Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 38 New Series, 27 May 1996 Publishing since 1980 Editor Olivier Schmidt (email intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr; web http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence tel/fax 33 1 40 51 85 19; post ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France) British, Irish "Justice" Systems -- Embarrassing Lapses Intelligence, N. 38, 27 May 1996, p. 3 ANOTHER BRITISH FORENSIC TECHNOLOGY ERROR FAVORS IRA British forensic technology is among the best in the world but seems to be applied in such a manner as to discredit authorities engaged in the fight against the IRA The famous Birmingham Six were released after a new forensic technique showed that police officers had rewritten their original notes to produce evidence for conviction. On 14 May, Home Secretary, Michael Howard, in reply to a written question in the House of Commons, recognized that the centrifuge, used to analyze the chemical composition of minute samples taken from suspects' skin, hair, clothes, furniture and living quarters, was contaminated with 30 micrograms of RDX, one of the main chemical components of the plastic explosive Semtex. The ultra-centrifuge belongs to the Ministry of Defence's Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent and had been used for seven years without being verified, despite routine weekly contamination checks of the laboratory room. Only two months ago a rubber pad was apparently replaced after an accident and, during the resulting test, the machine was found to be contaminated. The ultra-centrifuge has been used in 500 court cases since 1989 and heavy reliance on its results could put into question a dozen sentences involving 38 persons. Sinn Fein has advised all IRA prisoners indicted in Britain on explosive charges to appeal their convictions. It is now believed the centrifuge was contaminated before it arrived in the Fort Halstead laboratory. After the accidental spill of a strong, clean solvent from a test tube on the rubber pad at the bottom of the test-tube holder in the centrifuge, tests were run and found that the rubber pad contained traces of RDX, perhaps since its delivery to Fort Halstead. * Intelligence, N. 38, 27 May 1996, p. 39 IRELAND - Extradition Embarrassment. Business in the Irish Parliament -- the Dail -- was suspended twice on 22 May after Prime Minister, John Bruton, confirmed that a mistake in Dublin, not London, led to failure to extradite IRA suspect, Anthony Duncan, to Britain last month (INT, N. 36/16). It has now emerged that the original extradition warrant, sent to Dublin by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), was mistakenly shredded while photocopies were being made for the Garda. Mr. Bruton offered no explanation as to how this happened (presumably at the Department of Justice) or who authorized a misleading statement claiming the extradition request was rejected because the CPS failed to verify a signature on one of the British documents. The Irish police now want London to send original extradition documentation on colored paper to distinguish it from photocopies. According to a Garda spokesperson, it's very hard "to make out the difference between an original and a good photocopy". In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist leader, Dr. Ian Paisley, never one to miss an opportunity under such circumstances, said Dublin should offer a public apology to the CPS. * CHOICE BITS: Intelligence, N. 38, 27 May 1996, p. 7 RECONVERSION - Military to Civilian Simulation. The British Defence Research Agency Fort Halstead branch, the Centre for Defence Analysis, developed the Close Action Environment (CAEN) to simulate, by computer, urban war zones complete with trees, hedges, roads, fences and buildings. The Centre subsequently "reconverted" CAEN for the Surrey Police in Guildford for use in training police officers in handling angry crowds (INT, N. 22/7). This "reconversion" was considered a great success, and perhaps the U.S. Army learned from that when it decided to convert military simulation technology to civilian use. On 23 August 1995, the Army's Project Plowshares simulation system "ran" a Category 3 hurricane over Orlando, Florida, to help civilian rescuers improve their disaster response. During the simulation, the fire department "forgot" to tell the sheriff's office that a chlorine gas railroad tanker had derailed and leaked. The leak "disabled the police station", or more likely wiped it out. The authorities have supposedly learned from the exercise. * Intelligence, N. 38, 27 May 1996, p. 38 GREAT BRITAIN: REANALYZING CRIMINAL HISTORY The biggest murder hunt in British legal history began on 20 May when police reopened the files on the deaths and disappearances of up to 220 women. The police believe some of the murders -- solved and unsolved -- could be the work of five serial killers who have gone undetected since 1985. The hunt, codenamed Enigma, will be carried out by an "elite team of homicide detectives" headed by the Assistant Chief Constable of Essex, Jim Dickenson, and was proposed following the investigation into the killing of French student, Celine Figard, last December. It will be conducted along the guidelines, laid down in a confidential handbook recently issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to senior Criminal Investigation Division (CID) officers in England and Wales, and will involve the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the recently-established Crime Faculty, which can provide "offender profiling" (INT, N. 35/4). [NOTE: Since the investigation of Figard's disappearance has included the British-occupied north of Ireland, "Enigma" would make a great cover for all manner of enhanced electronic information-gathering and covert operations there. -- NY Transfer] * Intelligence, N. 38, 27 May 1996, p. 37 LIMPING HOME FROM THE WAR GAMES The Labour Party is to question the Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, and is seeking an inquiry into the American Port Authority decision to impound a 20,000-ton Ukrainian roll-on, roll-off ferry, the "Kapitan Mezentsev", chartered by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) to carry supplies for British forces taking part in NATO's Purple Star exercise, the largest joint U.S./British operation since the D-Day Normandy landing in 1944. The Americans declared the Ukrainian vessel unsafe after five major faults were found on inspection, including dilapidated fire-fighting equipment, cracks in fiberglass lifeboat hulls and inoperable watertight doors. The MoD confirmed that the ship had been hired for "a short term charter" but claimed it had been surveyed for the Royal Navy by a marine supervisor who found all the certificates and documentation in order "and no serious defects". Dr. David Clark, shadow defence spokesman, has suggested the MoD explanation is "untrue" -- that is, a lie -- since for a ship to be impounded "it has to be basically unseaworthy". He also argued that Britain's defense budget had been cut to such an extent that the MoD has to go "to the bottom of the market" to charter vessels which put the lives of servicemen at risk. Some Tory backbenchers have also questioned the number of casualties suffered by British forces during Purple Star, in particular the 16 May night jump over Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Hyped by military strategists as the biggest Allied air drop since operation Market Garden over the Netherlands during World War II, the exercise injured 41 British paratroopers as compared to 38 U.S. casualties. Although this was fewer than the four percent casualties the planners had expected, the Tories are annoyed by reports that the landing ground for the U.S. Airborne was "flat terrain" while the British Paras were allocated an "uneven, shrub-covered area". A total of 38,200 U.S. and 15,600 British servicemen took part in Purple Star which ended on 19 May. The U.S. Air Force provided 171 aircraft and the RAF 56, the U.S. Navy 26 ships and the Royal Navy 27, including "HMS Fearless". The latter is the Royal Navy's only control and communications command ship for amphibious operations, and managed to pass inspection after reports that NATO's war games could be cancelled when workers discovered that large parts of the ship's bulkhead had been eaten away by rust (INT, N. 30/43). * Copyright ADI 1996, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one year subscription (23 issues) is US $315. For subscription info, write to: intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr or point your browser to: http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/ Also in this Issue: N. 38 New Series, 27 May 1996 FRONTPAGE BELGIUM - LOG OF AN INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT SHIPWRECK p.1 TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUES NEW TECHNIQUES ON BOTH SIDES OF DRUG BATTLE p.2 ANOTHER BRITISH FORENSIC TECHNOLOGY ERROR FAVORS IRA p.3 BOSNIA BECOMES INTELLIGENCE HIGH-TECH BAZAAR p.4 CURRENCY - Magnetic "Bar-Code" on New $100 Bills. p.5 IMAGERY - CIA "Dumps" Declassified Photos at USGS. p.6 RECONVERSION - Military to Civilian Simulation. p.7 GYPSIES - Open Source Law Enforcement Study. p.8 RADAR - U.S. Navy Gets Its Own SAR. p.9 COMPUTER CRIME - Another "Honest" Survey. p.10 STEALTH - "Baby Beluga" Takes a Curtain Call. p.11 INTERNET - Java Just a Little Too Hot. p.12 COMPUTERS - A 50th Birthday for "Baby". p.13 PEOPLE MELVIN A. GOODMAN - U.S.A. p.14 NICOLAS BLAZIANU - FRANCE/SWITZERLAND p.15 LEON GIET - BELGIUM p.16 HASSAN SALAMEH - PALESTINE p.17 U.S.A. - Intelligence Internships. p.18 CANADA/SRI LANKA - Kumaravelu Vignarajah. p.19 GREAT BRITAIN - "Mr. X". p.20 NORTHERN IRELAND - Dessie Mccleary. p.21 FRANCE - Philippe Rondot. p.22 ESTONIA/RUSSIA - Sergei Andreev. p.23 BULGARIA - Bogdan Karayotov. p.24 RUSSIA/U.S.A. - Richard Dunn Oppfelt. p.25 RUSSIA - Nikolai Lysenko. p.26 SYRIA/LEBANON - Abdullah Ocelan. p.27 AUSTRALIA - "Monica". p.28 VIETNAM - Huynh Hoang-Ho. p.29 AGENDA COMING EVENTS FROM 5 JUNE TO 28 JUNE 1996 p.30 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD U.S.A. - TIDAL WAVES ACROSS THE WORLD USED ARMS MARKET p.31 Bases Close at Home and Open Abroad. p.32 Good Encryption News for Public & Business. p.33 Federal Eavesdropping Increases Again. p.34 GREAT BRITAIN - POLICING EURO'96 p.35 TAINTED CASH FOR THE TORIES p.36 LIMPING HOME FROM THE WAR GAMES p.37 Reanalyzing Criminal History. p.38 IRELAND - Extradition Embarrassment. p.39 FRANCE - PUSHING FOR A REAL WEU INTELLIGENCE SERVICE p.40 Changes at the DGSE. p.41 BELGIUM - The Surete's "List of Subjects". p.42 NETHERLANDS - BVD REPORT ENCOURAGES RAIL TRANSPORT p.43 GERMANY - VERFASSUNGSSCHUTZ REPORT GOES INTERNET p.44 SWITZERLAND - A Difficult Future for Bruno Breguet. p.45 POLAND - Oleksy Case Still Kicking. p.46 HUNGARY - To Be or Not To Be an Offshore Haven. p.47 SLOVAKIA - TRANS-KARPATH SPY CIRCUS GETS BLOODY p.48 RUSSIA - LONDON & WASHINGTON WORRIED ABOUT RUSSIAN CRIME p.49 CUBA - New "Offensive" Intelligence Service. p.50 COSTA RICA - Another Israeli Arms Scandal. p.51 SOUTH AFRICA - Rooivalk Gets Night Vision Despite U.S.. p.52 SUDAN - A CHOICE OF DEPORT OR BE DEPORTED p.53 ISRAEL - MOSSAD AND MI6 HUNT HEZBOLLAH VIA SWITZERLAND p.54 ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org =================================================================