House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence

APPENDIX 115

Memorandum submitted by Mr Gordon Winter

BACKGROUND

Gordon Winter: born in Derbyshire November 1931; journalist in Tangier and Johannesburg 1958-60; recruited to work for South African Intelligence (BOSS) in 1963 as an undercover agent assigned to anti-terrorism; deported from South Africa in 1966 as a cover to enable operation as an African Affairs specialist on Fleet Street. In 1979, disillusioned, left South African Intelligence to live in Ireland writing a book Inside BOSS which, with the good offices of Peter Hain, was published by Penguin Books in 1981. In November 1996 settled down with new lady partner in quiet village of North Curry, near Taunton, Somerset.

Six months later, a freelance reporter named Barrie Penrose decided that my decision to return to live in England was "a good story" and he wrote an article that was published in the British The Sunday Times on the 27 of April 1997. The article seems to have been almost solely based on a conversation between Penrose and myself at Dublin Airport on 18 April 1997 which Penrose surreptitiously recorded. The Sunday Times article is at Annex A.

COMPLAINT

I regarded Barrie Penrose's article as a serious invasion of my privacy because it was so ridiculously sensational and inaccurate that it caused me (and my most respectable lady partner) immense embarrassment as far as our friends and neighbours were concerned. Penrose's article also contained several lies without which there was no public interest argument to justify the intrusion. I made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) on 30 May 1997. This was adjudicated in June 1999 after extended correspondence—and rejected. In October 1999 a request for further consideration was turned down on the grounds that my letters indicated that I intended to take legal action against the newspaper as a result of the article and therefore it was "clearly inappropriate for the Commission to give the matter further consideration" (PCC 15 October 1999). Although one evidential point was conceded by the PCC as not having been considered, the Director wrote that this "would not, however, be sufficient for the Commssion to uphold a complaint in the context of the article as a whole."

SUBSTANCE OF THE COMPLAINT

Penrose's article, headlined "FOUND: THE AGENT WHO FRAMED HAIN", made a large number of claims and assertions.

A. Relating to previous activities

Penrose wrote, inter alia, that I:

— was involved in a conspiracy to eliminate Nelson Mandela;

— admitted involvement in:

— framing Peter Hain, then a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner, for a bank robbery in Putney in 1975;

— obtaining false passports in London, using the names of children who had died, for Boss agents;

— some serious crimes in Britain (some of which I set out in my book);

— got hold of a personal cheque which a prominent Labour minister had paid to a rent boy with whom he had had a homosexual encounter in London.

These allegations are all false.

Nelson Mandela plot—when I challenged Penrose, through the PCC, to produce any substantiation he failed to do so.

Peter Hain plot (October 1975)—I returned to South Africa from Britain in February 1974 and did not return again until 1979. As set out below, Peter Hain himself was "somewhat doubtful" about Penrose's claim.

False passports—I did not obtain false passports for Boss agents as is, incidentally, clearly set out in my book "Inside Boss" published in 1981.

Serious crimes—I did not admit any such thing to Barrie Penrose.

Rent boy cheque—I never did get hold of any personal cheque paid to a rent boy by a Labour MP, or Labour Minister, or a member of the House of Lords, and I never did tell Barrie Penrose that I ever had possession of such a cheque.

Regarding this last allegation: the PCC's point-by-point finding on "no breach" , communicated to me in June 1999, said that: "There was no breach of the Code. You did not deny the accuracy of the statement." After a further exchange of correspondence the PCC conceded that I had denied this claim (I had done so in at least two separate submissions (May and October 1997) to the PCC at least 15 times). It would appear that I had produced too much evidence to support my concerns—as the Director's letter of October 1999 suggests ("You have sent the Commission a vast amount of material over the last two and a half years. The PCC deals with the vast majority of complaints within 40 working days via a short exchange of correspondence").

B. Relating to current status and the interest of the British police

Penrose wrote that:

— I was: "wanted for questioning by British police";

— I risked: "being prosecuted for a string of unsolved crimes";

— a "Scotland Yard officer said police still wanted to question Winter".

Knowing that all those statements were untrue, I immediately drove up to London and contacted the Special Branch section at Scotland Yard. The officer I spoke to was Special Branch officer (SBO) Brendan O'Hara. When I asked him if The Sunday Times article had been correct to state I was wanted for questioning, he replied: "You are not wanted for questioning and there is no warrant out for your arrest".

I then asked the SBO why The Sunday Times had published the following words: "A Scotland Yard officer said police still wanted to question Winter". He replied: "Yes, I was puzzled when I saw that quote in The Sunday Times because it is not correct. There is nothing on file about you being wanted for questioning and I have asked all my fellow officers here (in Scotland Yard) and they know nothing about you being wanted for questioning". The SBO's answer makes it clear that no Scotland Yard officer had told Penrose that "A Scotland Yard officer said police still wanted to question Winter" and that Penrose had simply "invented" that quote.

Towards the end of my conversation with SBO O'Hara I told him that if there was any possible doubt in his mind about me being wanted, I would be most willing to surrender my British passport to his department. He replied that this would not be necessary and that I could go back to my home in Somerset.

While I was talking to the Special Branch officer, I told him that the headline in The Sunday Times which stated: "FOUND: THE AGENT WHO FRAMED HAIN" was absolutely untrue and that I had already telephoned Peter Hain to assure him that I had never, at any time, framed him. I told the SBO that I had known Peter Hain for more than 30 years and that he had fully accepted my assurance and added: "I must admit I was somewhat doubtful about it when Barrie Penrose telephoned me on the subject, even though he gave me the impression that he was on strong ground". When I told the SBO all this, he asked me if I would give him Peter Hain's telephone number because he would like to speak to him. I did so. The officer did telephone Hain and was told that he, Peter Hain, had "not been convinced" by Penrose's article in The Sunday Times.

And so, as far as Scotland Yard was concerned, the matter was dropped and I never heard from SBO O'Hara (or any other police officer) again. And as for Penrose's allegation in The Sunday Times article that I risked "being prosecuted for a string of unsolved crimes" this was yet another shock-horror type quote that Penrose had sucked out of his thumb in order to jazz up his story while allowing it to be passed by The Sunday Times lawyers. The statement, allegedly from an official Scotland source or spokesman, that I was wanted for questioning gave the story a cloak of authority.

However, it is now March 2003 and during the last six years (since the article and my conversation with Special Branch officer O'Hara in April 1997) no effort has been made to "prosecute" me in any way whatsoever for anything. In fact, no police officer has contacted me since I spoke to Brendan O'Hara, so I quite clearly was not "wanted for questioning by British police" as stated by Penrose in The Sunday Times. Which, of course, also suggests that Penrose's claim in the article that a "Scotland Yard officer said police still wanted to question Winter" was also incorrect. However, I accept that the article itself only needs a basis in facts pertaining at the time it was published.

On this point, Penrose told the PCC that just before he had written his article about me, he had spoken to: "a Special Branch officer who has visited my home in the past and to whom I have spoken on other occasions." Penrose said it was not possible to name that Special Branch officer because: "that would jeopardise another ongoing investigation". Mr Richard Caseby (then the joint managing editor of The Sunday Times) supported him on the subject: ". . . while Mr. Penrose is able to give further information regarding the Scotland Yard officer, it is not possible for him to give the name of the officer concerned, as this would jeopardise a different investigation. I am fully aware of the investigation concerned".

Five months later I asked the PCC if they would ask Penrose if he could now tell us the name of the Special Branch officer on the assumption that the relevant investigation must have ended by now. I have never been given the name of this alleged Special Branch officer nor any substantive indication that the PCC satisfied itself on this point. However, the point-by-point dismissal of my complaint said on this point: "There was no breach of the Code. Given the named source provided by the newspaper, the Commission viewed the description as reasonable." I responded to the PCC that no "named source" had ever been provided.

Penrose refers to three related matters in a statement to the PCC dated 4 March 1998 responding to my complaint:

— "Another person involved in the enquiry [Penrose's] was an MI6 agent named [X] who had a flat in Winter's house in Pont Street specifically to keep an eye on Winter."

The Sunday Times

These statements, I am sure, were made to cloud the issue of Penrose's central authority for the piece—his unnamed Scotland Yard officer who told him "police still wanted to question Winter"—and/or to add spurious mystique and gravitas to his submission.

The Sunday Times

— Y, a former Special Branch officer, was also retired at the time and so is not to be confused with Penrose's (and Caseby's) active Scotland Yard officer. Being retired Y could hardly have been involved in an on-going investigation that prevented his identification nor could he have been qualified to tell a reporter that I was wanted for questioning. In any case Penrose writes explicitly that he left it to Y to let his former Special Branch colleagues "know" about me "a move I understood he would make". In other words the information flow was the other way, from Penrose to Y and not vice versa. If Y had checked up with Scotland Yard, as I did as soon as the article was published, he would have been told, as I was, that I was not wanted for questioning nor for any "unsolved crimes". If he had received this information he presumably would have passed it back to Penrose. I challenged Penrose to obtain a signed statement from Y supporting his 4 March 1998 claims. He has not done so.

The Sunday Times

— My conversation with that official at the Yard's Press Office satisfied me that I had been correct to believe that Penrose had lied to the PCC when he told them he had spoken to "someone" in the Yard's Press Office on Saturday 26 April 1997. So I submitted a report to the PCC in which I outlined all the above and pointed out to the PCC that, in view of the fact that Penrose had claimed to have made such a call, I now wanted him to prove it to the PCC.

The Sunday Times

C. A question of identity

A further claim in Penrose's Sunday Times article, was that I was "using an assumed name" in Longs Field, North Curry, near Taunton, Somerset.

I was able to refute this lie by submitting a large number of exhibits of proof to the PCC. These included signed statements from persons in and around the area to the effect that they had known me as Gordon Winter for periods of between seven weeks and six months prior to the article being published and had never known me by any other name.

These statements came from: my immediate neighbours, the local NHS health centre (where I had registered using my health service Medical Card issued in 1953), the local library, the foreman of the estate, my Taunton dentist, my bank in Taunton (who frequently saw my passport); the local pub where I had used my credit card on one occasion and booked tables in my name; Taunton SupaSnaps; Henlade Office World and Comet stores; Taunton Dixons, WH Smiths and Ciro Citterio (Dunns)—other places where I had used my credit card bearing the name, my name, Gordon Winter.

In addition I supplied the PCC with a letter from Taunton Hospital dated 8 April 1997 which was posted to me, in the name Gordon Winter, at my address in North Curry confirming a specialist ENT appointment at Taunton Hospital. I had requested that appointment in early 1997 (which was ten weeks before Penrose wrote his article). This letter not only proved the use of my name to make the appointment but it also showed that the letter was delivered to me, Gordon Winter, at my home address in Longs Field, North Curry. This is of particular significance for the "postman" debate set out further below.

D. Fleeing

In the article in April 1997 Penrose also wrote that "When approached by The Sunday Times, Winter cancelled his ex-directory telephone line and headed for Heathrow, saying he would not be returning to Britain". This was a melodramatic fabrication. I did not have a telephone service at that address at all (but my partner had two lines one of which she cancelled on . . . because the service was no longer required). In his March 1998 statement to the PCC Penrose claimed "when I called the number later that day BT told me he had cancelled his line saying he was leaving the area".

In any case it is impossible for this advice to have come from BT as my partner, who is female, had cancelled one of the two lines to the house which were both in her name and had said nothing about leaving the area. This was evidenced after much effort by both my partner and BT (Ex 26, Ex 138 and Ex 156 to the PCC) and included my partner giving BT leave to release information about her service to the PCC. However the PCC told me later that they did not think that taking up this facility was "necessary". At the time I believed that this was because the PCC accepted my point.

E. Further lies and inaccuracies (in submissions to the PCC)

Penrose claimed to the PCC that when approached by The Sunday Times, prior to the article being written, our local "postman" (in North Curry) had said that he had "never heard of a Gordon Winter" at my address (in Longs Field, North Curry). He also claimed that he had telephoned the Post Office in North Curry to ask them whether they knew a "newcomer" to the village named Gordon Winter. Penrose said that "nobody" at the North Curry Post Office had heard of me.

When I lived in Longs Field we did not have one postman but three. After reading Barrie Penrose's false claim, I interviewed all three of those postmen and when they all agreed that they had known my name prior to the publication of Penrose's The Sunday Times article, I asked them to sign a statement to that effect. They agreed to do this and in their statement (Ex 43), which I submitted to the PCC, they stated that they had knowingly delivered letters to me, in my name, at Longs Field, North Curry, at least three months before Penrose had written the article in The Sunday Times.

At my request the Postmaster at the North Curry Post Office signed a letter (Ex 73), without hesitation, addressed to the PCC in which he categorically denied that Penrose (or any other reporter) had ever telephoned his Post Office to ask any questions about me.

Naively, I thought that these statements would demonstrate to the PCC that Penrose had lied to them. However, the PCC did not see it this way nor did they ever contact the three postmen or the Postmaster, nor anyone else referred to below, even to double-check their assent to these statements as might have been expected had their veracity been doubted. I requested Penrose (via the PCC, of course) to produce a signed statement from his unnamed postman. He has never done so. I have also asked (via The Sunday Times and the PCC) for Penrose to produce itemised telephone bills that would demonstrate that he had telephoned the Post Office and the newsagents in North Curry in April 1997 when he said he was researching the article. He has never responded to this request either.

Penrose did also insult the intelligence of the PCC on this subject as can be seen in a three-page statement Penrose submitted to the PCC on the 4 March 1998 in reply to my continuing complaint. In this statement he asserts that The Sunday Times had checked with my neighbours, the newsagents and the Post Office and nobody knew my name and that my neighbours: "had certainly never heard the name Gordon Winter nor had the postman who delivered his post in North Curry". How could the PCC have missed this example of Penrose's patent dishonesty being already in possession of signed statements to the contrary? I suggest that the PCC did not bother to read my submission. Had they done so they would surely not have failed to notice the following:

— the three North Curry postmen signed a statement identifying me as Gordon Winter etc on 17 July 1997 (submitted to the PCC in August 1997) but Penrose was still claiming on 4 March 1998 (seven months later) that a still unnamed North Curry postman never heard the name Gordon Winter prior to the article being published;

— my neighbours on both sides (and many others) had signed statements identifying me as Gordon Winter etc. (submitted to the PCC in August 1997) but Penrose was still claiming on 4 March 1998 that my neighbours had never heard of Gordon Winter;

— the North Curry Postmaster signed a statement that nobody had inquired after me at the Post Office in August 1997 which went immediately to the PCC but Penrose again claimed in March 1998 that he had telephoned the Post Office and was told that nobody had heard of me;

— the North Curry newsagents signed a letter for me to send to the PCC (which I did immediately) on 27 August 1997 which stated that no reporter had ever rung to inquire about me but Penrose again claimed in March 1998 that he phoned the newsagents and was told that nobody has heard of me.

I conclude that the PCC has demonstrated astonishing negligence in failing to determine the balance of evidence and work out that all these named people must have lied in their signed statements if Penrose, and his unnamed postman (like his unnamed Scotland Yard officer), was to be believed to be telling the truth.

The impression I have gained is that neither the PCC nor The Sunday Times cared whether Penrose is lying or not.

F. Local reporting

The local newspaper in North Curry was the Bristol-based Western Daily Press and when they read Barrie Penrose's story about me in The Sunday Times, they sent a reporter to interview me at my home in Longs Field, North Curry. I was not at home because my partner and I had driven up to London to speak to the Scotland Yard's Special Branch section. Because the blinds were down the reporter presumed that I had "fled" trusting Penrose's (untruthful) claim that I was "wanted for questioning by the British police".

For that reason the local reporter returned to her office in Taunton and wrote an article headlined: "Ex-spy flees village hideout". This article appeared in the Western Daily Press on 29 April 1997 and I was shocked to read it. I telephoned the reporter and told her that the claim in The Sunday Times that I had been "using an assumed name" in North Curry was untrue. I invited her to meet me and carry out her own investigation into Penrose's claims. The reporter made her own inquiries around North Curry and Taunton and satisfied herself that I definitely had not been using an assumed name in North Curry. She wrote an article in which she pointed out that I held an NHS card bearing my name and that I was registered with a local doctor and a dentist in the name Winter—as she wrote: "hardly the hush-hush lifestyle of a man on the run".

G. The recording of the conversation at Dublin airport, 1997

In the period between publication of The Sunday Times article in April 1997 and 4 March 1998, I sought to confirm that Penrose had covertly recorded a conversation we had had at Dublin Airport in April 1997 a week or so before the article was published—I strongly suspected he had done so. I wrote to The Sunday Times and to the PCC about the matter. In Penrose's first submission to the PCC in June 1997 no mention was made of any recording. This, I am sure, was for two reasons: (i) Clause 5 of the Press Code of Practice lays down that: "Unless justified by the public interest, journalists should not obtain or publish material obtained by using clandestine listening devices..."; but more significantly (ii) because the tapes would prove Penrose a liar.

In a second submission to the PCC, dated 4 March 1998, Penrose and The Sunday Times admit that a recording was made and submitted copies of the tape(s) to the PCC. Shortly afterwards I wrote to the PCC saying that I was preparing my own submission on the conversation and, as a consequence, did not want to receive a copy of the recording as this might be argued later to have prejudiced my account. I had further exchanges with my PCC Complaints Officer concerning progress with my report which the PCC said it looked forward to receiving "as soon as possible". I submitted a 164-page report in November 1998 and requested a copy of the recording on 4 January 1999. I was astonished to learn from the PCC, on 19 January 1999, that the submission of the tapes from the newspaper had been accompanied by a stricture that I—the complainant and a party to the conversation in question—was not to be given a copy. I still cannot understand why the PCC did not tell me this immediately rather than waiting nine months—in which period three or four further opportunities for reference to this instruction in correspondence with me were also not taken up by the Commission.

The PCC's position was that it could not take the recording into consideration as evidence. Only such material as can be copied between the parties to a complaint can be so considered. As a consequence the Commission could come to no findings on ten specific "charges" within my complaint. I fail to understand why the PCC did not consider it appropriate that both parties comment on my report of the conversation (with they, the PCC, acting as "referee" if necessary by referring to its copy of recording). Alternatively, presumably, this rule exists to protect the interests of the party who has not submitted the material (in this case, me). In which case I also fail to understand why the PCC did not accept what was in effect my willing waiver of this "right" in asking that the PCC to listen themselves to the tapes in judging the complaint and ascertaining just who was lying.

I believe that consideration of the recording would have demonstrated my innocence of many of the damaging assertions caused by Barrie Penrose to be published in The Sunday Times. I can only assume that a neat procedural device was employed to prevent introduction of the recordings into evidence for that reason and others. I have sought and received the assurance of the PCC that its copy of the recording in question would be kept in a safe place pending any request of a High Court for its production. And there that matter rests. Perhaps the Committee, representing the High Court of Parliament, could demand submission of the recording from the PCC (in confidence if necessary to settle this matter)?

H. Adjudication

In October 1999 the PCC informed me that it had rejected my complaint finding no breaches of the Code of Practice. On the matter of the recording covertly made by Penrose of our conversation at Dublin Airport in April 1997, the Commission "was unable to make a finding" (for the reasons set out above).

In adjudicating the PCC should have noticed that the claim that a Scotland Yard officer had said I was wanted for questioning was not substantiated. The PCC should certainly not have ruled that "There was no breach of the Code. Given the named source provided by the newspaper, the Commission viewed the description as reasonable". But, as I have pointed out, no named source was ever given.

In adjudicating the PCC should have further noticed that, in a similar vein, no named person had ever been presented by Penrose to support his claims, in the article and to the PCC, regarding my using an assumed name. On the other hand virtually everyone Penrose has referred to either in general or specific terms has supplied me (and, via me, the PCC) with signed statements confirming (a) that they know me as Gordon Winter and have never known me by any other name, and/or, where relevant, (b) that Penrose, or any other reporter, had never contacted them to ask about these matters (as he has claimed).

I. Brick walls and glass houses

During the two years that I submitted more than 1,000 typed pages of evidence to the PCC. Too much according to the PCC. I posed more than 200 questions for Penrose to answer. Too many I suppose. I requested (via the PCC) that The Sunday Times ensure that Penrose answer these 200 questions. This is because he, through The Sunday Times, told the world that: I was wanted by the police, that I risked prosecution, that I was living under an assumed name and that I was now fleeing the country (in effect a self-serving tribute to his "investigative" journalism). None of this was true.

But The Sunday Times and the PCC have allowed Penrose to ignore those questions. What kind of justice and fair play is that? How could I possibly defend myself against Penrose's lies and distortions if he was allowed to ignore all those questions I laid before the PCC and The Sunday Times? No less than 24 people signed statements or letters showing that I was known as Gordon Winter in the Taunton—North Curry area long before Barrie Penrose's article in The Sunday Times claimed that I had been "using an assumed name" there.

Because I was intent on proving that I was telling the truth and that Barrie Penrose was not, I repeatedly requested The Sunday Times and the PCC to contact any or all of the people named in the above exhibits so that the PCC could satisfy themselves that the witnesses did sign those letters for me.

Yet, as of today (19 March 2003) nobody from the Press Complaints Commission or The Sunday Times has ever contacted any of those witnesses. The PCC did not even telephone BT. Barrie Penrose and The Sunday Times published a pack of lies and there seems to be nothing to be done about it even in the face of amassed, sourced and signed evidence to the contrary—evidence that indicates not just that, in retrospect, Penrose's assertions were untrue, but also that his claims to have investigated the matter and pretensions to an official police source were also false.

I conclude with an offer based on fair play. If the PCC would re-open my complaint, including its own inspection of the recordings that Penrose made of our conversation, I would agree to sign a legal undertaking not to sue The Sunday Times—something that used to be required by the old Press Council but about which the PCC states: "complainants are free, should they so wish, to pursue legal action (and any claim for damages) once the Commission has finished dealing with their complaint (the Commission is debarred only from dealing with an action which is the subject of current legal proceedings). If this is so why did the Director write that: "It is quite clear from your letters that you now intend to take legal action against the newspaper as a result of that article. Since that is the case, it is clearly inappropriate for the Commission to give the matter further consideration." (15 October 1999).

Annex A

SUNDAY 27 APRIL 1997

SECTION: HOME NEWS; LENGTH: 724 WORDS; HEADLINE: FOUND: THE AGENT WHO FRAMED HAIN; BYLINE: BARRIE PENROSE

A SPY who masterminded plots to smear Westminster politicians for the South African security service, and who was involved in a conspiracy to eliminate Nelson Mandela, has slipped back into Britain where he was born.

Gordon Winter, now 65 and still wanted for questioning by British police, fled this country in the mid-1970s to avoid further questioning from Scotland Yard and MI5 officers investigating his espionage and criminal activities.

For more than 12 years Winter worked for Boss, Pretoria's infamous Bureau of State Security, spending most of that time in Britain spying on South African anti-apartheid protesters and their British supporters, among whom were prominent politicians.

Now he risks being prosecuted for a string of unsolved crimes, including his admitted involvement in:

— Framing Peter Hain, then a prominent anti-apartheid campaigner and now a Labour employment spokesman, for a bank robbery in south London. According to Winter, Boss re cruited a double who committed the robbery in Putney in 1975 for which Hain was charged but later acquitted.

— Obtaining false passports in London, using the names of children who had died. These were supplied to Boss agents around the world.

During his espionage career Winter compiled dossiers on selected politicians from the three main Westminster parties, concentrating on Liberals and Labour MPs who were critics of the apartheid regime.

The aim was to pressure the vulnerable into silence or expose them, as Winter demonstrated when he tried to pass details of a homosexual relationship between Jeremy Thorpe, then leader of the Liberal party, and Norman Scott, a fashion model, to a national newspaper on the eve of the 1974 general election.

In another case, Winter got hold of a personal cheque which a prominent Labour minister had paid to a rent boy with whom he had had a homosexual encounter in London. It is not known whether the information was used to pressure the politician, who later went to the House of Lords.

Last week The Sunday Times traced Winter to a four-bedroomed detached house in North Curry, near Taunton in Somerset. He was using an assumed name.

When approached by The Sunday Times, Winter cancelled his ex-directory telephone line and headed for Heathrow, saying he would not be returning to Britain. Three days later in Dublin, when challenged again by The Sunday Times, he denied he had been living in England. Last week, however, he was spotted back at the house in Somerset.

Asked what he would tell the police if they caught up with him, he said: "There are too many people in high places and inside the intelligence agencies who wouldn't want my past as a spy to come out. I could damage too many people."

Winter agreed that he had committed serious crimes in Britain. He catalogued some of them in his book, Inside Boss, in which he also said he could never return to Britain because he feared being arrested and prosecuted.

He claimed he could identify the man involved in the Putney robbery. "The man was Irish and I know his name and all about him. But he's a professional criminal and he would kill me if I named him. Yes, I know Hain and the police would like to know who he was," he said.

Last week Hain said: "The police should interview him immediately with a view to seeing whether any prosecutions of any individuals involved should be undertaken, including his role in my own case."

A Scotland Yard officer said police still wanted to question Winter; it is understood the British intelligence services will also be informed.

While in Britain, Winter posed as a freelance journalist who had been forced to leave South Africa. He infiltrated a London-based group who were plotting Mandela's escape from imprisonment on Robben Island in the early 1970s.

Winter fed information to Boss with the intention that Mandela should be shot during a dramatic recapture. The escape was, however, abandoned when Mandela suspected Boss's involvement.

The South African government now wants Winter to provide evidence of his past activities to a judicial commission investigating crimes by the previous apartheid regime. Winter claims he is ready to testify but emphasises that his past activities were authorised by the regime. He had no plans to return to South Africa.

25 March 2003



© Parliamentary copyright 2003	Prepared 16 June 2003