NZ spy comes in from the cold

Richard Tomlinson. Photo / Herald file

Renegade New Zealand spy Richard Tomlinson has come in from the cold.

After more than a decade in exile, where he lived in fear of arrest and extradition to face trial in Britain, Mr Tomlinson has at last buried the hatchet with Sir John Scarlett, chief of MI6, the Times newspaper reported in London.

Mr Tomlinson was born in Ngaruawahia and holds dual New Zealand and British citizenship.

The deal between the head of Britain's overseas spies and Mr Tomlinson, a whistleblower who claimed MI6 had a secret "licence to kill", followed a decision to send a mediator to negotiate with the New Zealander in Spain.

As a result, MI6 has agreed to let him return to Britain, unfreeze royalties from his book and drop the threat of charges. It has also apologised for its unfair treatment of him.

In return, the former spy - sentenced to a year's jail for breaking the Official Secrets Act in 1997 - has agreed not to speak to the media or make further damaging disclosures about the shadowy work of his former employer.

Mr Tomlinson, 46, joined MI6 in 1991. He served in the Soviet operations department at the end of the Cold War before being posted to Sarajevo during the break-up of Yugoslavia.

He also worked as an undercover officer against Iran and investigated Tehran's trade in weapons of mass destruction.

The deal marks the end of a bitter battle that began in 1995 when he was sacked, reportedly for poor service when he became depressed.

Mr Tomlinson fought a 14-year feud with the agency, punctuated by multiple arrests, six months in jail, and a life on the run through Switzerland, Spain, the United States, Germany, Italy, Australia and New Zealand after Britain's then Foreign Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, ruled that his case could not be heard at an industrial tribunal.

Mr Tomlinson talked to the Sunday Times, which published a series of articles about MI6 dirty tricks.

In 1997, he became the first MI6 agent to be prosecuted for secrets offences since the Soviet spy George Blake in 1961. He admitted breaking the Official Secrets Act after he sent a synopsis of his proposed book on MI6 to a publisher in Australia.

He served five months of a 12-month sentence and then fled to France in breach of his sentencing conditions.

Later he tried to help Mohamed al-Fayed, the Harrods tycoon, with his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Fayed's son Dodi in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Mr Tomlinson claimed that MI6 plotted to kill Slobodan Milosevic, the late president of Serbia, by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to blind the driver.

He suggested Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed may have been killed by MI6 in the same way, although that claim was dismissed at their inquest.

Last week, Mr Tomlinson was unavailable for comment. His father, David, declined to discuss the matter. Friends of the former spy say, however, that he has already been back to Britain.

He has previously said: "If I felt 100 per cent sure that I could return to New Zealand without problems, then I would."

- NZPA