MI5 more 'Inspector Clouseau than George Smiley' claims barrister for alleged Russian honeytrap spy Katia Zatuliveter

By Daniel Miller
Updated: 04:00 EDT, 31 October 2011

The MI5 agents assigned to investigate the mistress of a 65-year-old Liberal MP accused of being a Russian spy, have been compared to Peter Sellers's comic creation, the blundering French detective, Inspector Clouseau.

At hearing into the case of Katia Zatuliveter her QC, Tim Owen, said spooks assigned to her case bore no resemblance to formidable spymaster George Smiley of John le Carré novels but went about their business like the clueless character from the Pink Panther films.

Ms Zatuliveter, 26, a former assistant and mistress to Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock is accused of being a member of Russian intelligence.

Clueless: A hearing into the case of the young, blonde mistress of a 65-year-old liberal MP heard how members of the MI5 team assigned to her were more akin to Peter Sellers's blundering fictional detective Inspector Clouseau than John Le Carré's formidable spy master George Smiley

MI5 believes she was sent to seduce the politician who sat on the Commons Defense Select Committee and chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Russia.

Described the investigation as a 'witch hunt' Mr Owen launched a scathing attack on the MI5 agents involved describing their efforts as 'amateurish, poorly researched, incoherent, single-minded, misleading and, at times, frankly desperate.'

One of the team, who had attended the hearing admitted she was new to the job and described herself as 'pretty green'.

The commission was told she was infatuated with Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South, who she had met at a conference in St Petersburg in April 2006, and had written in her diary like a 'love-struck teenager'.

In November of the same year, she came to Britain as a student and began working for Hancock as a parliamentary assistant.

The hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) will rule on whether or not Zatuliveter should be deported.

Much of the proceeding have been held in a closed session of the tribunal which neither Ms Zatuliveter nor her defence are allowed to attend as the evidence presented by the prosecution team is of a highly sensitive nature.

Mr Owen said Miss Zatuliveter, who the tribunal was told has suffered psychiatric problems caused by the 'fear and distress' from the hearing, has 'no knowledge' of the evidence against her.

Chris Bryant MP, who took over from Mike Hancock as chair of the all party parliamentary group on Russia, claimed she would have access to sensitive information. 

In a statement given to the commission he said: 'I have no doubt that in her position as Mike Hancock's researcher, working for an MP in Parliament, the Appellant would have had ready and immediate access to all of the information and personal and political gossip which easily and speedily circulates around the Parliamentary community. 

True love? Ms Zatuliveter, 26, wrote in her diary like a 'love-struck teenager' after meeting 65-year-old Liberal MP Mike Hancock at a conference in St Petersburg in 2006, the hearing heard

'Based on my experience as a minister I am fully aware of how quite valuable such information might be to the Russian Intelligence Service.'

But Mr Owen pointed out that this was merely an 'assumption', which is how he described the entirety of the case against Miss Zatuliveter. 

He said: 'The actual evidence is quite clear: the Appellant would have no access to the Defence Select Committee documentation, as confirmed by the committee, and Mr Hancock never discussed matters which happened in private sessions of the Committee with the Appellant.'

Ms Zatuliveter, who had a series of relationships with European officials, denies charges that she worked as a 'honeytrap' spy who targeted Mr Hancock, 65, so she report to her masters in the Russian secret services.

Mr Owen claimed MI5 did not have a 'single shred' that she was a spy.

In his final written submission he said the security services had delivered their case with 'unfounded speculation and supposition'.

He has argued that the diary entries prove that Ms Zatuliveter's four-year relationship with Mr Hancock was genuine.

However government barristers were quick to point out that they could have easily been forged and entered at a much later date

Zatuliveter was first interviewed by intelligence officers in 2009.

In August 2010 she was detained for questioning at Gatwick Airport on a trip to Croatia and in December last year she as arrested and served with a deportation order.