Jury shown top secret files in Shayler case

The former MI5 officer David Shayler illegally copied some 250 pages of classified documents ­ including ones marked "Top Secret" on links between the IRA and Libya ­ before he left the Security Service, it was claimed at the Old Bailey yesterday.

Some were later recovered from the offices of The Mail on Sunday, which had used them for an article that claimed there was mismanagement and inefficiency at MI5, said Nigel Sweeney QC, for the prosecution, on the first day of Mr Shayler's trial for offences under the Official Secrets Act.

Mr Shayler, 36, representing himself, denies three charges of disclosing information, disclosing information by interception of communications, and disclosing documents.

The jury was told that Mr Shayler had been employed by MI5 for five years until October 1996, working in the section of the service dealing with vetting possible subversives, the Provisional IRA and Middle Eastern terrorism. He had signed the Official Secrets Act three times, Mr Sweeney said, which had given him a "life-long duty of confidentiality".

Before he left, it was claimed, he had copied 28 documents, comprising 250 pages, including some written by Mr Shayler himself. Four of the documents were classified as "Top Secret" and 18 as "Secret". The document, Provisional IRA ­ Libya links 1971-1996, was the largest file marked "Top Secret" and contained 135 pages of reports "from agents and other sources" over 25 years, Mr Sweeney said. The court heard that the disclosure of even a single piece of classified information could be the "final piece in the jigsaw" which would allow hostile countries or groups to identify British agents.

Mr Shayler also copied documents on Lockerbie, on a particular agent, on subversives in the UK, on a convicted arms dealer, Peter Bleach; on something called Operation Shadower, and on an internal history of the first 50 years of the service. One of the documents, marked "Secret", was a report on Soviet funding of the Communist Party of Great Britain which was written by Mr Shayler himself in June 1992.

After the articles were published in The Mail on Sunday, a signed copy of a contract for the supply of information was also recovered from the newspaper's office. Mr Shayler's thumbprint was found on it.

The court heard that The Mail on Sunday had paid Mr Shayler and his girlfriend Annie Machon ­ also a former MI5 officer ­ a total of £40,000 paid into an account in Guernsey in her name only, as well as into a joint account.

The jury were shown some of the documents at the centre of the case and warned by Mr Sweeney that they had been censored to disguise the identities of MI5 officers. Four MI5 officers are due to give evidence in the case, but their identities will be protected.

The day before the articles were published in The Mail on Sunday in August 1997, Mr Shayler fled to the Netherlands. He remained abroad until 2000, when the European Convention on Human Rights came into force.

Mr Sweeney said Mr Shayler had claimed that he was acting in the public interest under Article 10 of the Convention, but that argument had already been rejected by three other courts before this trial.

The trial continues.