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A Russian woman accused of spying for Moscow while working for a British lawmaker yesterday won her appeal against deportation after insisting she was innocent.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) ruled that 26-year-old Katia Zatuliveter was not liaising with Russian intelligence services while working as a researcher for Mike Hancock, a 65-year-old MP with whom she had an affair.
The government wanted to deport her on the grounds that her presence was a danger to national security.
Hancock, the member of parliament for Portsmouth south, sat on parliament’s defence select committee, which scrutinises government defence policy and expenditure.
“Our conclusion, at least on the balance of probabilities, is that she was and is not a Russian agent,” SIAC chairman judge John Mitting said in his written ruling.
Zatuliveter was stopped at London Gatwick airport in August last year, and arrested in December amid fears she was engaged in spying.
The SIAC panel heard that she had a string of relationships, mostly sexual, with unidentified officials from European countries when she acted as a chaperone to delegates attending conferences in Russia.
Zatuliveter said after the ruling: “I feel fine. I am very happy. Incredible relief.”
In his ruling, Mitting said that even if Zatuliveter was approached by the Russian security services, “we have seen nothing which satisfies us that she was recruited as an agent or was tasked, or acted, as one”.
“We cannot exclude the possibility that we have been gulled - but, if we have been, it has been by a supremely competent and rigorously trained operative,” he said.
“That does not fit all that we know about the appellant’s age, background and characteristics. Accordingly, we allow this appeal.” He added: “Although we have disagreed with the security service’s assessment, we note... that there were ample grounds for suspicion.”
In breaking down the points put by the domestic security service MI5, the panel said they were satisfied that Zatuliveter was “not tasked to seduce” Hancock and their relationship was “enduring and genuine on both sides”.