October 21, 2011
MI5 References Emerge in Phone Hacking Lawsuit
By JO BECKER and RAVI SOMAIYA
A British private detective at the center of the phone hacking scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch’s media empire cited the MI5 file of a close friend of Princes William and Harry in notes he kept on his work for the tabloid The News of the World, according to a suit filed in London.
But the court papers, released to The New York Times, do not clearly indicate whether the detective, Glenn Mulcaire, accessed the highly classified intelligence file directly, was told of its contents or was simply noting its existence.
The documents, dated Sept. 23, accuse Mr. Mulcaire and the now-closed News of the World of invading the privacy of Guy Pelly, a London nightclub owner and a confidant of the princes. The defendants, the suit says, hacked Mr. Pelly’s cellphone, set up an e-mail address in his name and flew him to Las Vegas on false pretenses to trick him into revealing details about his royal friends.
But the most intriguing accusation relates to at least two references to Mr. Pelly’s MI5 profile in Mr. Mulcaire’s detailed records. He kept copious notes covering his conversations with his employers at the tabloid, his sources, his methods and the information he gleaned.
One reference, the suit said, was in an electronic file titled “Project Guy W. Pelly,” which “included his mobile number, his parents’ landline number, his parents’ address and a further reference to the MI5 profile.”
Somewhat ambiguously, the suit states: “It is to be inferred that individuals close to members of the Royal Family have MI5 profiles and that this information was obtained unlawfully by the Defendants.”
Daisy Dunlop, a spokeswoman for News International, the British arm of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, said that the company’s interpretation of the evidence is that Mr. Mulcaire found out about the MI5 profile from an intercepted voice mail message. There is no basis, she said, “to conclude that Mulcaire or NOTW had access to MI5 files.”
A lawyer for Mr. Pelly, Mark Thomson, who is seeking further information on Mr. Mulcaire’s activities through the courts, declined to comment. Sarah Webb, a lawyer for Mr. Mulcaire, said he was unable to respond, citing a continuing criminal investigation and civil proceedings.
The suit is one of dozens to emerge from a scandal that has revealed disturbingly close ties among elements of Britain’s news media, political leaders and law enforcement officials. It has led to the resignations of two top Scotland Yard officers and the arrests of 16 of The News of the World’s former employees, including its former editor Andy Coulson, who served as Prime Minister David Cameron’s chief spokesman until he was forced to resign this year.
MI5 and its foreign intelligence counterpart MI6 are highly respected and have sweeping powers to collect information in pursuit of national security. Their legendary emphasis on secrecy is enshrined in British law. It is a criminal offense for their agents to leak “any information, document or other article relating to security or intelligence.”
Tom Watson, a British lawmaker who has been prominent in Parliament’s investigation into phone hacking, said the mere existence of notes citing MI5 material raised serious questions.
Parliament will “urgently” want to know, he said, whether the police, who hold Mr. Mulcaire’s notes, told MI5 that there was a potential breach in its security — and if so, whether MI5 acted to inform a judicial inquiry into the tabloid’s wrongdoing.
Further, Mr. Watson said, “If operatives working for a tabloid newspaper have been accessing the files of MI5 illicitly, then that is a very, very serious, massive breach of security.”
A spokesman for the department that oversees MI5, the Home Office, cited a policy to decline to comment on issues pertaining to the agency. Scotland Yard also declined to comment.
