Tonight, Tony Blair ordered a D-Notice on British media reporting government officials signing court gag orders. This regards the case of former MI5 officer David Shayler, who has evidence to prove MI6 gave £100,000 to bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, arms to Iraq and had prior knowledge of several terrorist attacks on London in the 1990s.
The original articles stated that top Labour MPs had signed gag orders, which required the media to immediately leave the trial upon mention of this evidence in court.
Newspapers nationwide, including The Guardian, the London Evening Standard and the Scotsman have either completely removed or amended their articles.
This evidence is damning. The British government is trying to bury the story before it buries them. I first noticed that the Guardian article I had earlier posted on my website had disappeared. Already aware that Blair may have ordered a D-Notice to eliminate these reports, I immediately started searching on Google for more.
In Britain, a D-Notice is where the government order a gag on a particular breaking story.
I came across a similar London Evening Standard report and immediately put it on my website. Lo and behold, five minutes later, the link was dead!
Amazingly, the article was still on my screen in a different browser window. I tried to archive the page to my desktop, but to no avail. I did manage to print out a copy, which I have scanned and linked below.
This story is massive because Shayler has them on the racks on a number of different issues, from colluding with bin Laden to arms deals with questionable characters. This could be particularly embarrassing for Jack Straw, who I, using mainstream reports, have identified as a key placeman in hawking arms to Pakistan, India, and even Iran.
Bilderberg member Peter Mandelson also tries to cover his tracks by gagging these reports. Two weeks ago, the London Times reported that the Rothschilds were bankrolling his new ‘think tank’.
The Rothschilds control the BBC, which hasn’t even mentioned that the trial has started, never mind the accusations Shayler raises. The original London Guardian report was entitled ‘Ministers issue gag orders for MI5 trial’—as you will see if you click on the link, it’s disappeared down the memory hole.
The text I extracted from the report for my original link to it is as follows…
“Ministers issue gag orders for MI5 trial: They appear to be worried that he will make further allegations about MI5 and MI6 knowledge of a plot to assassinate the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafy, in 1996. A book, Forbidden Truth, published this summer claims that British intelligence was in contact with “Osama bin Laden’s main allies” who were opposed to Colonel Gadafy.”
The London Evening Standard article was entitled ‘Calls for secret Shayler trial’ – again, it has been removed. Luckily I saved the text to a Word file and printed the article:
[UPDATE – After pressure, this article is now back online! But for how long? Save it to your hard drive. ]
Before you read this, it is important to understand the issue at hand. We’re talking about MI6 cooperation with bin Laden, arms to Iraq and, as reported today in the Scotsman, claims that, ‘secret services ignored warnings that might have prevented bombings in the London in 1993 and 1994.’
Shayler has evidence that MI5 wilfully failed to stop the bomb attack on Israel’s London embassy in 1994 and the IRA’s 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, which killed one person.
Here it is in Shayler’s own words plus the actual MI6 Gaddafi plot document – MI6 Plot to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi: Police enquiry confirms Plot is not “fantasy”. Here is the London Evening Standard report I managed to rescue.
Take a look at the scans of the article I printed off – why was it removed? Judge for yourself…
Calls for secret Shayler trial
By Patrick McGowan, Evening Standard
THE Government has been accused by lawyers of trying to interfere in the trial of former MI5 officer David Shayler by insisting that part of the proceedings are held in private.
Ministers are demanding that trial judge Mr Justice Alan Moses agree in advance to hold the case in private session without saying why and without hearing arguments to the contrary from the defence.
Shayler’s trial, on charges under the Official Secrets Act, was beginning at the Old Bailey today. He is being prosecuted following newspaper interviews he gave five years ago and the trial is expected to last for at least four weeks. On Friday Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed identical public interest immunity certificates under which the press and the public will have to leave court if sensitive security issues are raised.
The certificates do not specify what information they are trying to keep secret on the grounds that to do so would cause the very damage the Government is seeking to avoid. They claim:
“Publication of information of the kinds referred to would be likely to assist those whose purpose it is to injure the security of the United Kingdom and whose actions in the past show that they are willing to kill innocent civilians, both inside and outside the UK, in pursuance of their aims.”
Mr Blunkett and Mr Straw also claim present and future intelligence operations would be compromised. PII certificates signed by Conservative ministers were controversially used during the arms-to-Iraq trials in the Nineties.
Normally the judge in a trial would read documents in the case and, after hearing arguments from both sides, decide whether they should be disclosed. Now he is being asked to make his decision in advance. Shayler, 36, faces three charges. They allege he disclosed information, disclosed information obtained by interception of communications and disclosed documents.
The Crown Prosecution Service has already given notice that it will apply for some parts of the trial to be held in camera. This will apply to evidence on “sensitive operational techniques of the Security and Intelligence Services”.
It is expected that the court will also be asked to keep the identities of MI5 agents secret and allow them to give evidence from behind screens. Today Geoffrey Robertson QC, representing civil rights group Liberty, will oppose the Government’s move. Michael Tugendhat QC, appearing for various national newspapers, is expected to argue that the Government has provided no evidence that national security will be threatened by the trial and will underline the importance of open justice.
During the arms-to-Iraq cases Mr Justice Moses was prosecuting counsel and Mr Robertson was counsel for the defence when three directors of the machine tool company Matrix Churchill were accused of selling equipment to the Iraqi regime. Shayler will be defending himself during the trial.
He is expected to claim that British secret service agents paid up to £100,000 to al Qaeda terrorists for an assassination attempt on Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffy in 1996.
He is seeking permission to plead a defence of “necessity” – that he acted for the greater good by revealing wrongdoing by the security service. Although much of the trial may end up being held in camera, the arguments about which parts should be kept secret will be held in public. Only after they are concluded is the jury expected to be sworn in so the trial proper can begin.
[UPDATE: The London Evening Standard have published a shorter, watered down, version of this story. It does not mention MI5’s £100,000 transfer to Al-Qaeda. Yet more evidence of a top down cover-up – read the new whitewashed piece here and compare it to my scanned original that was pulled along with all the others! ]
The Scotsman also released a report which remains online but both the title and the article has been amended!!! The new article talks about new MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller, only mentioning the Shayler case in passing. It certainly does not include information concerning the Labour MP’s involved and government prior knowledge of terrorist bombings in London. I archived the original at
.
The report was originally entitled ‘Renegade MI5 agent ready to face jury’ it is now called ‘Has MI5 really emerged from shadows?’ This is the report with the most damning information (the one they erased). Here is the text of the original – again archived at
Renegade MI5 agent ready to face jury
KAREN MCVEIGH
DAVID Shayler, the former M15 officer branded a traitor by the government, is due to take on the legal establishment today, as his trial opens at the Old Bailey in London.
The renegade agent, who faces six years imprisonment for breaching the Official Secrets Act after making a number of sensational revelations about M15 to a national newspaper in 1997, will represent himself for part of the landmark case.
The trial will centre around a number of allegations made by Shayler about M15 holding files on prominent politicians, including former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary.
He also claimed the secret services ignored warnings that might have prevented bombings in the London in 1993 and 1994. Shayler, 36, faces two charges under section one of the Official Secrets Act for disclosing documents and information about the work of M15 and another under section four, for disclosing information about telephone taps.
He has failed to win his argument that his revelations were in the public interest so far. The High Court, Court of Appeal, and House of Lords have all ruled that he cannot claim he disclosed information in the public interest or out of necessity.
They also ruled out the main plank of Shayler’s defence – that the Officials Secrets Act is incompatible with the Human Rights Act. Shayler, who made other allegations for which he was not charged, including a claim that M16 was involved in a plot to assassinate the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, will argue that he is only guilty of “exposing wrongdoing”.
“I aim to persist in my argument that the Official Secrets Act as it currently stands is totally incompatible with the Human Rights Act,” he told a newspaper yesterday. Some of the hearings are expected to be taken up by an application by newspapers objecting to plans to hold parts of the trial in secret.
The prosecution applied for hearings to be held in camera after its concerns that Shayler will make fresh allegations to the jury to back up his public interest defence. Shayler’s decision to defend himself, against the advice of his legal team, for part of the trial was prompted by the belief that he will be freer to argue his case than his barrister, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, whose hands are tied by earlier court rulings.
