|
|
 |
Spy Attributed to Russia
// Unknown agent captured in Canada
Someone attempting to leave the country with falsified identification was arrested at Trudeau Airport in Montreal on Tuesday. The National Post newspaper suggested in its reportage that the person taken into custody with identification in the name of Paul William Hampel was a Russian intelligence agent in the country illegally. Kommersant special correspondent Dmitry Sidorov in Washington has the details.
A Kommersant source in the Canadian government confirmed the arrest at the Montreal arrest. The person passing himself off as Paul Hampel was arrested by the national border service, not the national intelligence service (CSIS) as was reported by some media. According to the information obtained by Kommersant, Hampel was taken for interrogation to the Lavalle immigration center.
Melissa Leclerc of the Canadian Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ministry told Kommersant that the order for the arrest of the person posing as Paul Hampel was signed by Minister of Immigration and Colonization Monte Solberg and Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day. Leclerc said that information that Hampel worked for the special services of another country was the basis for his arrest. Leclerc declined to say what country Hampel worked for and would not comment on The National Post report that he was a member of the Russian special services. She said that the CSIS and Canadian Royal Mounted Police, which deals with counterintelligence, had gathered information on his intelligence activities. “We don't arrest people for nothing,” she commented.
A recently retired CIA agent who worked in Canada commented for Kommersant that “Very tolerant guys work in the Canadian intelligence. If they arrested him, it means that they spotted something serious. They don't take anybody into custody until they have enough charges.”
Court proceedings may start against Hampel in a week. The Canadian federal court, to which the evidence of espionage related to Hampel was sent, has a week to begin hearings, or else it must free him.
Leclerc was unable to say whether representatives of the Canadian government had contacted Russian diplomats. “They probably can't help us,” she said.
Russian consul general in Montreal Igor Golubovsky told Kommersant that no one had contacted him concerning the case. “I read the article in The National Post with an officer of the diplomatic mission and did not see any evidence,” he said. Nonetheless, he added that “the appearance of such information is regrettable and will undoubtedly influence the good relations between Russia and Canada.”
Before his assignment in Canada, Golubovsky served as first secretary for culture in the Russian embassy in Washington. He recalled that, at the time of the arrest of Russian agent Aldridge Ames in the United States, American intelligence services contacted the Russian embassy immediately. “I think that, if the Canadians call, it not be me but the embassy in Ottawa,” he said.
Alexey Lisenkov, press attachй at the Russian embassy in Ottawa, told Kommersant that neither Canadian authorities nor Moscow had contacted the embassy about Hampel. “The Canadian authorities could call any country's embassy with equal luck,” he commented. “I don't see any real evidence that the arrestee has any connection with Russia except the article in The National Post.”
Dmitry Sidorov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 17, 2006
|
|
|
