Spy trial professor ‘dined with Andropov’

Press, 1 December 1982, Page 8

Spy trial professor ‘dined with Andropov’

NZPA-Reuter London A Canadian professor accused of being a Soviet spy for 30 years once dined with the new Soviet leader. Yuri Andropov, when he headed the K.G.B. secret police, the London Central Criminal Court was told yesterday. Hugh Hambleton, aged 60, professor of economics at Laval University, Quebec, denied two charges of passing North Atlantic Treaty Organisation secrets to Moscow and of obtaining information which could be useful to an enemy. The prosecution said that Professor Hambleton told British security officers that he had met Mr Andropov at a dinner party in a Moscow apartment in 1975, and alleged the then K.G.B. chief asked him to get classified reports from the United States. According to the British Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers, Mr Andropov told Professor Hambleton that he hoped he could give a political and economic assessment of world trouble spots and offered to finance him to enter the Canadian Parliamentary system. "I got the feeling he wanted me to exert influence on behalf of Russia rather than spying,” Professor Hambleton was alleged to have said. - The prosecution said that when British interviewers

suggested that Moscow must have valued him very highly, Professor Hambleton replied: “I didn't get a medal, but he thanked me for my services. “He asked me general questions, for instance didn’t I think the American defence budget was too high,” Professor Hambleton was quoted as saying. Sir Michael said that Professor Hambleton was recruited in Canada by the K.G.B. in the late 19405, and was for 30 years in almost continuous contact with Soviet agents all over the world, but mainly in Paris and Quebec. He passed on much classified information after joining N.A.T.O.’s economic and finance division in 1956. Professor Hambleton told his interviewers he had handed over as many as 300 photographs of secret documents over a four-year period while in Paris, said Sir Michael. In 1979 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized sophisticated spy equipment in his possession. He was not prosecuted in Canada and came to Britain where he was arrested last June, said the prosecution. The trial continues. Earlier yesterday, in a separate case also heard at London's Old Bailey court, a former British diplomat, Rhona Ritchie, was given a suspended nine-month prison sentence after she admitted

passing confidential information to her Egyptian lover while working in Israel. Ritchie, aged 29, admitted breaching Britain's Official Secrets Act when she was based at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv. She was recalled from Israel in March. Ritchie, a former Embassy First Secretary, was described by the prosecution as “more foolish than wicked.” In passing sentence, the judge Sir David Croom-John-son, said: “It has been said someone in your position should be the eyes and ears of the diplomatic service, but that does not mean you were also its mouth” Between November 1981 and February, the court heard Ritchie gave the contents of five telegrams to the Egyptian Embassy’s Second Secretary, Refaat Ansary, a divorced man with whom she was having an affair. The cables were from the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, to the former American Secretary of State, Mr Alexander Haig.

Sir Michael said that four telegrams dealt with British participation in the Sinai multinational peace-keeping force, including the one in which Lord Carrington first advised Mr Haig that Britain would sent troops. The most sensitive cable, said Sir Michael, spelt out the West European view of the peace-keeping force—obviously better not to be

known to the world at large.

Sir Michael said that she was so carried away by her affair with Mr Ansary that she revealed to him what was in official telegrams. But the damage to Britain's interests was not great. Earlier Mr George Carman Q.C., for Ritchie, told the judge: “Let no-one believe she was a spy. She was misguided in her judgment—her loyalty to her country is unsullied."

In Cairo, diplomatic sources said that Mr Ansary had been transferred to Vienna. Meanwhile, a coroner ruled yesterday that the radio operator found hanged last week at his home near the top British secret communications headquarters where spy Geoffrey Prime worked committed suicide.

A statement issued by his family’s solicitors after the inquest said that Peter Ernest Brockway was “loyal to his family and country” and his death was not being investigated by MIS or the Special Branch.

It criticised the press for causing his family “immense distress."

Mr Brockway, aged 42, was said to have become depressed because he was separated from his family for several months when he first moved to the Government communications headquarters at Cheltenham.