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It appears that George Blake is attempting to complain about the decision of the House of Lords in an even higher court. Story from today's Daily Telegraph attached.

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Spy Blake tries to sue Britain for his lost £90,000
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
(Filed: 16/05/2003)

George Blake, the KGB spy who fled to Moscow in 1966, has accused the Government of breaching his human rights by confiscating £90,000 he was expecting to make from his memoirs.

Blake, a former MI6 officer, spent nine years working as a double agent for the Russians.

He escaped from jail having served five years of a 42-year sentence after admitting secrets offences which the Lord Chief Justice said in 1961 were "akin to treason".

In an application to the European Court of Human Rights, Blake also complains about interference with his freedom of expression and his right to be presumed innocent.

A Foreign Office spokesman said that Britain had lodged a formal response to Blake's application at the end of last month, rejecting his complaints and denying any breach of the former spy's human rights.

"The Crown will continue to contest vigorously this application, which is without merits," the spokesman said.

Officials at the court confirmed that Blake's application had been lodged in January 2001. The case is not listed on the court's website, which means that no decision has been reached on whether it is admissible.

The Strasbourg judges may reject any application at this preliminary stage if it is "manifestly ill-founded or an abuse of the right of application".

Blake's autobiography, No Other Choice, was published in 1990. A year later, the Attorney General began legal proceedings seeking an account of the book's profits. Blake had signed a contract with Jonathan Cape, the publisher, for £150,000.

The former spy, whose treachery was said to have rendered British intelligence efforts "completely useless", received about £60,000 from the publisher before the remaining £90,000 was frozen under a court order.

Blake, 80, who has lived in Moscow on a KGB pension since his escape from Wormwood Scrubs, was refused legal aid to fight the case. However, the Government's application for an account of profits was dismissed by the High Court in 1996.

Sir Richard Scott, the judge, said the Crown had failed to establish any misuse by Blake of his position as a former member of MI6, Britain's intelligence service.

This judgment was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Blake's appeal to the House of Lords was dismissed by a majority of four to one in 2000.

The £90,000 was then confiscated by the Government and donated to a national children's charity. Blake has lodged six complaints against the Government.

He claims that the High Court proceedings should have been treated as criminal rather than civil and he was denied legal aid.

He further alleges that the case took nine years to resolve, an unreasonable length of time, and his right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty was breached. He also claims that the proceedings interfered with his freedom of expression and the confiscation breached his right to his possessions.

Government sources suspect that Blake's application was motivated more by profit than by principle. While Britain fully respected and supported the human rights court, the sources said it had not been set up to allow criminals such as Blake to profit from his crimes. Those crimes might have "resulted in the deaths and persecution of British agents working for a free world", the sources added.

It has been suggested that Blake's sentence, which would have recently expired, represented a year for every British agent he betrayed. Though that has never been substantiated, one law lord said in 2000 that the sentence "reflected the extreme gravity of the harm brought about by his betrayal of secret information".

There is speculation that the Government has been exploring the possibility of having Blake extradited from Russia.

If Moscow agrees to hand him over, he would resume his sentence - as did the train robber Ronnie Biggs - and face the prospect of dying in prison.

Steve Hedley

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FACULTY OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

ansaphone : +44 1223 334931
www.stevehedley.com
fax : +44 1223 334967

Christ's College Cambridge CB2 3BU
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