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in London from 1972 to 1979. It is the Crown’s case that whether in addition to his secretarial
duties, or in fact separately he was a KGB agent, and that it was a mere charade that he was a
secretary as well is immaterial because their case is that he was there in England as a Russian agent.
Their case is that during that period he, in fact, recruited Mr. Smith to pass information to the USSR.
It is submitted that there is no evidence that Mr. Smith knew Mr. Oshchenko during that period,
there is no evidence that he had any dealings with him during that period 1972 to 1979 and there is
no evidence that he has had any dealings thereafter with him in 1979 to 1992.
The Crown submits, insofar as I have their written submissions before me which I have read and,
therefore, rely upon, that in fact they can rely on the use of Victor’s name in the telephone call
shortly before his arrest; they rely upon on the fact that Mr. Oshchenko’s defection on the 25th July
1992 would have been known to somebody who they say was an agent and that, therefore, the
behaviour of Mr. Smith can be directly related to the knowledge of Mr. Oshchenko’s defection.
They further say that now that they have served notice of a Mr. E as a witness that the pattern
shown of Mr. E’s behaviour is sufficiently similar for the jury to be able to infer that Mr. Oshchenko
was running Mr. Smith as an agent and therefore that he had had dealings with him. They rely on a
number of matters there.
The defence submit that all this evidence is remarkably shadowy. They point to the fact there are a
large number of people called Victor, both in the diplomatic and out of the diplomatic world and
have taken the court through a number of the diplomatic lists. There are a large number of Victors
every year in the Russian Embassy. They say this evidence is wholly unsafe and a great deal more
prejudicial than probative.
I take the view that looking at the whole of the evidence in this case that this evidence is admissible.
I reject the defence submission on this matter and I rule that evidence can be given.
I turn on to number two which - I quibble with numbers effectively - on the prosecution skeleton
argument that Mr. Tansey has been arguing from that was number two.
I turn to 3, 4, and 5 which I deal with together. They object to evidence of Smith’s membership of
the Communist League and the Communist Party, employment by EMI, and in 1976 doing work on
classified material, his efforts to regain security clearance and evidence of lies that he told. The
Crown put all that forward as part, they say, of the pattern of somebody who is recruited as an
agent who should, in fact, relatively quickly thereafter disassociate himself from any left-wing
organisation in case the authorities should consider he might be somebody who might be prepared to
disclose information to the USSR.
They say that the pattern again is in some ways, with the work on classified material similar to Mr.
E’s, but I am bound to say that the evidence there is not precise.
They equally say that his membership of the Communist Party coupled with his lies would enable the
jury to draw the inference that his political views play a part in the motive he had before giving
information to the U.S.S.R.
Mr. Tansey submits that this is too tenuous, it is too prejudicial; people do change their political
views and he has cited several well-known examples: people who were members of the Communist
Party for a short time and have changed to another party, and people who have changed from one
party to another one in this country. There are many people who have done so, and that is a
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