A Liberal Democrat MP who hired an alleged Russian spy as his research assistant has tabled a series of parliamentary questions about Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston since the election.
Mike Hancock yesterday insisted there was nothing unusual about asking for the locations of berths for submarines as he launched a staunch defence of Katia Zatuliveter, who was arrested on Thursday and is facing deportation over allegations that she spied for Russia.
The MP declared yesterday that his 25-year-old assistant had "nothing to hide" as he challenged the security services to produce evidence against Zatuliveter, originally from Dagestan who was forced to flee her home as a child in the mid-1990s during the Chechnyan conflict.
Zatuliveter is appealing against a deportation order that was issued after Theresa May, the home secretary, was briefed by MI5 about alleged connections to the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service.
The assistant, who first came to Britain three years ago to study for a masters degree at Bradford University, was initially questioned after being stopped at Gatwick airport in August as she returned to the UK from a holiday in Croatia. She was released and initially retained her House of Commons pass, issued after police and MI5 security checks, which gave her free access to the Palace of Westminster.
Hancock strongly defended Zatuliveter in a round of television interviews. He told Sky News: "I have no reason to believe she did any thing but act honourably during the time she was working for me. She is determined to fight her corner and she genuinely believes, and I back her 100%, that she has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong. If she has, the [security] services are right. But they need to prove their point now."
Ministers from the current and previous government were fully aware of Hancock's interest in Russia and his interest in defence matters as an MP for Portsmouth, which has a naval base. Since the general election he has asked detailed parliamentary questions about the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston and about Trident.
Hancock said the questions and answers were all on the public record. He insisted that he has asked similar questions throughout his parliamentary career, which started in 1984 before Zatuliveter was born. "As far as I am concerned there was nothing she was doing for me that was sensitive," he said.
"Defence select committee papers have been leaked to newspapers before now and I have never read anything in a defence select committee paper or report which was worth someone believing they couldn't get it from another source."
But MPs said they had long regarded Hancock as overly sympathetic to Russia, though there was no suggestion that he knew of Zatuliveter's alleged activities. Chris Bryant, Labour's former Europe minister, said he recently ousted Hancock as chairman of the all-party Russian group because he was too lenient towards Moscow.
"We were concerned by Mike Hancock's pro-Putin and pro-Medvedev position. That is why I stood against him and ousted him. His research assistant, who provided secretarial support to the group, was incensed and walked out.
"The combination of being on the delegation to the Western European Union, the Council of Europe, his membership of the commons defence select committee and his position as a Portsmouth MP: you can see how he was attractive. Russian secret operatives are working as assiduously now as they did 30 years ago."
Matyas Eörsi, who chaired the Council of Europe's liberal group, said he had spent a year trying to draw attention to Hancock's dubious Russian connections.
"I am somewhat amazed to see that even today he insists that Zatuliveter is not a spy," Eorsi said. "If I were Hancock, I would rather show how shocked I am and ask MI5 to investigate everything in all possible details … But to claim that she was not a spy?'"
Eörsi also repeated his allegation that Hancock had travelled more frequently to Russia than he had declared, and ridiculed Hancock's recent claim that his passport had "fallen in the sea". "I could not stop laughing on this," he said, pointing out that stamps in Hancock's passport would have confirmed the truth either way.
