Mike Hancock (British Politician) - Russian Aide's Arrest, Espionage Allegation and Extra-marital Affair

Russian Aide's Arrest, Espionage Allegation and Extra-marital Affair

On 8 August 2010, one of Hancock's parliamentary aides, Russian national Ekaterina "Katia" Zatuliveter (Екатерина Затуливетер) and her friend were questioned at Gatwick Airport on returning from celebrating her 25th birthday in Croatia. Hancock had met Zatuliveter in Strasbourg where she worked for the Council of Europe. She started working as an aide to Hancock in 2008, after having been an intern at the House of Commons for a while and undergoing security vetting. Until Hancock was ousted as chairman of the All-Party Group on Russia in June 2010, Zatuliveter had been the group's secretary, giving her direct access to all MPs with the greatest interest in Russia and legitimate reason to liaise with the Russian authorities; according to sources at Westminster, Zatuliveter had access to Hancock's private emails, and virtually ran the UK-Russia group.

Reportedly, Zatuliveter had been identified by MI5 (UK Security Service) when surveillance linked her to another person with close links to the Russian embassy in London; the latter was suspected of working for the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service.

On 4 December 2010, it was reported that Zatuliveter was facing deportation in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, after she was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Service on behalf of MI5 and the Border and Immigration Agency on 2 December 2010, on suspicion of espionage, the police action having been approved by Home Secretary Theresa May. The incident happened in the wake of the uncovering and expulsion of ten Russian sleeper agents in the US in June 2010, including a young woman who had British citizenship, Anna Chapman.

On 5 December 2010, Hancock confirmed the detention of Zatuliveter and advised the media that she was appealing deportation. In subsequent interviews on the same day, he called the espionage accusations "absolutely ludicrous" commenting further: "I have no reason to believe she did anything but act honourably during the time she was working for me. She is determined to fight her corner and she genuinely believes, and I back her 100%, that she has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong. If she has, the (security) services are right. But they need to prove their point now." Hancock also insisted that there was nothing unusual about the requests for information his office had tabled on the locations of the berths for Britain's submarines, the full inventory of the country's missiles as well as other sensitive parts of Britain’s defences. Hancock had asked 50 questions in the Commons on issues associated with Britain's nuclear deterrent since the start of 2008, having asked a total of 119 since 1984; and asked 49 written questions of Ministers on nuclear issues since the start of 2008, having asked a total of 108 since 1984.

The media quoted some of Hancock's former Council of Europe's liberal group colleagues as saying that in the 2000s Hancock would usually come to their regular private gatherings alongside a series of young Russian and Ukrainian women - in spite of protests by some of those; Hancock's former colleagues said they had witnessed his alleged assistants using the computers of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the liberal group secretariat, which were supposed to be protected by a password; apparently his 'assistants' knew the password. Hancock denied claims by Mátyás Eörsi that he had failed to declare all of his visits to Russia, saying that he did not know exactly how many trips he had made to Russia, as his passport had "fallen into the sea".

In his 7 December 2010 interview, Oleg Gordievsky, ex-KGB intelligence expert, said he was convinced that Zatuliveter's activity had "inflicted more damage than the entire KGB rezidentura"; according to his information, Zatuliveter had been recruited when a student at St. Petersburg University. On the same day, it was reported that Hancock had allegedly agreed to help another Russian national, a 25-year-old Ekaterina Paderina, stay in Britain after she ran into visa problems in the late 1990s.

On 7 December 2010 Russia's Foreign Ministry described the affair as "vaudeville based on a threadbare spy plot" being whipped up by the UK media, which could "only be regarded with pity".

On 9 December 2010, Yekaterina Zatuliveter filed an appeal against arrest and deportation to Russia; in a statement released by her lawyer Tessa Gregory, Zatuliveter said British authorities had failed to provide evidence of her work not being "conducive to national security"; of MI5 she said: "I fully cooperated with them when they questioned me. I have nothing to hide and was only doing my job as a parliamentary researcher." Also on that day, Alexander Sternik, Russia's chargé d'affaires said of Hancock: "Mike Hancock is one of those people who are known to have a balanced objective and sympathetic approach towards the modern Russia and its foreign policy." Sternik also said that the Russian view of the affair was that Hancock was being targeted because he was a parliamentarian who "showed sympathy and understanding for the modern Russian state"; of Zatuliver's detention he said: "We have not received, although we insisted on this, any clarification as to the motives and the reasons that this detention was made."

As was officially revealed on 21 December 2010, on 10 December the Foreign Secretary William Hague had demanded that the Russian embassy in London withdraw a member of their staff, an avowed intelligence officer, from the UK - "in response to clear evidence of activities by the Russian intelligence services against UK interests"; the ultimatum was purportedly unrelated to the Zatuliveter affair.

A Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) hearing on her case begun on 18 October 2011 was told by Zatuliveter about two diplomats from the Russian embassy she had met, including one known as “Boris” on whose business card she had written “KGB” as she had heard rumours he was a spy.

Zatuliveter admitted to having had a four year affair with Hancock, and also admitted that she had had affairs with a NATO official (a 56 year old married German diplomat nicknamed Bananaman whose daughter lived in the USA), a Dutch diplomat and a senior UN official.

On 29 November 2011, the SIAC delivered its ruling that allowed the appeal; the SIAC's Open Judgment concluded: "We are satisfied that it is significantly more likely than not that she was and is not a Russian agent."