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THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: That then colours all these tradecraft notes which stretch over a
period.
MR. JUSTICE BLOFELD: Are you going so far as to say that on that evidence alone, without Mr.
E, it would be open to the jury to say the Viktor is Viktor Oschenko.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: Well, it is a much more difficult question to answer. There are
indications that it is, in view of the defendant going and keeping the assignation on the 6th August
and its being a failure, its coinciding with the arrival/defection of Oschenko. I am not suggesting he
knew. He just knew something had gone wrong. It was that the Russians knew that Oschenko had
defected.
MR. JUSTICE BLOFELD: I am just wondering if you are trying to call Mr. E on two bases -- I do
not know if I am getting it right -- one, to demonstrate whether he happens to be called Viktor
Oschenko or whether he happens to be called another Russian name is immaterial. You are saying
this is an indication of how the Russian agents/Russian case officers behave with a prospective agent,
and it links up remarkably closely with what you say happened to Mr. Smith. But you say the icing
on the cake is that not only is it a Russian agent but it happens to be a man called Viktor Oschenko.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: If one strips it down to those two parts, let us imagine for the
purposes of argument he did not mention, could not remember, the name of the person or it was
somebody else. In my submission, it would be evidence of tradecraft, first-hand evidence of KGB
tradecraft along the lines of Viktor Oschenko, except from the agent’s point of view and not from
the handler, not from the KGB officers.
MR. JUSTICE BLOFELD: Yes, I have no doubt at all, subject to hearing -- I think that is putting it
too strongly; I may have a doubt after I have heard Mr. Tansey, but at the moment I am inclined to
consider that, as to Mr. E’s movements in Portugal which relate to tradecraft, they would be
admissible in any event because they go to tradecraft pure and simple. The point that is troubling me
is the mention of Viktor Oschenko. I see how you put it. I do not think really you can develop it. I
mean I have got your argument.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: I just say it would be astonishing if in this case we could give the
evidence of general tradecraft through E, its being our case that it was Viktor Oschenko who
recruited both him and the defendant, and we could not complete the story to show just that: that he
had this telephone call immediately precipitating the defendant’s arrest with him clearly acting in a
clandestine way, motivated to hand over these documents to a Russian handler with whom Viktor
was associated, with an old friend and colleague, and we could not then indicate the surname of the
Viktor, but we could everything else. In my submission, that is not attractive. Anyway that is the way
I put relevance. So far as the -- unless your Lordship wishes me to go on?
MR. JUSTICE BLOFELD: Yes.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: So far as the second argument concerned with hearsay -- assuming
it to be relevant, does it infringe the rule against hearsay? -- in my submission, it no more infringes
the rule against hearsay than what Mr. Gordievsky was saying about the practices of the KGB.
Whereas he was speaking in the general practices of the KGB from a lifetime’s experience, this
man, as a person who has been handled by them, is just as entitled to give specific evidence as
Gordievsky was to general: we sent agents to Portugal; it was a friendly country; we gave them a
map and made them walk round the street in a particular way at a particular time to see if they were
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