Kobaladze.
Nikolay Leonov, member of the Russian State Duma committee on security, the former head of the Analytical Directorate of Foreign Intelligence of the KGB of the USSR, considers that “on any intelligence there will be counterintelligence”. For certain Russian secret services have some materials on the high-ranking Nigerians who also can be detained, and then exchanged for the Russian fellow citizens. Espionage scandals never should lead to a rigid aggravation of relations between the countries, says Leonov. Everybody in the world perfectly knows that intelligence officers can make professional failures and to solve these problems there are standard international rules already thought up for a long time, he says.
SBU Public Council elects its Chairman, Secretary
Regular session of the National Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Public Council took place in Kiev October 13, the SBU Press Service reports. According to the charter of this advisory body, a chairman of the Public Council was elected at the session. The known Ukrainian politician, Professor of the Kiev-Mogilyansk Academy, Viktor Musiyak, was chosen for this post by the council members. Sergiy Kozyakov, lawyer, lecturer of the Institute of International Affair sof the Kiev National University, was elected secretary of the council.
The SBU head Igor Drizhchany and the former SBU head (1994-1995) Valery Malikov also participated at the SBU Public Council session.
Amendments to Lithuanian law urge KGB collaborators to confess Soviet past
Amendments to Lithuania’s so-called lustration law would introduce another one- year term for Lithuania’s former KGB collaborators to confess their allegiance and avoid possible blackmail, The Baltic Times reports. The legislation would provide those who didn’t already speak up in 2000 – the last term of confession - with a second chance to do so.
Dalia Kuodyte, chairman of Parliament’s lustration commission, told the paper that the proposal to give a new term for confession was sound and fair. She marked that official documents suggest some 4,000 people were KGB agents or informers during the Soviet occupation. Approximately 1,600 people confessed their relations with the KGB, and 53 were declared collaborators, according to Kuodyte. Alvydas Sadeckas, head of Parliament’s national security and defence committee, also believes that the confession term should be extended, the newspaper says.
At the same time, the government would abolish restrictions on the employment of former KGB officers in private companies, following a European Human Rights Court ruling that such restrictions violate the European Convention on Human Rights, The Baltic Times adds.
In 2000, Lithuania adopted a law obliging all former KGB informers to confess their relations with the Soviet secret service within six months. KGB officers were asked to confess in 1999. However, experts say less than half of the country’s former KGB collaborators used the opportunity.
Alongside the recently proposed amendments, legislators will discuss a law passed in 1999 that bars former KGB officers from working in the public sector, banks, private security companies, communication sector, and as a lawyer, notary or teacher. Parliament was scheduled to debate the lustration law amendments at the end of September, however the meeting was postponed due to internal debate over questionable KGB documents.
Latvia may disclose names of former KGB agents on November 1
The legal affairs commission of the Latvian parliament may disclose the contents of KGB files containing the names of former secret police agents, a commission spokesman said today, news agency RIA Novosti reports. October 18 the commission will finalize amendments to a draft law on the disclosure of information about former KGB agents, and if formalities are completed within the established timeframe, the information could be released on November 1.
The commission said it intends to publish all 4,500 names and aliases used by former KGB agents in Latvijas Vestnesis, an official government newsletter according to news agency. The discussion of the need to disclose information about secret KGB agents has been ongoing in Latvia since 1991, when the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union. In 2004, parliament officially endorsed disclosure. Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga opposes disclosure, saying that publishing information about former KGB agents will endanger their privacy and personal security.
Newcomer in Romanian royal family allegedly belonged to Communist secret police
A journalist close to the Romanian Royal House, Nicoleta Franck, accused a newcomer in the Royal Family of “infiltrating” it in order to undermine the stand of ex-King Mihai, Bucharest-based newspaper Adevarul reports.
Franck alleges in a Swiss magazine that Prince Radu, formerly known as Radu Duda, who has married Princess Margareta, was a representative of former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s secret police, the Securitate, who “infiltrated” the Royal House in an affair to which Romania’s first post-communist President Ion Iliescu might be no stranger.
United Javakh alliance revolted by actions of Armenia’s National Security Service
News agency Regnum, referring to the United Javakh democratic alliance, reports that a member of the alliance board Vaagn Chahalyan who on October 10 has severely attacked entering Yerevan and received heavy physical injuries, has been arrested the next day by the employees of National Security Service (SNB) of Armenia. As it is underlined in the statement of the alliance, "having presented themselves as employees of a branch of police, they fraudalently invited Vaagn Chahayan as a victim of an assault to the police office, however they brought him to the SNB investigatory insulator and arrested him.
Regnum writes that Chahalyan was accused in illegally crossing the frontier of Armenia. On October 13 the Court of the first instance of Yerevan has authorized to subject Vaagn Chahalyan to two-month imprisonment before trail. The fact that instead of investigating the violence carried out against Vaagn Chahalyan, members of his family and a member of the alliance, Gurgen Shirinyan, the victim is pursued by invented charges, causes particular indignation, says the statement. It notes that the fact obviously shows presence of a direct link between the violence against Chahalyan and his subsequent arrest, and also about an existence of the order of certain forces.
Drug contraband stopped and lot of Afghan opium withdrawn by security services in Uzbekistan
As a result of a joint operation of the National Security Service of of Uzbekistan (SNB) and the country’s Ministry of Interior contraband of a large party of drugs from Afghanistan was stopped and 45 kgs of opium withdrawn, news agency Regnum reports today, referring to a source in the National Security Service of of Uzbekistan. According to the SNB representative, the special operation was carried out at night on the coast of the Amu Darya boundary river. Drug dealers, citizens of Afghanistan, were been armed with Kalashnikov's automatic machine-guns, but were taken by surprise ambush by the SNB operatives and could not render resistance, according to the source. The SNB employee said polyethylene bags with drugs were forwarded by the criminals through the boundary river. One of the arrested persons, a 38-year-old resident of Balkh province in Afganistan, has been earlier condemned for similar crimes by the Surkhan-Darya regional court of Uzbekistan, but was released on amnesty in 2003 as a citizen of a foreign state, Regnum reports.
The SNB emphasizes that the struggle against drugs trafficking is one of priority directions of work of law enforcement bodies of Uzbekistan. This problem remains especially actual in the Surkhan-Darya area adjoining the large manufacturer of drugs in Afghanistan, besides the region has the longest border with Tajikistan. 50 citizens of the adjacent states were detained in Uzbekistan for contraband of drugs in 2005, the news agency adds
Danish Refugee Council accused in spying, facilitating terrorist activity in Ferghana valley
Representatives of the Danish Refugee Council, accused earlier by an Uzbek expert in intelligence activity in Ferghana valley, are also suspected of organization of acts of terrorism in North Caucasus, online news agency Press-uz.info reports. The expert of the independent Fund of Regional Policy, Bektosh Berdiev, has accused the Danish Refugee Council in gathering information of intelligence character in the territory of Ferghana valley. The expert has specified that gathering of the information has been carried out by the means of local NGO belonging to the transboundary network structure The Valley of Peace, created under uaspices of the Danish organization.
A week after the interview of the Uzbek expert, Russian TV channel NTV informed on an October 13 program that Umar Hadzhiev, an employee of the non-governmental organization Danish Refugee Council, was detained by an attempt of import to the territory of the Chechen Republic of a lot of explosives.
According to investigation data, Hadzhiev together with his friends had transported in a car under covering of Danish Refugee Council papers a powerful bomb, an iron box, filled with 12 kgs of an explosive, Press-uz.info writes.
Secret services of the Russian Federation have been suspecting the employee of the Danish Refugee Council of fulfilment of at least two acts of terrorism, the online agency says. According to the news agency, Hadzhiev during his interrogation has shown a secret site where earlier he had delivered and secreted some weapons and ammunition. The head of the Russian branch of the organization, Peer Ilsaas, has refused to comment on the fact of detention of the employee who worked for the Danish Refugee Council for the last two years.
Still back in February 2003, at a basis of one of Chechen separatist leader Alsan Maskhadov's field commanders Russian secret services withdrew a large lot of humanitarian assistance, delivered by the Danish Refugee Council.
Previous review
Daily reviews
Main Page | News Page | 007 News | Print
|
