• How a diplomatic spat over compromised spy may have triggered AP leak probe

    By Keir Simmons, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    LONDON -- The Justice Department's secret seizure of phone records from the Associated Press was prompted by a leak that put considerable strain on the relationship between American and British intelligence agencies.

    The leak was the basis of an AP story in May 2012 about a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled an al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States. 

    There was anger in the British government over the leak and subsequent news reports that disclosed U.K. spies had been heavily involved in the operation.

    The alleged details of the operation, which were never officially confirmed, were straight out of a John Le Carre novel. According to reports, a U.K. passport holder of Yemeni descent was recruited by British security officials and sent to Yemen to infiltrate an al Qaeda group.

    The details of alleged U.K. involvement were attributed by many American media outlets to U.S. security sources. According to London's Times newspaper, the level of detail made public had left British officials "slack-jawed." 

    Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who approved getting the AP's phone records to track down the person that leaked classified information, said it was a last-resort effort after having conducted hundreds of interviews. NBC's Pete Williams reports

    "I understand there is an investigation under way, being led by the Americans. It is clearly a matter for the U.S. authorities,", the official spokesperson for Britain's prime minister said at the time. "Clearly, we think that sensitive information should be protected."

    Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, went even further and said leaks about operations could be "extremely harmful."

    "It can prevent the effective involvement of intelligence officers or agencies in operations that are designed to save lives either in this country or other countries," he added. "Whether a leak arises in the U.S., the U.K. or elsewhere it is equally serious."

    In the wake of the leak, it was claimed that the double agent had managed to smuggle out a bomb that would have been used to blow up an airliner. The bomb was described as even more sophisticated than the underwear bomb that attempted to bring down an jet landing in Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

    The British double agent was also said to have provided vital information about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and about its master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri. Around the same time as the leak, a drone strike in Yemen killed a senior al Qaeda leader, Fahd al Quso, who had been involved in the USS Cole bombing. However, it not been confirmed that this killing was connected to the undercover operation.

    US Attorney General Eric Holder tells reporters he recused himself from the investigation into leaks which led to a subpoena for AP phone records, a leak Holder said "put the American people at risk."

    The leaked news potentially did more than put the operation it at risk. It also threatened the life of the double agent and his family and had an impact on the prospects for similar operations in the future. After all, why would similar recruits co-operate with the British knowing that information about what they did would go public?

    "The revelations about the British agent in al Qaeda remind us that Beltway leaking is a major security threat," said Nigel Inkster, a former assistant chief of the British intelligence agency MI6.

    Raffaelllo Pantucci, senior research fellow at London-based think tank RUSI, added: "It, of course, undermines  the trust between the agencies. It’s a big problem."

    The Saudis also substantially assisted in the operation, according to experts. Could their connections have been compromised? In 2010, Saudi intelligence had helped foil an attack out of Yemen involving bombs disguised as printer cartridges smuggled onto airplane cargo.

    Did British disquiet help spur the U.S. investigation into the leak? British government sources would not say whether a complaint was lodged.

    "It is a long standing policy of successive governments not to comment on intelligence matters," an official with the U.K.'s Foreign Office said Wednesday.

    NBC News' Michele Neubert contributed to this report.

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  • Rights group: US waterboarded Gadhafi opponents, sent them to Libya

    Nasser Nasser / AP, file

    Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi meets with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left in Tripoli, Libya, in Sept. 2008. Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report painting a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

    By NBC News wire services

    A human rights organization says it has collected evidence of two previously unreported cases in which U.S. agents used waterboarding or a similar harsh interrogation technique on Libyan militants held by American forces in Afghanistan. 

    The 154-page report by Human Rights Watch also paints a more complete picture of Washington's close cooperation with the regime of Libya's former dictator Moammar Gadhafi in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. handed over to Libya the Islamist opponents of Gadhafi that it detained abroad with only thin "diplomatic assurances" that they would not be mistreated, and several of them were subsequently tortured in prison, Human Rights Watch said. 

    The report features interviews by the New York-based group with 14 Libyan dissident exiles. They describe systematic abuses while they were held in U.S.-led detention centers in Afghanistan -- some for as long as two years -- or in U.S.-led interrogations in Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Sudan and elsewhere before the Americans handed them over to Libya.


    "Not only did the U.S. deliver his (Gadhafi's) enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," said Laura Pitter, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. 

    "The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened," she added. 

    UK spies to face criminal inquiry over Libya

    The documents, which were found in once-secret archives that became public during the Libyan revolution, included classified correspondence between top Libyan officials and officials from the CIA and Britain's spy agencies MI5 and MI6. 

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney discusses his memoir, "In My Time," with TODAY's Matt Lauer. In the exclusive interview, Cheney defends the Iraq war, says waterboarding "worked" and tells Lauer the greatest achievement of the Bush administration was preventing further attacks on U.S. soil after 9/11.

    They illustrate how, between late 2003 when Gadhafi agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction programs, and the 2011 Libyan revolution, Gadhafi and Western intelligence agencies quietly cooperated in battling Islamic militants. 

    Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that President Barack Obama and human rights activists have condemned as torture. 

    Britain, U.S. defend actions
    U.S. and British officials defended their governments' actions. 

    "It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats. That is exactly what we are expected to do," said Jennifer Youngblood, a CIA spokeswoman. 

    The former Libyan Foreign Minister - now being debriefed in Britain - will not be given immunity from prosecution, according to the Government. Scottish lawyers have asked to interview Musa Kusa in connection with the Lockerbie bombing. As a senior member of Colonel Gadhafi's regime he could provide important information for the coalition. ITV's Tom Bradby reports.

    "The context here is worth revisiting. For example, by 2004, the U.S. government had convinced Gadhafi to renounce Libya's WMD programs and to help stop those terrorists who were actively targeting Americans," Youngblood said. 

    A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said: "The government has been clear that it stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not condone it, nor do we ask others to do it on our behalf. 

    "In addition, we have published the Consolidated Guidance which provides clear directions for intelligence officers and service personnel dealing with foreign liaison services regarding detainees held overseas," the spokesman said. 

    Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years 

    Some of the other nations that Human Rights Watch alleged to be U.S. collaborators in these operations are the Netherlands, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Morocco and Sudan. 

    The most dramatic, and potentially controversial, of the report's 14 case studies relates to alleged waterboarding. 

    Senator John McCain, R-Ariz, says enhanced interrogation measures, such as waterboarding, were not a factor in tracking down 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

    Human Rights Watch said that testimony from former detainee Mohammed Shoroeiya about how he was allegedly waterboarded repeatedly by U.S. interrogators was "detailed and credible."

    Shoroeiya claimed he had been waterboarded while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, and that a doctor was present during the interrogation sessions, the group said. 

    It said that a second former Libyan detainee, Khalid al-Sharif, described how he was subjected to a "similar type of treatment," though this did not involve being strapped to a board. 

    Libyan rebels find album filled with photos of his 'darling' Condoleezza Rice

    Human Rights Watch said both detainees claimed that they were hooded and had ice water poured over their noses and mouths until they felt like they were suffocating -- the sensation associated with waterboarding. 

    Claims contradict Bush, CIA
    The accounts by the Libyan detainees, one-time members of a militant faction called the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, contradict claims by former President George W. Bush, former CIA director Michael Hayden and other U.S. officials that waterboarding was only used on three militants in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks -- none of them Libyan. 

    U.S. officials expressed skepticism about the waterboarding allegations. And there are apparent differences in how the Libyans describe their treatment and the waterboarding procedures used in three cases that U.S. authorities have confirmed -- those of alleged al-Qaida militants Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. 

    In those cases, official investigations reported, the interrogation subjects were doused repeatedly, but in short bursts, with bottled water. 

    Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

    "The agency has been on the record that there are three substantiated cases in which detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique," the CIA's Youngblood said. 

    "Although we cannot comment on these specific allegations, the Department of Justice has exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period -- including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques — and it declined prosecution in every case," she added. 

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • UK coroner: Body-in-bag spy death a mystery, but likely criminal

    For nearly two years, investigators have been trying to determine what happened to a brilliant, 31-year-old British spy whose body was found in August 2010 stuffed in a padlocked duffel bag and placed inside his bathtub. After a 21-month investigation, a British coroner announced this was probably a criminal act, but there are no clear signs of who was behind it. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

    The death of a British spy -- whose body was found in a padlocked bag in a bathtub in his London apartment -- may never be explained but was likely a criminal act, the coroner investigating the case said Wednesday.

    The coroner, Fiona Wilcox, said that it was a "legitimate line of inquiry" that other spies were involved in the death of Gareth Williams, 31, a member of the U.K.'s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

     

    Wilcox said the spy was likely killed either by suffocation or poisoning in a "criminally meditated act."

    She also said she did not think Williams' passing interest in sexual bondage was behind his death, The Telegraph newspaper said.

    Two years after a British spy died under unusual circumstances, police still don't know what led to his demise. NBC's Keir Simmons reports from London.

    NBC News

    The body of British spy Gareth Williams was found in a bag in his bathtub.

    Wilcox said that if Williams, a math prodigy who worked as a code breaker, had got into the bag by himself, foot and fingerprints would have been found around the bath, the paper reported. 

    "It is unlikely this death will ever be satisfactorily explained," she said, according to the media reports.

    Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

    The coroner also said the large number of women's clothes in the apartment did not show that Williams was a transvestite, The Telegraph noted. The case, she said, had produced in "endless speculation but little evidence."

    However, she added that the circumstances of the death "immediately raised the possibility of foul play," according to the Guardian.

    UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

    Williams' body was found in his apartment in Pimlico, London, in August 2010.

    Metropolitan Police / Reuters

    A combination of still photographs taken from video shows a man trying to lock himself in a holdall in this undated image received from the Metropolitan Police in London on April 27.

    A forensic pathologist, Benjamin Swift, testified Monday that Williams probably suffocated or was poisoned, saying a precise cause of death could not be established because the body had decomposed. Williams died more than a week before his body was found.

    Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

    Other experts have said that it was highly likely that another person, or two, were involved.

    The case has spawned any number of conspiracy theories that Williams may have been assassinated by foreign agents or terrorists.

    MI6 has said it believes his death was  nothing to do with his work.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • British spy probably was poisoned or suffocated in locked bag, expert testifies

    Andrew Winning / Reuters file

    Ian and Ellen Williams and Cerri Subbe, the mother, father and sister of British MI6 agent Gareth Williams, left Westminster Coroner's Court in London on April 23.

    By msnbc.com staff

    Gareth Williams, the British cyberspy who was found dead in a padlocked duffel bag, probably suffocated or was poisoned, a forensic pathologist testified Monday.

    Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

    Williams' body was found in the bag in the bathtub of his apartment in London in August 2010. The unusual of his death — Williams, 31, a math prodigy who worked as a code breaker for the British spy service MI6, was discovered naked and showing no signs of a struggle — has transfixed Britain as details of Williams' transvestism and sexual fantasies have emerged.

    Speaking at an official inquest into Williams' death in August 2010, the pathologist, Benjamin Swift, said the precise cause of death couldn't be pinpointed because the body was badly decomposed after having been in the bag for more than a week before it was found, The Guardian reported. But he said  asphyxiation or poisoning were the "foremost contenders."

    Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

    Other experts have testified that it was highly likely that another person, or even two, was involved in the case, citing the near-impossibility of Williams' being able to lock himself into the bag.

    UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

    That has spawned any number of conspiracy theories that Williams may have been assassinated by foreign agents or terrorists. But MI6 said it believed his death had nothing to do with his work or that it had covered it up.

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  • UK intelligence officer: No cover-up in 'spy in the bag' case

    By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com

    LONDON - There was "no evidence" to suggest that British intelligence services were part of a cover-up after one of their own was found naked and decomposing inside a locked duffel bag in his London apartment, an intelligence officer said on Thursday.

    "Witness F" gave evidence to the inquest -- which are held when deaths are deemed violent or unnatural -- in the August 2010 death of MI6 officer Gareth Williams from behind a screen, BBC News reported.

    MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, is roughly equivalent to the Untied States' CIA.

    The denial came on the same day that one of the code-breaker's relatives shrieked and brought proceedings to a halt while listening to details of a series of missteps that allowed for the spy to lay in his bathroom undiscovered for a week, the Telegraph reported.

    UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

    The relatives walked out of the inquest in tears during Witness F's evidence, the BBC reported.

    Their lawyer Anthony O'Toole said the agency showed a "total disregard for Gareth's whereabouts and safety."

    Williams, 31, was a math prodigy working as a codebreaker at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the state eavesdropping service. 

    Williams' family became increasingly upset during the four days of proceedings as it became clear that his absence did not spark any concern, despite the sensitive nature of his job, according to reports.

    Witness F, a senior intelligence officer, told the inquest that MI6 was "profoundly sorry" for the delays, which had made it more difficult for the family to "come to terms with his dreadful death," the newspaper reported.

    A detective told the inquest on Tuesday that a "third party was involved in that padlock being locked, and Gareth being placed in the bag."

    Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

    The inquest has also been told that Williams, who was single and intensely private, would not have let a stranger into his flat, and that he would not have given his keys to anyone apart from close family.

    There were no signs of a break-in or indications of foul play.

    Small amounts of unidentified DNA were detected on the bag.

    On Wednesday, the inquest heard that years earlier Williams had been found tied to his bed and unable to free himself.

    Williams had shouted out for help in the middle of the night when he was living in an annex of the home of his then-landlady Jennifer Elliot in Cheltenham, western England.

    Mystery couple sought in UK cyberspy's bizarre death

    Elliot and her husband found Williams dressed only in boxer shorts with his hands tied to the headboard of the bed. He told her that he had been just "messing about," trying to see "if I could get myself free," the Telegraph newspaper reported.

    In a written statement, Elliot said it was likely "to be sexual rather than escapology," the paper added.

    Williams later took up a three-year assignment at the headquarters of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, whose offices are on the banks of the River Thames in central London.