Sam PF's Journal - OMG SPIES!
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12:20 am
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OMG SPIES!
Following various legal proceedings, Campaign Against Arms Trade is now able to say what we know so far on how arms company BAE Systems got hold of a confidential and privileged email from our lawyers to the CAAT Steering Committee, relating to the forthcoming judicial review we are seeking into the calling off of the SFO investigation into BAE's deals with Saudi Arabia.
As the first link says, back in February we won an injunction requiring BAE to tell us how they got the email. In a sworn affadavit, they said they received it from one Paul Mercer, who works for a company called LigneDeux Associates, which BAE acknowledge they pay £2,500 a month to monitor the activities of CAAT and other campaigning groups. The contract between BAE and LigneDeux states that non-public documents are not required by BAE.
We then got an injunction against Paul Mercer, requiring him to tell us how he got the email, which he did, but until Wednesday we were not able to disclose this. He says he received it in a CD ROM from (he says) an unknown sender, and then forwarded the email to Mike McGinty, BAE's Director of Security. McGinty sent it to BAE's lawyers, who sent it to ours (as they had to). However, they removed all routing information from the email, which is why we had to get the injunction. McGinty also tipped off Mercer that he was naming him in BAE's affadavit.
The latest info has made the papers - turns out Mercer is a friend of a prominent Tory MP, though I don't think that's particularly significant.
The matter has now been referred to the police.
The mystery remains as to who was the anonymous person who sent the CD-ROM to Paul Mercer. It does seem strange that someone completely unknown to Mr Mercer, and apparently unconnected to BAE, should send him it, but there we go. Also unknown is whether the original source of the leak is a spy or a hacker. We may never find out. There have been spies in CAAT before, working for a company allegedly supplying information to BAE, most notably our former National Campaigns Co-ordinator Martin Hogbin.
CAAT's news release on the matter is here.
At any rate we, along with Cornerhouse, are pursuing the Judicial Review. We think we have an excellent case, but we shall see.
Tags: arms trade, caat, wolfram & hart (uk)
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Goodness, the whole thing becomes crazier each time I look at it.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/36239990/948446) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) smhwpf |
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| Date: | April 23rd, 2007 01:11 pm (UTC) |
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Yes, though in a way none of this is exactly surprising. Except perhaps BAE allowing so much of this stuff to come out in this way.
I see the government is now making active moves to stop any investigation into the Saudi deal.
Ever think that this Labour government is the most corrupt of recent times so in bed with big business
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/60024487/948446) | | From: | smhwpf |
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| Date: | May 3rd, 2007 10:45 am (UTC) |
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To be (reluctantly) fair to them on this one, all previous governments have engaged in this sort of thing on the arms trade, especially though certainly not only with Saudi. The difference now is that we've signed up to the OECD Covention on Bribery, which meant the government had to make bribing foreign officials a crime, which is how there could be an SFO investigation in the first place.
They are certainly doing their damndest to make sure that the Convention doesn't actually apply to arms sales and to BAE in particular, but the only difference with previous governments is that they wouldn't have actually had to do anything.
So you in Oz now? How goes everything?
Oz is good, warm.
Been here a week now in Melbourne and getting settled. Move into an apartment today too which will be good.
Anyway, will write more once I get online.
Talk soon. |
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