REVIEW TOPICS:
One of Sweden’s most known public figures should answer over KGB revelations, Social Democrats demand truth.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister forms and presides over alternative to National Defence and Security Committee.
Security forces in Ukraine acted against radical Islamist organization cell which planned bloody acts of terrorism.
General Moskal wins lawsuit against Ukraine’s Security Service head but gets no damages.
Security Service of Ukraine, police find paintings, icons stolen in Germany.
Uzbekistan’s security service withdraw 41 kgs of opium-raw from Afghani drug smugglers
One of Sweden’s most known public figures should answer over KGB revelations, Social Democrats demand truth
Swedish Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin has called on prominent journalist and writer Jan Guillou to reveal what information he may have passed to the Soviet KGB about her political party in the 1960s, The Local reports. Guillou has made his millions of Swedish crowns on his best-seller novels about the fictitious secret agent Carl Hamilton, who often fought against
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the KGB and the Soviet military intelligence, the GRU.
The paper notes that Sahlin's calls come after Guillou, one of Sweden’s most well known public figures, told tabloid newspaper Expressen that he wrote a report about the Social Democrats and handed it over to the Soviet spies. However, speaking to other media he claimed the report had concerned the Centre Party's youth wing. Sahlin underlined in an interview to Expressen that since his description of the party policy doesn't equate it with spying, it should be in Guillou's own interest to show it.
The Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra said Guillou has admitted to maintaining contact with a KGB agent during five years in the 1960s, but claims he was only carrying out journalistic reporting rather than spying missions. Guillou reportedly insists he has no records of what he wrote in his reports to the KGB, and that what he sent the Soviets was "rubbish."
The Security Service files on Guillou were declassified after a request by the Expressen, the Stockholm News reveals. The documents on Guillou’s relations with the KGB from the Swedish intelligence agency Säpo centre have been focused around the Russian agent Yevgeni Ivanovich Gergel, The Associated Press expands. Guillou confirmed that he first met Gergel at a reception held at the USSR Embassy in Stockholm in 1967. A statement of Arne Lemberg, Guillou’s journalist colleague, over relations between the two refers also to an assignment to steal an internal telephone directory from the US Embassy in Stockholm. While the journalist/writer admits to undertaking paid assignments, he denies spying for the Soviets. Gergel, according to a Russian embassy spokesperson, deceased since many years, the paper adds.
Guillou had contact with the KGB until 1972 when he began publishing articles together with fellow journalist Peter Bratt, exposing Informationsbyrån (Information Office, IB), a secret intelligence unit within the Swedish Armed Forces, which spied on Swedish citizens for political purposes. Its main purpose was to gather information about Communists and other left wing radicals, according to Stockholm News. He was later jailed for espionage.
Gunnar Ekberg, who has worked as an informer to the Swedish Security Service, writes in his newly published book that Gergel was very interested in influent left wing activists. According to Ekberg’s article on the Newsmill online site, Demokratiska Folkfronten, one of the organisations where Guillou was active, had close connections with the Soviet KGB.
In his recently published his professional memoir Guillou has left out his collaboration with the KGB.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister forms and presides over alternative to National Defence and Security Committee
The Ukrainian government has formed a governmental commission in charge of security and defense headed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Western Information Agency of Ukraine, ZIK, reports, referring to the government’s website.
By its function and structure the new commission is basically the existing National Defense and Security Council headed by President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko. Its main difference is that President Yushchenko and parliamentary speaker Litvyn won’t sit on it, news agency marks.
The commission is to coordinate the performance of executive bodies in mapping out and implementing the state policy in the areas of defense, development of the industrial and defense sector and equipping the armed forces with new armaments and equipments.
The commission will be headed by the Prime Minister, with the First Vice-Premier acting as the head’s deputy. It will include ministers of defense, industrial policy, transport, emergencies, interior, finance, and justice. Also taking part in the commission work will be heads of Border Troops, Security Service of Ukraine, Foreign Intelligence, chief of General Staff and Space Agency of Ukraine.
Chairman of the parliamentary security and defense committee and secretary of the committee can sit on the commission given their consent, ZIK adds.
Security forces in Ukraine acted against radical Islamist organization cell which planned bloody acts of terrorism
According to the Minister of Interior of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko, the supporters of radical current of Islam, Al-Takfir wal-Hijra (Expiation and Outcome), have been creating in Ukraine a terrorist organization, which is prohibited in many countries, news agency RIA Novosti reports. The minister was speaking at a press conference, devoted to detention of two persons suspected in terrorism. According to officials of the Interior Ministry, Al-Takfir has contacts with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and planned a series of terrorist attacks in Ukraine.
The extremists have sentenced the leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemylev, to the death as" infidel ". The large-scale security forces special operation prevented them to realize their plan on the peninsula, Segodnya newspaper writes. According to the leader of the Crimean Tatars, the greater part of the group is recruited Crimean Tatars - mostly local robbers who used "to steal cattle from their compatriots” earlier. They wear traditional clothes of the Afghan ethnic Pushtun, to emphasize their belonging to the sect, MIGnews.ua.com writes.
Seven response groups, including police officers and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) forces, particularly Alfa paramilitary units, conducted a special operation in the Crimea on October 23, at the request of Gennady Moskal, the deputy interior minister and chief of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry’s main police office in Crimea, he said. Lutsenko also told that authorized searches had been conducted at the seven places of residence of extremists. According to Lutsenko, the premature spread of information from the intelligence services in the media prevented the arrest of Amir of Jihad of Ukraine, an organizer of extremist group and his right hand, the Red Arab in charge of secrecy work in Crimea. As a result, operatives managed to take only the two extremists, but not five, as Security Service of Ukraine claimed a few days ago, MIGnews.com.ua points out. Officers of the police and the Security Service of Ukraine detained Ismail Pushtun and Akhmed Dolomaster, nicknamed Akhmet-Telemaster. TNT blocks with detonators, daggers and a large amount of extremist literature were seized at one address in Simferopol.
The minister also said that operation had to be stopped ahead of schedule because of information leakage as the press service of the SBU had distributed a report on searches and detained persons. "We were compelled to curtail the ambushes placed in many sites (in Ukraine), not only in the Crimea", marked Lutsenko, having added that the police will continue to search the persons suspected in participation in creation of the terrorist organization, RIA Novosti adds. The SBU spokeswoman Marina Ostapenko denied the charges of minister Lutsenko and said the SBU would not engage into controversy against the Ministry of Interior.
Al-Takfir wal-Hijra acts not only in Ukraine. For instance, Mohammed Atta, one of the participants of the September 11 attacks belonged to it, according to MIGnews.ua.com. Adherents of Wahhabism became active in Crimea since early 2000's; one of the first groupings was the Hizb-ut Tahrir. According to experts, now they have several thousands supporters in Crimea, they are legally publish a newspaper Vozrozhdenie.
General Moskal wins lawsuit against Ukraine’s Security Service head but gets no damages
The court in Kiev, Ukraine, rendered as libelous the information spread at a press conference on November 6, 2008, about Police General Gennady Moskal by Security Service of Ukraine head Valentin Nalyvaychenko and ordered Nalyvaychenko to disclaim his information within 10 days of the court decision coming into force, Western Information Agency of Ukraine, ZIK, reports.
The court, however, refused to award General Moskal UAH 100,000 he claimed in damages. Moskal has appealed the ruling in the Kiev Court of Appeals, news agency notes.
There are currently four libel lawsuits in Kiev courts filed by Gennady Moskal against the SBU head Nalyvaychenko and his former deputy General Durdynets, ZIK adds.
Security Service of Ukraine, police find paintings, icons stolen in Germany
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and police officers have found in Odesa four paintings, four icons and ten fragments of yellow and white metal frames at EUR 38,000 that were on the international wanted list, the Ukrainian National Radio Company reports, referring to the SBU press service.
According to information received by Interpol, in November 2008, German law enforcers opened a criminal case upon stealing of art objects from a private house in Berlin. Officers of Ukraine's Interpol bureau are indentifying the seized objects to hand over them to German counterparts, radio marks.
Uzbekistan’s security service withdraw 41 kgs of opium-raw from Afghani drug smugglers
The security services of Uzbekistan have stopped an attempt of import of drugs in the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan border area, about 41 kgs of opium-raw have been withdrawn, news agency Regnum reports, referring to the press centre of the National Security Service of Uzbekistan.
According to the agency’s source in the security service, two citizens of Afghanistan crossed the border river of Amu Darya entering the territory of Uzbekistan. The spokesman of the National Security Service of Uzbekistan noted that at detention of the drug smugglers they had rendered armed resistance. As a result one of the smugglers was detained, however, he soon died as a result of the received gunshot wounds. The other drug smuggler managed to disappear in the territory of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, according to the press centre officiaal. He also said that during survey of the place of incident, members of operative and investigatory group of Uzbekistan’s law enforcement bodies found out a bag with narcotic substance, opium. It weighted about 41 kgs. Investigatory actions have been conducted concerning the crimes stipulated by the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, Regnum adds.
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