November 21, 06

NEWS / Alleged Russian agent was spying on Canada for more than a decade: court documents

TORONTO -- A man arrested in Montreal last week on espionage allegations has been spying for Russia??™s intelligence service for over a decade while posing as a Canadian, according to court documents released today.

The eight-page summary of allegations disclosed by the Federal Court of Canada says the man is a spy working for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, known by the acronym SVR.

The documents do not disclose the man??™s real name but call him an "illegal," an undercover intelligence officer, who was covertly planted in Canada by Moscow under the false name Paul William Hampel.

"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has reasonable grounds to believe that the foreign national alleging to be Paul William Hampel, is a member of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), the Foreign Intelligence Service component of the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS)," the court document reads.

The suspected spy is accused of using stolen Ontario birth certificate numbers to obtain a fake birth certificate, which he then used to obtain three Canadian passports under his assumed name, in 1995, 2000 and 2002.

He used the documentation to develop what intelligence agencies call a "legend," a false identity that would allow him to live in Canada and travel overseas without arousing suspicion, CSIS says.

"Hampel??™s establishment of a legend based on Canadian documentation has provided him with the ability to covertly further the interests of the SVR for over a decade both within Canada and abroad," the document alleges.

The man was arrested at Montreal??™s Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport last Tuesday night after Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg signed a security certificate declaring him a threat to Canada.

The National Post broke the story about the spy suspect??™s arrest last Wednesday, and reported that he was believed to be working for the Russian SVR but the government did not officially confirm their suspicions until today.

He is scheduled to appear in court in Montreal on Wednesday for the start of hearings that will determine whether he will be deported. The Russian embassy in Ottawa said it had no comment.

Despite the end of the Cold War, Russian has continued to run an aggressive foreign espionage program. Canada last deported Russian spies in 1996. The alleged SVR members had stolen the identities of dead Canadian children.

Stewart Bell, National Post

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