'British agent' faces hanging

An arms dealer who claims he was working undercover for British intelligence and is now facing treason charges in India, goes on trial in Calcutta on Thursday.

If found guilty, Peter Bleach could face hanging. If innocent he threatens to embroil the Government in a scandal similar to the Matrix-Churchill affair.

Friends and supporters of the 45-year-old Yorkshireman believe the security services used his information to help unmask a smuggling operation but abandoned him when the Indian authorities moved in to arrest the culprits. The events that led to Mr Bleach's arrest involved his dropping four tons of Bulgarian guns and ammunition by parachute into a remote area of West Bengal in December 1995.

Ever since, Mr Bleach has been held in the squalid conditions of Calcutta's crumbling Presidency Jail. Last month a friend, Christopher Hudson, visited him there.

"I was shocked by what I found. It was a bit like a scene from the film Midnight Express," said Mr Hudson, a Conservative councillor from Southend.

"It was appalling - dirty, smelly, with 100 per cent humidity and a temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. His cell measures about 12ft by 8ft, and does not even have a bed. He sleeps on the bare concrete floor."

"I am seriously worried. He has lost a great deal of weight and had gangrene in his toes. I don't believe he could survive another two years in that jail."

Now a date has been set for his trial, Mr Bleach is planning to name the British officials he tipped off and to reveal details of how the conspiracy was hatched in London. "I think this trial could prove very embarrassing for our Government," said Mr Hudson. "Peter told them about a meeting held at the Inter-Continental hotel in Piccadilly in September 1995. He had friends in Special Branch and had worked with them before; he helped them crack a ring smuggling weapons to the IRA and was commended."

Documents exist to prove that Mr Bleach, who was in the Army Intelligence Corps in the 1970s, supplied information about the proposed air drop to the Ministry of Defence's Export Services Organisation.

The MoD claims it advised Mr Bleach to pull out of the deal, but his friends claim the security services wanted him to go through with it to discover who was behind the scheme, for which he was acting as a middle man.

The weapons, which included 500 AK-47 assault rifles, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, and anti-tank grenades, are thought to have been intended for the Annanda Marga, a religious sect whose headquarters are in the area of the drop.

"Peter kept the security services informed every step of the way. He thought the aircraft would be intercepted before it entered Indian airspace. There was a cock-up, and he is being used a scapegoat," said Mr Hudson.

Last week a spokesman for the Foreign Office said that the Government could not intervene and was not prepared to comment on Mr Bleach's claims in case it prejudiced his trial.