Ex-MI6 chief details Balkan assassination plan

The former head of MI6 has admitted in court that a secret plan was drawn up to assassinate a Balkan leader suspected of genocide.

Sir Richard Dearlove, the most senior spy to give evidence before a British jury, confirmed that MI6 was authorised to use "lethal force" against specific targets if it had ministerial approval.

Richard Tomlinson had claimed that MI6 had plotted to assassinate the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, while David Shayler has spoken in the past of a plot to kill Libya's president Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Sir Richard confirmed that a plan to kill a Balkan leader during the war in 1993 was put down on paper by an agent, but said it was "killed stone dead" straight away.

He said the target was not Milosevic, but would not be drawn on whether the planned victim had been the notorious Serbian warlord Arkan (Zeljko Raznatovic), who was shot dead in 2000. There is no suggestion MI6 was involved.

"An officer working in one of the sections to do with the Balkans had suggested the possibility of assassinating another political personality who was involved in ethnic cleansing," Sir Richard said.

The inquest heard that under the laws governing MI6 provision was made for "lethal force" to be used but only with Government authorisation in times of emergency or crisis which caused danger to the UK or its citizens.

Sir Richard described how MI6 would require authorisation from the Foreign Secretary to carry out any operation that would involve breaking the law, such as bugging or assassination, even if the act was being carried out abroad.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/21/ndiana121.xml

CovOps wrote:: Sir Richard described how MI6 would require authorisation from the Foreign Secretary to carry out any operation that would involve breaking the law, such as bugging or assassination, even if the act was being carried out abroad.

Since when is the "foreign secretary" above the law?

Since always...

Those laws are for the slaves... not the slave masters...

Ex-MI6 chief details Balkan assassination plan

Ex-MI6 chief details Balkan assassination plan

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