Posted on 01/28/2006 9:18:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
MOSCOW (AFP) - Two spies in the pay of the British have been arrested, a former chief of Russia's FSB security services said in televised comments on the discovery of an alleged British spy operation in Moscow.
Britain's Foreign Office said Sunday it was investigating the reports.
"Two spies working for Britain were arrested," Nikolai Kovalev, now a lawmaker with the pro-Kremlin party United Russia, told the NTV channel on Saturday, without clarifying their nationality.
"Certainly, they are not silent, they are speaking," added Kovalev, who headed the secret services from 1996-1998.
His comments came as part of NTV's announcement of a program, scheduled to air on Sunday, which would reveal "more details on the greatest spy scandal since the Cold War."
A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: "We have not been notified of any arrests. It is not clear from reports that they are talking about British staff.
"We are asking the foreign ministry for information and we are contacting our staff."
The British embassy in Moscow told the Moscow Echo radio that it had no such information.
Russian media have been ceaselessly mulling the scandal since the affair erupted last Sunday on a special program by the state-owned Rossiya channel.
Russia's intelligence service last week accused four British diplomats of involvement in a spy ring in which agents allegedly passed secrets through a high-tech communications system hidden in a fake rock in a Moscow park.
A TV grab from Russian NTV channel shows a FSB video of a person, allegedly a British embassy staff member walking on a street, to collect intelligence information provided by Russian agents, in a park outside Moscow. Two spies in the pay of the British have been arrested, a former chief of Russia's FSB security services says(AFP/NTV/File)
"I think I'll skulk around in a black coat and watch cap -- that NEVER looks suspicious."
L O L
excellent!
Who'da thunk it!
Wow! Un..canny.
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