Diplomat James Hudson resigns over Russian FSB honey trap

Was British diplomat set up by the Russian secret service?

Official filmed having sex with prostitutes may have been victim of 'honey trap'

CCTV images filmed inside an Ekaterinburg brothel
apparently showing British diplomat James Hudson having sex with two prostitutes

By Kim Sengupta
Friday, 10 July 2009

The Foreign Office says it is fed up with "silly jokes" about "from Russia with love". The official line is that there are far too many real problems in places like Iran and Afghanistan to spend time worrying about a junior diplomat being indiscreet in the Urals.

Yesterday, a four-minute video surfaced featuring 37-year-old British diplomat James Hudson, entitled "Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia". It shows the deputy consul general in Ekaterinburg cavorting with two prostitutes. He has since resigned.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said: "The FCO expects all its staff to demonstrate high levels of personal and professional integrity and takes all allegations of inappropriate behaviour seriously.

"That said, we are not in a position to confirm or deny the allegations in this story, and we do not generally comment or individual members of staff or individual personal matters."

But, her colleagues confirmed that Mr Hudson was indeed the man in the film, seen entering a room – reportedly a brothel – drinking on a sofa, and kissing two blonde women in their underwear. In one scene a female voice asks in broken English: "Would you like it?"

Last weekend, it emerged that the holiday snaps of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, taken by his wife, were freely available for the public to view on Facebook. Thanks to comments by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, he is in danger of being known forever as "the spy in Speedos".

But the case of Mr Hudson is a bit more serious. It has been suggested that the diplomat might have been lured into a "honey trap" by the Russian intelligence service FSB, the successor to the KGB, with the aim of embarrassing the British Government.

Mr Hudson joined the FCO in 1994, and his postings had included Sarajevo, Havana and Budapest. He married his wife, Sally, in London in 1996, but they divorced the following year. The couple have one child.

There is no evidence that he worked for any of the UK's intelligence arms, and his rank would not have given him access to many secrets. The consensus in diplomatic and security circles was that the FSB had merely taken advantage of an opportunity which presented itself.

One source told The Independent: "FCO staff are given warnings about the risks involved, and this is what happened when this was ignored. There is a more relaxed approach to using brothels in Russia among certain sections of the business community, but this should not extend to diplomats."

There has been a series of rows between Britain and Russia over spying in recent years. Last week, the British Government accused Russia of being actively engaged in cyber espionage, while security agencies have claimed there is a steady rise in the number of Russian agents active in the UK.

The murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko continues to provoke controversy, with Russia refusing Britain's request to extradite a suspect, Andrei Lugovoy.

One of the most widely reported allegations of recent years was MI6's use of a fake "rock" left in a Moscow street, acting as a transmitter and sending data to a palmtop computer. The plan was supposedly inspired by a David Attenborough wildlife programme in which a tiny camera was hidden inside artificial elephant dung.

______________________

As a result of the above article we sent the following e-mail to the author of the article:

from Mike Smith
to k.sengupta@independent.co.uk
date Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:13 PM
subject The James Hudson Story you wrote

Dear Kim,

John Symonds tried to contact you, first at home and then at work. The News Editor at the Independent contemptuously referred to you as a free-lance, and not a reporter, and slammed the phone down on John. The reason John was trying to contact you was your article about Hudson in today's paper.

John has a strong opinion about the article you put in the Independent, but an even stronger opinion about the gutter press, particularly the Mail who really rubbished the man, who in John's eyes is a patriot. He would have been threatened ("work with us or we will publish this") because a huge proportion of people caught in honey traps did choose to work with the KGB to avoid publication. John has no doubt that the only reason this escapade has been put up on Internet was because Hudson rejected their overtures, "publish and be damned". The gutter press make a song and dance about the fact that James was from a working class family, in a poor part of London - their class prejudice was quite obvious. John was responsible for setting up and organising a large number of honey traps, but the rule of thumb within the KGB was if he is a diplomat or MI6, he will have been to a public school and therefore his preference will be for homosexual sex, which proved to be very true.

The homosexual diplomats and spooks trapped by John all gave way and promised to co-operate with them (the KGB). Some did, but some promised to and immediately returned to the Embassy and confessed to the Ambassador, and were usually back in the UK the next morning. The KGB did not publish the films and recordings in that case, under the theory that the victims would pop up again somewhere at some other important job, and the entrapment would still be valid. Much more along these lines if you want.

John offers you the story, because I recommended you to him. If you don't want it, it will go up on our blog asap.

Kind regards,
Mike Smith