:00:11. > :00:16.Last year, MI5 believed it had uncovered a Russian spy at the very
:00:16. > :00:19.heart of British democracy, inside the House of Commons. If MI5 did
:00:20. > :00:25.not take this sort of thing seriously, we would want our money
:00:25. > :00:29.back. And we would be entitled to get our money back. The 26-year-old
:00:29. > :00:36.Russian, Katia Zatuliveter, was accused of being the eyes and ears
:00:36. > :00:41.of Russia's foreign Intelligence Service. Were you a honeytrap spy?
:00:41. > :00:47.No. I am sorry to disappoint you. In her only interview, she talks
:00:47. > :00:53.about being an innocent victim, targeted by MI5. Russian spies are
:00:53. > :00:59.very skilful. I have never met any, I don't know. And the MP who was
:00:59. > :01:07.her lover has hit back furiously at the Security Service. She felt like
:01:07. > :01:10.she was a hunted animal. And I can understand that. The court has
:01:10. > :01:14.upheld her case and she will not be deported. But the question that
:01:14. > :01:24.will now be asked is why was this case brought in the first place,
:01:24. > :01:41.
:01:41. > :01:45.and how, on the face of it, did MI5 On Tuesday, Katia's long battle to
:01:45. > :01:49.avoid deportation and clear her name ended in victory. She had
:01:49. > :01:53.taken her appeal to the Special Immigration Appeal Commission, SIAC.
:01:53. > :01:57.It deals with cases of national security and some evidence is held
:01:57. > :02:01.in secret. This is the first espionage case that the court has
:02:01. > :02:06.ruled on. What did the verdict mean to you? Everything. I would have
:02:06. > :02:11.been branded a spy forever. heart of the story is a tantalising
:02:11. > :02:17.question. Was Katia an innocent abroad, or a long-term sleeper for
:02:17. > :02:22.Russian intelligence? Were her relationships genuine, or was she a
:02:22. > :02:26.honeytrap spy? Is there honey trap just Hollywood fiction? Gosh, of
:02:26. > :02:32.course not. It is only fiction for governments and countries that
:02:32. > :02:42.played by some kind of sense of rules, whatever that may be. The
:02:42. > :02:42.
:02:42. > :02:45.honey trap is used extensively. fact is that a honeytrap spy
:02:46. > :02:50.represents a real and present threat. Gullibility must come into
:02:50. > :02:54.it by definition. What sensible 60- year-old man thinks that a 22-year-
:02:54. > :03:02.old woman has found the love of her life in him? I am not saying it
:03:02. > :03:06.never happens, but it is very The story begins in St Petersburg,
:03:06. > :03:10.where Katia studied international relations. MI5's assessment is that
:03:10. > :03:15.she was recruited by one of Russia's intelligence agencies when
:03:15. > :03:19.she was a student. St Petersburg is a well-known recruiting ground.
:03:19. > :03:24.There were people that everybody knew were from the KGB and the FSB
:03:24. > :03:30.around. They would have watched her, approached her and invite her in
:03:30. > :03:33.for a career chat. Vladimir Putin was recruited there. He let it be
:03:33. > :03:38.known that he wanted to work for the then KGB. They duly recruited
:03:38. > :03:43.him. When you were a student at St Petersburg University, were you
:03:44. > :03:48.ever approached by anybody from Russian intelligence? No. Never?
:03:48. > :03:56.Never. We were absolutely unaware that there was Russian intelligence
:03:56. > :04:01.around us. Every year, students from the University volunteer to
:04:01. > :04:06.help at an international conference. Katia acted as one of the
:04:06. > :04:15.chaperones. This was how she first met the Liberal Democrat MP Mike
:04:15. > :04:23.Hancock. I was working with the British delegation, which consisted
:04:23. > :04:30.of British MPs and Lords. What did Mike Hancock say to you? When you
:04:30. > :04:38.chatted to him? Lots of things. he make advances to you? Can we
:04:38. > :04:46.make a break? I met her at a conference in St Petersburg in 2006.
:04:46. > :04:51.She was bright, intelligent, spoke good English, friendly. That was it.
:04:51. > :04:55.It was the beginning of a four year relationship between the married MP
:04:55. > :05:02.and the Big Dom Russian. But Hancock was not the first Westerner
:05:02. > :05:09.chaperoned by Katia who would fall for her charms. Two years earlier,
:05:09. > :05:13.she met a Dutch diplomat at a St Petersburg conference. We had a
:05:13. > :05:17.couple of drinks, we had dinner at the reception. We exchanged our
:05:17. > :05:23.details. The next day, we went for dinner and the theatre. Did you
:05:23. > :05:30.sleep with him? Yes. Did you know what his job was? He was a Dutch
:05:30. > :05:35.diplomat, that is everything I knew. Did you ask him about his job?
:05:35. > :05:41.Spying, the second oldest profession in the world, still
:05:41. > :05:46.relies on human sources to deliver what nothing else can. People look
:05:46. > :05:49.at technology in the spy business. Because it is sexy, they think it
:05:49. > :05:54.is the centre of the universe. I don't care if it is the 15th
:05:54. > :06:02.century or the 21st century, if you want to understand intent, you need
:06:02. > :06:05.a human being. In 2006, Katia moved to the UK. Mike Hancock gave her a
:06:05. > :06:12.job as his parliamentary researcher. She was vetted and given a
:06:12. > :06:15.parliamentary pass. Now with a House of Commons pass, Katia was at
:06:15. > :06:22.the heart of Westminster and, potentially, close to some of its
:06:22. > :06:26.secrets. At Westminster, Mike Hancock was a busy MP, with a seat
:06:26. > :06:30.on two important parliamentary bodies, the All-Party Russia Group
:06:30. > :06:34.and the Defence Select Committee. What kind of documents would Mike
:06:34. > :06:38.Hancock have had access to? Would they be confidential? For the most
:06:38. > :06:43.part, it is not seeing some plan of a bomb-making installation or
:06:43. > :06:48.something, like on a James Bond episode. It is nothing like that at
:06:48. > :06:53.all. What you are trying to do is gain information, knowing who is
:06:53. > :06:57.sleeping with who, having access to a building where there are lots of
:06:57. > :07:02.other people's researchers you can get to know, where most tours are
:07:02. > :07:05.not locked, that would be immensely useful to another country's
:07:05. > :07:10.intelligence gathering operation. Did you see any confidential
:07:10. > :07:14.documents in the course of your work? Never. Did Mike Hancock ever
:07:14. > :07:18.show you will give you any confidential documents? No. I never
:07:18. > :07:22.hid the fact that Katia was a Russian, working for me. Why should
:07:22. > :07:28.I? She was very good at her job. Irrespective of personal
:07:28. > :07:32.relationships, she was the best person for that job. As well as
:07:32. > :07:37.being Mike Hancock's assistant, Katia was his live-in lover and
:07:37. > :07:42.shared his London flat. She had been keeping a very personal diary,
:07:42. > :07:49.referring to him as her darling teddy bear. She wrote, there is no
:07:49. > :07:53.one more tender and sincere than you. Did you love him? I think we
:07:53. > :07:57.have a judgment on that. It clearly states that we had a genuine
:07:57. > :08:04.relationship. I don't think that I need to try to respond to that. It
:08:04. > :08:07.has been scrutinised well enough. Mike Hancock's constituency is in
:08:07. > :08:13.Portsmouth, home to most of Britain's warships and headquarters
:08:13. > :08:20.of Britain's fleet. So, the MP for Portsmouth South is in a position
:08:20. > :08:26.to know a lot. MI5, the security service, has an obvious interest in
:08:26. > :08:31.Russians working at a house of Commons. Checks are routine, as the
:08:31. > :08:36.potential for a Russian sleeper spy is always there. MI5 called Katia
:08:36. > :08:39.to set up a meeting. A man called me, I picked up my office phone and
:08:39. > :08:46.he said that he was from the Ministry of Defence and he would
:08:46. > :08:52.like to meet me. Did you meet him? Yes. Did he say he was from the
:08:52. > :08:56.Ministry of Defence? No, not any more. He now said he was from MI5.
:08:56. > :09:00.Her visit to wanted to know if she had had any contact with people at
:09:01. > :09:07.the Russian embassy. Together with him, we went through all my
:09:07. > :09:11.business cards. He found the car of Boris. The business card that
:09:12. > :09:17.interested MI5 the most belonged to a man working at the Russian
:09:17. > :09:20.embassy in Kensington. MI5 were concerned about this individual, as
:09:20. > :09:28.they suspected he was one of the many spies working undercover at
:09:28. > :09:35.the embassy. He was referred to in court as Boris. My understanding is
:09:35. > :09:39.that she was picked up by MI5, not because there was any smoking gun
:09:39. > :09:45.evidence against her, not because she was found carrying documents,
:09:45. > :09:53.secret documents out of Parliament or had a memory stick about her
:09:53. > :09:58.person, but because she was making contact with a Russian intelligence
:09:58. > :10:03.officer in the Russian embassy in Kensington, in whom the MI5 were
:10:03. > :10:07.already taking an interest. Katia had originally met Boris from the
:10:07. > :10:11.embassy at a conference in London. He subsequently struck up a
:10:11. > :10:21.conversation with her at a nearby underground station. Do you think
:10:21. > :10:21.
:10:21. > :10:26.I am questioning it now. I think maybe. Katia says that she told
:10:26. > :10:31.Mike Hancock about her encounter with Boris. She says he told her
:10:31. > :10:35.not to have anything to do with him. There are lots of Russians in
:10:35. > :10:40.London, some of them desirable and some of them very undesirable. She
:10:40. > :10:45.had to make their own judgments on lots of people. This was a specific
:10:45. > :10:51.operative working inside the Russian community in the embassy. I
:10:51. > :10:55.felt that would be completely inappropriate for her to meet them.
:10:55. > :11:01.Although the cold war ended over 20 years ago, relations between Russia
:11:01. > :11:06.and the UK are still characterised by mutual suspicion. MI5 says that
:11:06. > :11:15.the number of Russian intelligence officers in London is up to Cold
:11:15. > :11:19.War levels. The most dramatic recent evidence of recent Russian
:11:19. > :11:26.activity in London was the murder by poisoning of Alexander
:11:26. > :11:32.Litvinenko. Every day you could see that he became worse. Every day it
:11:32. > :11:42.was a fight for life. He had been an outspoken critic of the then
:11:42. > :11:45.
:11:45. > :11:52.In Moscow, the former Russian intelligence officer suspected of
:11:52. > :12:02.the killing, Andrei Lugovoi, is now a put in supporting politician,
:12:02. > :12:17.
:12:17. > :12:20.elected to Russia's parliament. -- Following the killing, he believes
:12:20. > :12:30.that Katia is simply a pawn in the wider game between British and
:12:30. > :12:56.
:12:56. > :13:01.The idea that, at the end of the day, the Russia we are living with
:13:01. > :13:05.his in many ways not that different from the old Soviet Union, and all
:13:05. > :13:10.the problems we had with that old Soviet Union, is very, very
:13:10. > :13:13.chilling. Frankly, if MI5 did not take this sort of thing seriously,
:13:13. > :13:21.we would want our money back. And we would be entitled to get our
:13:21. > :13:26.In 2010, Mike Hancock ended his relationship with Katia. And Katia
:13:26. > :13:29.moved out of his flat. She then met her next lover. A high ranking
:13:29. > :13:36.German NATO official whom she met at another London conference. He
:13:36. > :13:43.was in his fifties. Did you know what he did? Yes.
:13:43. > :13:47.you talk about his work with NATO? No. Did you sleep with him? Yes.
:13:47. > :13:57.Were you a honeytrap spy? No. I'm sorry to disappoint you. It would
:13:57. > :13:58.
:13:58. > :14:03.have been a much better story if I In the summer of 2010, alarm bells
:14:03. > :14:06.from across the Atlantic rang in MI5 Headquarters. The FBI had
:14:06. > :14:12.uncovered a sleeper cell of ten Russians who'd been living all
:14:12. > :14:15.American lives unsuspected in the United States. The most prominent
:14:15. > :14:20.Russian recruit to the cell was Anna Chapman who'd once been
:14:20. > :14:24.married to a British citizen. On her return to Moscow, Chapman was
:14:24. > :14:31.greeted as a Russian hero, cashing in on her new found fame with a
:14:31. > :14:34.series of photo shoots. She even went on to host her own TV show.
:14:34. > :14:43.All I'm going to say is say is I'm interested in helping other people,
:14:43. > :14:46.that's all. That was a very disturbing case because it was
:14:46. > :14:54.clear the Russians were putting a great deal of money into developing
:14:54. > :14:57.long term sleeper penetration agents at a young age. They could
:14:57. > :15:06.be expected, one way or another, to grow into the fabric of American
:15:06. > :15:09.political culture. But Katia was never an illegal. She
:15:09. > :15:15.was living quite openly under her own name and was known to the
:15:15. > :15:19.intelligence services. She says that she cooperated with them fully.
:15:19. > :15:23.In August 2010, Katia was returning home from a holiday in Croatia with
:15:23. > :15:28.a group of female friends. It was her birthday and they had been away
:15:28. > :15:33.to celebrate. It was midnight. They were waiting for me there to arrive.
:15:33. > :15:42.They knew that I would arrive. Katia was taken away and
:15:42. > :15:44.interviewed by two MI5 officers. They showed me a picture of my then
:15:44. > :15:49.boyfriend, which made me laugh because I couldn't understand why
:15:49. > :15:53.would they be interested in my relationships. Katia's boyfriend at
:15:53. > :15:57.the time was the senior German official who worked for NATO.
:15:57. > :16:02.What was the tone of the interviews? It started neutral but
:16:02. > :16:05.very quickly it went into aggressive. I mean, sitting in the
:16:05. > :16:08.middle of the night. You don't know where exactly where you were
:16:08. > :16:11.brought by the car. There were people screaming at you. You have
:16:11. > :16:21.no idea what's going on. How were you feeling? I can't even describe.
:16:21. > :16:23.
:16:23. > :16:26.Katia says that the screaming was done by a man. Whereas, in
:16:26. > :16:29.subsequent interviews conducted in a series of up market London hotels,
:16:29. > :16:33.a woman adopted a very different approach. She tried to be friendly,
:16:33. > :16:40.talking about herself a lot. Her son, for example. The books she
:16:40. > :16:43.read. Did you realise what she was trying to do, the way she was
:16:43. > :16:47.operating? Yes, but I didn't mind that. I'd rather have that than
:16:47. > :16:50.somebody screaming at me that I'm a liar.
:16:50. > :16:56.MI5's interviews with with Katia continued over a period of months
:16:56. > :16:59.towards the end of 2010. scariest part of this interrogation
:16:59. > :17:04.was that I've seen that these people were unprofessional and
:17:04. > :17:07.paranoid. Everything they've seen in Russian people was a spy. If you
:17:07. > :17:13.are Russian in this country you are a spy. They could not understand
:17:13. > :17:17.how a Russian in London can speak English language. That was one of
:17:17. > :17:21.the questions they were querying. They believe that if you are
:17:21. > :17:24.Russian the only way you can learn English language is in some kind of
:17:24. > :17:34.spy school. Katia's former lover was also
:17:34. > :17:36.
:17:36. > :17:40.invited to meetings with MI5. I invited them to come to the House
:17:40. > :17:43.of Commons. I said, well, I'll come to Thames House, meet you at your
:17:43. > :17:48.headquarters. They didn't want to do that. They said, "Oh, we'd
:17:48. > :17:52.rather meet you in a hotel." So had this rather bizarre arrangement
:17:52. > :17:55.where I go to a hotel, I find them in a room. And then I go into the
:17:55. > :17:59.room and they lock the door. I didn't like some of the questions
:17:59. > :18:02.they asked, because they were of a personal nature. But I had nothing
:18:02. > :18:05.to hide, so I answered them all truthfully. What I found strange
:18:05. > :18:09.was each time I tried to probe what is this about, what is the
:18:09. > :18:12.allegation, they wouldn't say. They didn't say and I think it was
:18:12. > :18:20.because they didn't know what to say. And I think that was rather
:18:20. > :18:24.Katia discovered she would be asked to meet at one hotel and then be
:18:24. > :18:31.asked to go to another slightly less grand. The Savoy became the
:18:31. > :18:34.Strand Palace. Although Katia wasn't to know it, this was to be
:18:34. > :18:44.her final interview with the Security Service. It appears that
:18:44. > :18:47.by this stage, MI5's investigation I had a knock on my door, seven in
:18:47. > :18:51.the morning. I opened my door. There were five people standing
:18:51. > :18:57.outside my door with a light in my face. They came in. They asked for
:18:57. > :19:02.my passport. They didn't even look at it. They put it in their pocket
:19:02. > :19:06.and said that I have to dress and pack up and we're leaving. And I
:19:06. > :19:08.will be leaving this country shortly.
:19:09. > :19:11.At the beginning of December last year, Katia was served with
:19:11. > :19:21.deportation papers on the grounds that her presence in the United
:19:21. > :19:24.
:19:24. > :19:28.Kingdom was considered a threat to national security. A Russian woman
:19:28. > :19:33.working for a Liberal Democrat MP is arrested for espionage. MI5 it
:19:34. > :19:40.raise concerns about the 25 or graduate who now faces deportation.
:19:40. > :19:46.Katia was determined to fight her case and decided to appeal. She had
:19:46. > :19:49.to do so through the Special Immigration Court. On the face of
:19:49. > :19:55.things, MI5's case looked circumstancially strong. MI5
:19:55. > :20:01.thought you were a spy. They didn't make it up. I can't imagine anybody
:20:01. > :20:03.would believe, based on their case, that I was a spy. I think they
:20:03. > :20:08.probably believed it, given the knowledge of how the Russian
:20:08. > :20:10.intelligence services work. You seemed to be the perfect case, the
:20:10. > :20:15.perfect profile, given your relationship with a series of
:20:15. > :20:18.powerful political and security and diplomatic figures, including an MP.
:20:18. > :20:25.I don't know what they know about Russian intelligence. I don't know
:20:25. > :20:32.much about Russian intelligence. I have learned quite a lot in this
:20:32. > :20:37.process but my knowledge is very limited. Nick Fielding was an
:20:37. > :20:40.expert witness and part of in Katia's defence team. Isn't it
:20:40. > :20:45.perhaps more than coincidence that she chose as her lovers a Dutch
:20:45. > :20:50.diplomat, a NATO official and a British MP? That is not the extent
:20:50. > :20:54.of her relationships, according to the evidence presented to court.
:20:54. > :20:56.And there were other people who were not involved in these areas of
:20:56. > :21:02.work and who had very mundane occupations and don't fit that
:21:02. > :21:07.pattern at all. But she still had sexual relationships with... A
:21:07. > :21:11.Dutch diplomat, a NATO official and a British MP. That's absolutely
:21:11. > :21:13.true. On the other hand, she was somebody who was a student of
:21:13. > :21:20.foreign relations. That was her degree and her postgraduate degree,
:21:20. > :21:23.and she was mixing in precisely those circles. Katia and her legal
:21:23. > :21:27.team took a momentous decision in a desperate bid to convince the three
:21:27. > :21:34.judges. One of whom was a former Director General of MI5. This
:21:34. > :21:37.involved revealing the contents of her highly personal diaries.
:21:37. > :21:40.When you decided to appeal against your deportation, did you realise
:21:40. > :21:50.that it would entail revealing much of the intimate details of your
:21:50. > :21:51.
:21:51. > :21:58.private life in public? Yes. you were prepared to do that?
:21:58. > :22:07.to weigh... The two options I had. One is that I will be forever
:22:07. > :22:10.branded a spy but will be able to keep my private life private. Or I
:22:11. > :22:15.had to give all of this out into press and into the public, but be
:22:15. > :22:22.able to prove that I'm not a spy. And for me, more important was to
:22:22. > :22:25.prove that I'm not a spy. The only way we could try to win this case
:22:25. > :22:33.was by really giving the court an avalanche of evidence about Katia's
:22:33. > :22:41.life. About her relationships, about what she's done over the past
:22:41. > :22:51.ten years. To show and to try to prove a negative, which is that she
:22:51. > :22:52.
:22:52. > :22:54.is not and never was a Russian spy. I was crying in my lawyer's office.
:22:54. > :23:04.I was absolutely prepared to be humiliated by the press, by
:23:04. > :23:06.
:23:06. > :23:09.everybody around me, yes. appeals hearing lasted for nine
:23:09. > :23:13.days. Having decided to reveal her personal thoughts in her diaries,
:23:13. > :23:17.Katia was taken aback when their authenticity was questioned.
:23:17. > :23:20.But if you had been a spy, it's reasonable to think that you would
:23:20. > :23:23.have written the diary as part of your cover. It would be incredible.
:23:23. > :23:28.It would be very skilful. But spies, Russian spies are very skilful.
:23:28. > :23:33.I've never met any. I don't know. Katia's diaries became crucial
:23:33. > :23:40.evidence. When the judge declared them to be genuine, MI5's case
:23:40. > :23:43.started to unravel. In closing arguments, Katia's lawyers said the
:23:43. > :23:53.MI5 investigation was more akin to Inspector Clouseau than George
:23:53. > :23:54.
:23:54. > :23:56.Smiley. The senior case officer in this case had only been with the
:23:56. > :24:00.counter intelligence department since the spring of 2010. She
:24:00. > :24:05.didn't speak Russian. She wasn't sure how many people in her team
:24:05. > :24:13.even spoke Russian. She had received effectively on-the-job
:24:13. > :24:16.training in counter intelligence. All these things point to somebody
:24:16. > :24:21.who doesn't have a huge background and a great deal of knowledge about
:24:21. > :24:26.the way in which the Russian intelligence services operate. I
:24:26. > :24:29.think that is a little bit disturbing to me. How do you regard
:24:30. > :24:37.the way in which MI5 have handled your case, and brought your case?
:24:37. > :24:39.Extremely unprofessional. I was absolutely shocked. I can
:24:39. > :24:42.understand that they would have suspicion about me as a Russian
:24:42. > :24:49.working in Parliament. About my relationships as well. But
:24:49. > :24:53.suspicions is not everything. You have to find evidence. Security
:24:53. > :24:58.Services case was found to be wanting at every stage. The last
:24:58. > :25:00.year has been a Kafkaesque nightmare.
:25:00. > :25:04.Although the court vindicated Katia, the judgement was criticised her
:25:04. > :25:09.character. It described her as immature, calculating, emotional
:25:09. > :25:12.and self centred. But her supporters have hit back.
:25:13. > :25:18.absolutely delighted but disgusted about the time it's taken. And the
:25:18. > :25:21.way in which the security services have acted. As well as the way in
:25:21. > :25:26.which senior politicians within the Home Office have acted on this
:25:26. > :25:35.issue. They had a pig-headed adherence to their belief, and
:25:35. > :25:38.reasonable suspicion isn't enough. And once that reasonable suspicion
:25:38. > :25:41.is met with evidence, which suggests very strongly that she is
:25:41. > :25:48.not and never was a Russian spy, they should have reconsidered their
:25:48. > :25:52.case. The more that MI5 is demoralised, the more it's laughed
:25:52. > :25:55.at. The more it's seen as unnecessary in today's world, the
:25:56. > :26:05.greater the chance for those who would do us harm or simply want to
:26:06. > :26:09.
:26:09. > :26:12.know sensitive things about us, to Although there will be
:26:12. > :26:20.disappointment at the Home Office that it has lost a high profile
:26:20. > :26:24.case, the mood at MI5 Headquarters is likely to be more sanguine. They
:26:24. > :26:27.feared that Katia was a long term Russian spy. And though they
:26:27. > :26:33.couldn't prove it, she has now been burned and rendered inoperative. To
:26:33. > :26:40.MI5, despite the inevitable embarrassment, it's job done.
:26:40. > :26:44.was an extremely unfair process. I think if I can describe it in war
:26:44. > :26:47.terms, it would be me on a horse with a sword against tanks and
:26:47. > :26:51.aircrafts. So not for a second actually I thought that there was a
:26:51. > :26:58.possibility that I could win. Spying is a world of assessments
:26:58. > :27:04.and suspicions. The court accepted it may have been hoodwinked by a
:27:04. > :27:09.rigorously trained spy, but thought it unlikely. Katia knows the answer.