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The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comto a rented chalet in the French Alps, an hour's drive over the border,for a week's skiing holiday. But MI6 had learnt about the arrangementsthrough their tap on my parents' phone and decided to spoil ourholiday. They alerted the DST of my intended movements and DST notifiedthe Douanes to stop us at the Swiss-French border. I now had to waituntil the DST turned up from their regional headquarters in Grenoble.It was a bitterly cold evening, and although I was warm enough in thecustoms kiosk, my parents were waiting outside in the freezing car.Four DST officers turned up at 10.30 p.m. Although the French Douaneshad been happy to leave me unattended in their kiosk, confident I wasnot a troublemaker, the DST slapped on handcuffs the moment theyarrived. `Alors, we have some questions for you, Monsieur Tomlinson,'announced the senior officer. They escorted me out of the kiosk intothe main police building at the frontier, sat me down in an office andinterviewed me for 90 minutes. They asked no questions relating to anyform of criminal activity and all they were interested in were detailsof an MI6 officer who owned a chalet in the Haut-Savoie, on their hometurf around Grenoble. I refused to help, so at the end of the interviewthey served me with papers banning me for life from entering Frenchterritory. Just like the US immigration officials, the DST had to finda reason under their regulations to justify the ban. On the standardentry-refusal proforma, there were four possible justifications. Hecould not tick the `lack of correct papers' box because my Britishpassport entitled me automatically to entry. I could demonstrate that Ihad the funds to support myself in France, so that option was denied. Iwas not the bearer of any infectious diseases, so he could not selectthat. All that remained was `threat to the security of France'. Heticked the box with a flourish, stamped the document and handed it overto me. `You must go back to Switzerland,' he ordered. `If we find youin France, we will imprison you immediately for six months, noquestions asked.'Back in the hire car, two stern-faced officers stood blocking the routesouth just to ensure that I didn't try to dash for it. There was nochoice but to turn around and return to my digs. It was too late for myparents to go to the chalet that evening, so they had to stay in ahotel in Geneva.The DST were in blatant breach of European law by stopping a Britishpassport holder entering France. MI6 and the DST were gambling that Iwould not have the legal backing to mount a challenge via the Europeancourts, and if I did try, that it would take many years for my appealto be heard. Two days before the first stage of my appeal came beforethe Grenoble district court on 5 May 2000, already over a year afterthe illegal order was served on me, the DST served an injunction todelay the hearing. I cannot take my case to the European courts inStrasbourg until all domestic remedies have been pursued, so I have noalternative but to spend more money on lawyers and wait.Although I was enjoying life in Switzerland, had made some good friendsand was earning some money with casual work, getting a work permit andpermanent job was difficult. I therefore mounted an appeal against theAustralian ban, using a firm of lawyers in Canberra. I suspected thatMI6 had used their influence with ASIO (Australian Security andIntelligence Organisation) to get me banned, though MI6 denied this,improbably claiming in a letter to me that they `would not interfere inpage- 221 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com
The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comthe policies of another country'. A few months later, via theAustralian Freedom of Information Act, my lawyers got proof that MI6were lying. They obtained a copy of a telegram sent by MI6 to ASIO on 2November 1998. Although many paragraphs were blacked out with thecensor's ink, it was clear that it was a request for a ban, to whichthe Australians had complied limply. Moreover, the date of the requestwas two days after my arrest, but long before I was convicted of acrime; MI6 were not content to see me receive only the punishmentdeemed fit by British law and had decided to add to it by stopping mefrom emigrating to Australia. Getting an Australian visa became a majorpreoccupation but after spending thousands of dollars of my savings onlegal fees, I realised that I was falling into the financial trap MI6had laid for me.Reasoning with MI6 was not working either, and the energetic efforts ofWarren Templeton and John Wadham were futile. My only remedy was to usepublicity again to bring them to the table. At the end of April, Ibought some web-design software and learnt how to build internet pages.My first site was an amateurish and jokey affair and appeared on theGeocities server late on the evening of Saturday, 1 May. The pagescontained nothing secret and were just a lighthearted poke at MI6. Onthe front page, there was a photograph of me in a silly hatsuperimposed against Vauxhall Cross, with the Monty Python theme tuneplaying in parody of MI6's absurd pursuit of me, and on the insidepages were copies of the documents served by the Australian, Americanand French authorities banning me from their countries at MI6'srequest. Nevertheless, on Monday morning the Geocities securityofficer, Mr Bruce Zanca, e-mailed me to say that they had received acomplaint about my website from a `third party' and were thereforeclosing down the site. By late morning my pages had disappeared. Ifound another empty space on the Geocities server and re-posted them,including Zanca's e-mail. A few hours later I got another, more irate,e-mail from Zanca telling me they had removed my new pages, andordering me not to post anything else onto their server. I copied thise-mail into my pages and posted everything back. That came down a fewhours later and Zanca got badly annoyed and threatened legal action.Fortunately, I didn't need to put them up again because word spreadaround the internet of the preposterous way that MI6 and Geocities werecensoring me, and numerous `mirrors' of my site sprang up.On 13 May, another site about MI6 appeared on Lyndon Larouche'swebsite, publishing a list of 115 names purporting to be of serving andformer MI6 officers. This news exploded onto the front pages ofnewspapers worldwide. Because of the publicity about my first site, Iwas immediately assumed to be the author.To this day, I do not know who published the famous list, but it wasnot me. I have my suspicions, however, that it was MI6 themselves. Theyhad a motive - to incriminate and blacken me. They had the means tomake the list and the knowledge to post it onto the internet withoutleaving a trace. And, despite their protestations to the contrary, thelist was not particularly damaging to them. Later I got the chance tostudy it for myself. I did not recognise most of the names and socannot comment as to whether they were from MI6 or from the FCO. Of thenames that I did recognise, all were retired from the service or werealready widely blown. If MI6 had set out to produce a list that causedpage- 222 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com
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