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| Suspected MI6 front company spied on enviromental campain groups |
A company suspected as being a front for MI6 spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for large oil companies, including Shell and BP. The firm called 'Hakluyt' has a small number of directors made up of supposed ex MI6 agents, one of which is Mike Reynolds, MI6's former head of station in Germany. Another high level figure is Christopher James, the managing director, who had been head of the MI6 section that liased with British firms. Reynolds and other MI6 executives left the intelligence service after the cold war ended to form Hakluyt in 1995. Their has been a number of claims within the intelligence community that Hakluyt was started by MI6 officers to carry out "deniable" operations. The company has close links to the oil industry through Sir Peter Cazalet, the former deputy chairman of BP, who helped to establish Hakluyt before he retired, last year, and Sir Peter Holmes, former chairman of Shell, who is president of its foundation. - The firm's agent, posed as a left-wing sympathiser and film maker, was asked to betray plans of Greenpeace's activities against oil giants. - He also tried to dupe Anita Roddick's Body Shop group to pass on information about its opposition to Shell drilling for oil in a Nigerian tribal land. The spy, German-born Manfred Schlickenrieder, was hired by Hakluyt. Known by the code name Camus, Mr Schlickenreider had worked for the German foreign intelligence service gathering information about terrorist groups, including the Red Army Faction. One of his assignments from Hakluyt was to gather information about the movements of the motor vessel Greenpeace in the north Atlantic. Greenpeace claims the scandal has echoes of the Rainbow Warrior affair, when its ship protesting against nuclear testing in the South Pacific was blown up by the French secret service in 1985. A Dutch photographer died in the explosion. MPs believe the affair poses serious questions about the blurring of the divisions between the secret service, a supposed private intelligence company and the interests of big companies. And are to demand an inquiry by Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, |