By Warren Gamble
Britain has admitted that it asked four telephone engineers later murdered in Chechnya - including New Zealander Stan Shaw - to feed it sensitive information from the rebel Russian territory.
Despite publicly claiming that it had strongly advised Granger Telecom not to send the four men to Chechnya, the
British sought information from them on investment and politics, the Independent in London reported yesterday.
The Foreign Office said it made the request mainly to gain information on two other Britons held hostage in Chechnya, but also on potential investment opportunities in the war-ravaged region.
After Mr Shaw and his colleagues were kidnapped in October and then beheaded last month, the British denied Chechen claims that they had been spying.
Mr Shaw's family - who waited almost three weeks for the return of his body after his head was found dumped on a roadside - have gathered to hold a funeral in Wellington tomorrow.
They doubt he was involved in anything untoward in the Chechen capital of Grozny.
His daughter Anne said: "As far as we were aware they were just over there to install the cellular network and go back.
"I don't believe that they were doing anything else."
Mr Shaw's sister, Cheryl McNabb, of Christchurch, said it did not seem unreasonable for the men to be asked to watch for any information about the kidnapped Britons.
When Mr Shaw and his co-workers were kidnapped, British officials said Granger Telecom had ignored "unambiguous" official advice not to travel to Chechnya.
But the Independent reports that in August, several weeks before the men travelled to Grozny, a Foreign Office official wrote to Granger asking it to pass on information on the potential for investment in Chechnya, on Chechens who might be influential, and on the two kidnapped charity workers, Camilla Carr and Jon James, who were released a month later.
A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that the main aim of the letter to Granger, which already had staff in Chechnya, was to help further efforts to release the British hostages. It refused to comment on whether it would have passed information to intelligence services.
British Opposition MPs demanded a full explanation, saying the Foreign Office stance had been, "Don't go, but since you are there tell us what you can."
A Granger spokesman insisted that the men had not been acting as spies.
Pictured: Stan Shaw.
