A senior official who lost a storehouse of secret and sensitive documents on military operations in Afghanistan and Crimea was dismissed from his Defense Ministry post and returned to his home department.
Investigation in lost files – discovered last month by a member of the public in a soggy pile behind a bus stop in Kent – found no evidence of espionage, according to a statement from Ben Wallace, Secretary of Defense.
He also concluded that there had been no compromise of the documents by the enemies of the United Kingdom.
But the person who misplaced them, whom Sky News chose not to name for security reasons at the request of the Defense Department, has been removed from sensitive work and his security clearance has been suspended in the awaiting a full review, according to the written ministerial statement.
The senior official had been loaned to the Ministry of Defense by a department separate from Whitehall. The person has now been returned to this department.
“We are confident that we have recovered all the secret papers,” said Mr. Wallace.
“For security reasons, the ministry [MoD] will not comment on the nature of the loss or on the identity of the individual.
The member of the public who found the package of almost 50 documents turned them over to the BBC.
The dossier deemed to be the most sensitive was that entitled “Secret UK Eyes Only”, which set out recommendations for the UK’s military presence in Afghanistan after the departure of US and other NATO forces from the country here. at the end of August.
Other files were marked “officially sensitive” and included discussions of a high-stakes plan to navigate a Royal Navy destroyer in the waters off Crimea that Russia claims to be its own, but which are being considered. internationally as belonging to Ukraine.
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-07-19 18:22:00
