Former MI6 spy accused of trying to sell data exposing British spy agency’s techniques

Ex-UK spy accused of attempting to sell secrets

LONDON — A former MI6 spy has been accused of stealing top-secret files on intelligence-gathering techniques and offering them to a foreign government for 2 million pounds ($2.9 million), a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Prosecutor Piers Arnold told a London court that Daniel Houghton, 25, is alleged to have attempted to sell the documents, but was arrested Monday after British intelligence officials posed as the potential buyer.

Houghton was not asked to enter a plea during a brief hearing.

Arnold said Houghton, a dual Dutch and British national, is accused of copying top secret files from the domestic agency MI5 to CD and DVDs while working for the MI6 overseas intelligence service between September 2007 and May 2009.

He did not specify what job Houghton had with MI6, but said the alleged attempted sale came after he left the agency.

Houghton is accused of offering the files to a foreign intelligence agency, but the agency was not identified in court.

Arnold told the court that disclosure of the files would compromise the ability of MI5 and MI6 to gather intelligence, and could endanger national security.

“Some of these files had a security classification of top secret, others were classified as secret,” Arnold said.

Britain’s intelligence agencies are notoriously protective of their intelligence-gathering techniques.

Houghton faces two charges, one for theft and another for violating Britain’s official secrets act — the confidentiality law by which all intelligence officers are expected to abide. The theft charge carries a maximum possible penalty of seven years in jail; the official secrets act offense has a potential punishment of two years in prison.

Houghton’s apartment-mate, Kimberly Peterson, a 27-year-old student from Seattle, said police had swept through the apartment she shared with Houghton and seized computers and memory sticks.

Peterson, who said Houghton had told her he worked for a bank, said the raid had left her feeling “like I am in my own episode of ‘Law and Order’.”

“My family back home in Seattle are terrified. They wanted me to jump straight on the first flight home,” Peterson said. “I had no idea he had worked for MI6. We got on but we weren’t close. He was quiet but friendly. There was nothing that would have raised any suspicion.”

She said she had contacted the U.S. Embassy in London for help.

Houghton was arrested Monday in a central London hotel and ordered held until March 11 to appear at a hearing at a court in Westminster, London.

His mother and brother attended the hearing, but declined to comment to reporters on the case as they left.