Outrage at secret London sting by US spies

Undercover US agents are staging secret "sting" operations in Britain against criminal and terrorist suspects they want to extradite to the US. In a recent operation, agents from the Department of Homeland Security set up a suspect by posing as dealers wanting to illegally sell night-vision goggles for export to Iran. The spies arranged a series of clandestine meetings in London hotels, which they secretly filmed as evidence. It is thought to be the first time US agents have been caught using such sting tactics in Britain. Urgent questions were being asked about whether the British government had been aware of the operation. If so, it raises issues of the state collaborating with foreign agencies to entrap suspects–and if not it raises the specter of US spies working unchecked on British soil. Human rights campaigners demanded an explanation from UK Home Secretary John Reid and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett. The case has provoked a huge debate because the agents used tactics banned in Britain. In addition, the offense of which he is accused would not be a crime in the UK. If British police officers had employed this type of sting, the ensuing case would almost certainly be thrown out of court. In July 2003, ten defendants accused of laundering almost $29 million walked free from Southwark Crown Court after Judge George Bathurst-Norman described police actions as "massively illegal." The judge said a police sting aimed at trapping them had "overstepped the line between legitimate crime detection and unacceptable crime creation." Following the US spy sting an Iranian-born businessman–named on Nov. 11 as former Iranian ambassador to Jordan Nosratollah Tajik–now faces extradition to the US. Tajik, who has lived with his family in Britain for several years, is accused of conspiring to sell military equipment to Islamic extremists. He was arrested on US behalf by British police officers before the alleged deal went ahead and detained in prison for a week. The sting operation also raises new questions about Britain's one-sided extradition arrangements with the United States, under which British citizens can be sent across the Atlantic for trial with ease. It is much harder for British authorities to extradite US citizens to the UK. During the operation, the undercover US agents, who were unarmed, claimed they wanted to sell night-vision goggles, said to be worth about $179,000 for export to Iran, in breach of US export controls. Tajik, who is 52 and was recently in the hospital with a serious illness, has since been released on substantial bail and has reported daily to a police station near his Durham home. He is an honorary fellow of Durham University's Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and has an engineering degree from the University of Westminster. Tajik is now due to appear at an extradition hearing in a Westminster magistrate's court on Dec. 4. Tajik's legal team will claim he has no terrorist connections or criminal record and that the US agents acted illegally as "agents provocateurs" by trapping him. Sources close to Tajik say he feels he is being made a scapegoat for US opposition to Iran, and the case could widen the rift between the US and Iran because of Tajik's former diplomatic role. The sting comes just days after it was revealed that UK Home Office Ministers signed away crucial British extradition rights with the United States without holding a single meeting with their US counterparts. Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said last night: "We already have a one-sided extradition arrangement that allows people to be bundled off to America without so much as a by-your-leave. Now we have US agents operating in Britain entrapping people into criminality in the first place. The Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary must tell us the nature of these agents' operations in Britain." Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Nick Clegg said on Nov. 11: "Everyone wants the British and American security services to co-operate well, but we don't want a situation in which American authorities can act on British soil with complete impunity and without regard for British domestic law." The Metropolitan Police refused to comment on the case. A spokesperson said: "We do not discuss our investigative techniques, but we do nothing that is illegal and we work to Home Office guidelines." A Home Office spokesperson said: "We are aware that this man is wanted by the US Government on charges of alleged arms sales. The matter is before the courts, so we cannot comment."