Pakistan protested yesterday over the failure of the British government to confirm whether MI5 agents attempted to bug its high commission in London and whether Tony Blair's government authorised this covert action against an ally.
A Pakistan foreign office spokesman, Masood Khan, told a news conference in Islamabad: "There has been a lot of consternation and anger about this." He added that security at the Pakistan high commission had since been beefed up. "We hope the British government will cooperate with us," Mr Khan said. "The ball is in their court; they must tell us what happened."
The Pakistan government is unlikely to get an answer from the British government, either in public or private. A British Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday: "We never comment on intelligence matters." The row has been simmering since the Sunday Times on November 2 revealed that MI5 worked with a team of builders to help it gain access to an unnamed high commission in 2001. The Sunday Times said it was prevented from naming the high commission by the Official Secrets Act but the Daily Times in Pakistan subsequently disclosed that the Pakistan high commission in London was the target.
The episode exposes an extraordinary degree of bungling and amateurism by a group of MI5 officers. A workman, who MI5 codenamed Notatation, gained access to sensitive parts of the building, including filing cabinets. But the plan to bug radio transmitters, phones and other communications was apparently never acted upon after Notation got cold feet.
There is further embarrassment for the security services. Bugging of or phone taps on foreign embassies, high commissions or any other buildings in Britain requires a warrant from the home secretary, but the Home Office is adamant that David Blunkett did not sign one. If the Home Office is telling the truth, it suggests that MI5 was acting on a freelance basis, reawakening comparisions with the Spycatcher row in which rogue agents tried to destabilise the Wilson government in the 1970s.
The latest saga, at times more comical than sinister, began late in 2001 when the Pakistan high commission decided its prestigious building at Lowndes Square, in Knightsbridge, had become too dowdy and put out to tender a contract to replace doors, windows, tiles, carpets and other fittings. This was in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks when the US and Britain were still uncertain about the position of Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped create the Taliban, who in turn harboured Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's military government, forced to choose between the west and the Taliban, opted for the west, a choice that now makes the disclosure of the failed bugging attempt all the more damaging and embarrassing to the British government. From being an outsider, Pakistan became an ally in the "war against terrorism", arresting more than 500 suspects, mainly Arabs and Afghans.
But that came later. At the time, Pakistan was still regarded as suspect and when MI5 was approached by an individual involved in restoring the high commission, it decided to give it a try, albeit reluctantly. The initial approach from the builder met with no response, so the man went to the CIA, who suggested he should contact Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch.
MI5 eventually recruited the man and reportedly asked him to bug the embassy and take confidential documents on the pretext that they would be destroyed by a reputable waste disposal firm. "Notation" arranged for MI5 officers posing as his workmates to have unrestricted access to the embassy, it is claimed. MI5 officers allegedly paid him £61,000 in cash for his activities.
Some reports say the MI5 team managed to obtain secret codes from the high commission but the Pakistan government has denied this.
However, unknown to MI5, the workman-agent had once been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Under growing pressure, he refused to go ahead with the operation, claiming his MI5 handlers had bungled it. He alerted the Pakistan government and the US embassy in London about the operation. He has also written to Ann Taylor, the MP who chairs the parliamentary intelligence and security committee.
It is not the first time that security and intelligence agencies have recruited people carrying out work in official buildings belonging to foreign governments. During the cold war, they recruited a central heating installer at the Soviet trade mission in Highgate, north London.
In spite of the comments by its foreign office yesterday, Pakistan's response overall has been strangely muted so far, possibly because of embarrassment that security was so lax at the high commission that workmen could wander at will. Pakistan's foreign minister, Khursheed Kasuri, chose to play down the issue during a visit to London last week, although Pakistan says it was raised with the foreign secretary, Jack Straw.
The relatively new British high commissioner in Pakistan, Mark Lyall Grant, was called into Pakistan's foreign office last week to offer an explanation, which he failed to do.
Although Pakistan is now classified as onside with the US and Britain, the British government would not have been averse to a continuous stream of intelligence from the Pakistan high commission. Mr Straw has often been involved with the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in trying to defuse the nuclear stand-off between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. Pakistan too is often accused of illegally exporting its nuclear technology to other countries, such as Iran, a charge both countries deny.
In spite of the bungled spy attempt, the restoration work at the high commission has continued. It should be complete by the end of the year, new fittings all in place - minus the bugs.