spy

WASHINGTON — Dick Cheney was the public face of the George W. Bush administration’s boundary-pushing approach to surveillance and intelligence collection in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

An unabashed proponent of broad executive power in the name of national security, Cheney placed himself at the center of a polarizing public debate over detention, interrogation and spying that endures two decades later.

“I do think the security state that we have today is very much a product of our reactions to Sept. 11, and obviously Vice President Cheney was right smack-dab in the middle of how that reaction was operationalized from the White House,” said Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor.

Prominent booster of the Patriot Act

Cheney was arguably the administration’s most prominent booster of the Patriot Act, the law enacted nearly unanimously after 9/11 that granted the U.S. government sweeping surveillance powers.

He also championed a National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program aimed at intercepting international communications of suspected terrorists in the U.S., despite concerns over its legality from some administration figures.

If such an authority had been in place before Sept. 11, Cheney once asserted, it could have led the U.S. “to pick up on two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon.”

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies still retain key tools to confront potential terrorists and spies that came into prominence after the attacks, including national security letters that permit the FBI to order companies to turn over information about customers.

But courts also have questioned the legal justification of the government’s surveillance apparatus, and a Republican Party that once solidly stood behind Cheney’s national security worldview has grown significantly more fractured.

The bipartisan consensus on expanded surveillance powers after Sept. 11 has given way to increased skepticism, especially among some Republicans who believe spy agencies used those powers to undermine President Trump while investigating ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign.

Congress in 2020 let expire three provisions of the Patriot Act that the FBI and Justice Department had said were essential for national security, including one that permits investigators to surveil subjects without establishing that they’re acting on behalf of an international terror organization.

A program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which permits the U.S. government to collect without a warrant the communications of non-Americans located outside the country for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence, was reauthorized last year — but only after significant negotiations.

“I think for someone like Vice President Cheney, expanding those authorities wasn’t an incidental objective — it was a core objective,” Vladeck said. “And I think the Republican Party today does not view those kinds of issues — counterterrorism policy, government surveillance authorities — as anywhere near the kind of political issues that the Bush administration did.”

As an architect of the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney pushed spy agencies to find evidence to justify military action.

Along with others in the administration, Cheney claimed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and had ties to al-Qaida. They used that to sell the war to members of Congress and the American people, though it was later debunked.

The faulty intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq is held up as a significant failure by America’s spy services and a demonstration of what can happen when leaders use intelligence for political ends.

The government’s arguments for war fueled a distrust among many Americans that still resonates with some in Trump’s administration.

“For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of the Office of National Intelligence, said in the Middle East last week.

Many lawmakers who voted to support using force in 2003 say they have come to regret it.

“It was a mistake to rely upon the Bush administration for telling the truth,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said on the invasion’s 20th anniversary.

Expanded war powers

Trump has long criticized Cheney, but he’s relying on a legal doctrine popularized during Cheney’s time in office to justify deadly strikes on alleged drug-running boats in Latin America.

The Trump administration says the U.S. is engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has declared them unlawful combatants.

“These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Oct. 28 on social media. ”We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

After 9/11, the Bush-Cheney administration authorized the U.S. military to attack enemy combatants acting on behalf of terror organizations. That prompted questions about the legality of killing or detaining people without prosecution.

Cheney’s involvement in boosting executive power and surveillance and “cooking the books of the raw intelligence” has echoes in today’s strikes, said Jim Ludes, a former national security analyst who directs the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.

“You think about his legacy and some of it is very troubling. Some of it is maybe what the moment demanded,” Ludes said. “But it’s a complicated legacy.“

Vladeck noted an enduring legacy of the Bush-Cheney administration was “to blur if not entirely collapse lines between civilian reactions to threats and military ones.”

He pointed to designating foreign terrorist organizations, a tool that predated the Sept. 11 attacks but became more prevalent in the years that followed. Trump has used the label for several drug cartels.

Contemporary conflicts inside the government

Protecting the homeland from espionage, terrorism and other threats is a complicated endeavor spread across the government. When Cheney was vice president, for instance, agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, were established.

As was the case then, the division of labor can still be disputed, with a recent crack surfacing between Director Kash Patel’s FBI and the intelligence community led by Gabbard.

The FBI said in a letter to lawmakers that it “vigorously disagrees” with a legislative proposal that it said would remove the bureau as the government’s lead counterintelligence agency and replace it with a counterintelligence center under ODNI.

“The cumulative effect,” the FBI warned in the letter obtained by The Associated Press, “would be putting decision-making with employees who aren’t actively involved in CI operations, knowledgeable of the intricacies of CI threats, or positioned to develop coherent and tailored mitigation strategies.”

That would be to the detriment of national security, the FBI said.

Spokespeople for the agencies later issued a statement saying they are working together with Congress to strengthen counterintelligence efforts.

Tucker and Klepper write for the Associated Press.

AFP/Getty Images

New details of alleged spying

House of Commons

A TOP Tory minister has said she fears her hotel room was bugged on a fact-finding trip to Taiwan.

It comes after a case against an accused Chinese spy, Chris Cash, collapsed last month when the Government refused to class Beijing as a threat to national security.

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Chris Cash, 30, and his friend Christopher Berry, 33, were both accused and denied spying for China.

Cash, a parliamentary researcher, received high level briefings from former MI6 spooks, ambassadors and ministers before he was dramatically arrested.

The former teacher, who had lived and worked in China, was accused of passing secrets to Beijing.

The Crown Prosecution Service case against the two alleged spies collapsed with ministers blamed for failing to provide key evidence that China was a national security threat at the time.

Starmer has since claimed that there was nothing he could do about the issue and blamed the former government for not designating China a threat when the offences took place.

The Daily Mail has now revealed that at the same time the Government was refusing to designate Beijing a threat, then foreign secretary David Lammy was doing just that.

He branded China an enemy of Britain during a debate in the commons in an effort to defend Labour’s surrender of the Chagos Islands.

The Shadow National Security Minister, Alicia Kearns, 37, has now revealed that she was a target during the alleged spy operation.

In what is thought to be a spy dossier, details of her hotel room in Taiwan were found.

When the senior Tory minister was on a fact finding trip to the country as chairman of the foreign affairs committee, she fears she was bugged by Beijing.

She told the Daily Mail: “They could have got in that room at any time.

“You can’t be sure that the room hasn’t got a bug or a camera somewhere.

“There could be photos of you walking around your hotel room naked.”

China had threatened that the mother-of-three’s trip would result in “repercussions.”

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She worked alongside Mr Cash for a year and raised concern that others he met through work may have been exposed.

Chinese dissidents, victims of transnational repression and people intimidated in secret Chinese police stations in the UK may have all been laid bare to Mr Cash.

The Shadow National Security Minister continued, saying Mr Cash worked at the heart of government policy on China.

He gained insight from the Foreign Office, Home Office, Treasury and Department for Business and Trade according to Ms Kearns.

Mr Cash worked on key government policy around China including the TikTok ban on government devices and exposing covert Chinese police stations in the UK.

The alleged spy managed to speak to every top China expert in the UK, finding himself in a position to glean information as “valuable as gold dust” to Beijing Ms Kearns believes.

The revelations could raise more questions about why the case against the accused spooks was dropped.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper admitted: “We know China poses threats to the UK national security.”

“I am deeply frustrated about this case, because I, of course, wanted to see it prosecuted.”

Ex-diplomat Charles Parton previously told The Sun that the Government’s refusal to brand Beijing a threat clearly showed “a desire not to offend China.”

Mr Parton, who was due to testify for the prosecution, slammed the CPS for failing to find new witnesses after the Government pulled its national security official at the last minute.

He told The Sun: “They are both to blame. The Government for withdrawing.

“But the CPS should have got some evidence from experts to say, ‘Is China a threat?’

“Then the jury could have said, ‘Yes, national security threat,’ and now we’re going ahead and trying this case.

“That smacks either of interference by the Government or just sheer incompetence.”

Chris Cash and Christopher Berry both deny all charges brought against them under the official secrets act.

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After starring in The Night Manager, Tom Hollander plays another villainous character with shady motives in The Iris Affair, sharing the spotlight with a Malpractice star.

Niamh Algar is no stranger to shaking things up. After gripping viewers as Dr Lucinda Edwards in Malpractice, she’s stepping into even higher-octane territory as Iris Nixon in Sky Atlantic’s new thriller, The Iris Affair.

“I’ve loved playing Iris – she’s so many characters in one,” Niamh Algar says. “Then there’s the adrenaline side: gunfights, jumping off boats, leaping from buildings, blowing up things. Racing a Ferrari at high speed was the absolute highlight.”

Created by Neil Cross and filmed in Italy, the eight-part series sees Iris as a brilliant codebreaker, living life on the run with a bounty on her head.

“She is obsessive, manipulative and unpredictable,” Niamh says. “She’s not motivated by romance or defined by trauma, but shaped by her intelligence and curiosity.”

She’s recruited by Cameron Beck (Tom Hollander), a charismatic tech billionaire who believes he needs her to relaunch a quantum computer nicknamed Charlie Big Potatoes. Cameron believes the machine could change – even save – the world, but Iris is convinced it could destroy it.

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The quantum computer was originally launched by Jensen Lind, a Norwegian scientist played by Game Of Thrones alumni Kristofer Hivju. Jensen and Cameron once worked together on the project, until Jensen stopped it.

“Something makes Jensen try to destroy 10-15 years of working in this compound making the biggest revolutionary device in history,” Kristofer says. “That’s the mystery – why?”

Kristofer admits the science was a challenge, saying, “My Chat GPT has overheated. I have had to go into Hindu cosmology and quantum physics just to understand my lines.”

Meanwhile, Tom Hollander insists his character isn’t the villain audiences might expect. “He’s not a bad guy. He wants good outcomes,” Tom says. “He thinks it’s capable of curing climate change.

What’s really motivating Cameron is he’s in fear for his own life. He’s a rich man who has over-borrowed, so effectively he actually doesn’t have anything.”

Cameron faces a shadowy organisation called The Money, with Harry Lloyd joining the cast as the cryptic Hugo Pym. “He is this guy who is somewhat psychotic and deranged,” Harry says.

“The Money are this ‘Intra Group Committee’ and Hugo is someone who has recently been made head of it.” Caught up in the middle is Joy Baxter, played by Meréana Tomlinson, with whom Iris forms a connection.

“Iris sees something of herself in Joy,” Niamh says. “Joy is essentially a token child in a wealthy household that doesn’t really notice her, and Iris has always felt like she didn’t belong in any system or structure.”

When Cameron kidnaps Joy to pressure Iris into working for him, the stakes become terrifyingly personal. “It becomes a real test for her,” Niamh says. “It also highlights how much she cares for Joy.”

Joy is loyal to Iris but this is tested when she meets Cameron. “Cameron is more alike with her in terms of her emotional wellbeing and her emotional state,” says Meréana. “She latches on to him for survival and then that turns into companionship.”

Meréana bonded quickly with the team, saying, “I have a quote book in my Notes app. It’s just funny things that people have said.” And Neil Cross’s reaction to the book was priceless, she adds. “He sat there giggling at it for five minutes.”

The Iris Affair airs on Thursday, October 16th on Sky Atlantic and NOW.

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Platform to allow people to securely pass on information anywhere in the world, or offer their own services to MI6.

The United Kingdom’s spy agency is set to launch a web portal on the dark web to recruit informants and receive secret information from agents in Russia and worldwide, Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said.

The Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, will officially announce the launch of the secure messaging platform called “Silent Courier” on Friday.

It is aimed at harnessing the anonymity of the dark web – the murky, hidden part of the internet often used by criminal actors – and allowing anyone, anywhere in the world, to securely contact the UK spy agency.

Users of the portal can securely pass on details about illicit activities anywhere in the world, or offer their own services, according to a Foreign Office statement.

Outgoing MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore – who is due to hand over to Blaise Metreweli later this month – will officially launch the web portal in Istanbul on Friday.

“Today we’re asking those with sensitive information on global instability, international terrorism or hostile state intelligence activity to contact MI6 securely online,” Moore is set to say when he formally announces the plans.

“Our virtual door is open to you,” he will add.

Instructions on how to use the portal will be publicly available on MI6’s verified YouTube channel.

Users have been encouraged to access it through VPNs and devices not linked to themselves.

MI6 was established in 1909 but was not officially acknowledged by the UK government until the 1990s.

The spy agency operates from the iconic SIS Building on the banks of the River Thames in London and only its head – known as “C” – is a publicly named member of the service.

In advance of the portal’s launch, new Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that “national security is the first duty of any government and the bedrock of the prime minister’s Plan for Change” – referring to a national revitalisation plan outlined by the premier and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer in December.

“As the world changes, and the threats we’re facing multiply, we must ensure the UK is always one step ahead of our adversaries,” Cooper said.

“Now we’re bolstering their efforts with cutting-edge tech so MI6 can recruit new spies for the UK – in Russia and around the world,” she added.

The US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took a similar approach in 2023, when it published videos on social media attempting to recruit potential Russian spies.

Stephen Low, 48, was celebrating the end of his first year teaching English in South Korea when he decided to go on a hike near the North-South border – but he got more than he bargained for

A British man found himself at the business end of a South Korean guard’s gun during an innocent hike.

Stephen Low had just finished his first year teaching English at a school near the infamous DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South Korea. He had no idea then that his language teaching abilities were ultimately what would rescue him when facing the barrel of a gun.

The now 48-year-old decided to walk down a well-known trail near the North-South border. There, sniper posts and echoes of conflict provided a spine-chilling reminder of the hostilities across the divide.

Stephen knew the area was no place to mess around. In fact, one of his friends found themselves in hot water after they hopped on a military bus by mistake and “ended up in the military side of the DMZ.”

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“I just went hiking up to a hiking trail,” Stephen said.

As he approached the peak, the temperature dropped dramatically, and so Stephen sought refuge in one of the shelters scattered around the mountainside. He warmed himself by igniting a small fire, using a copy of the vampire fantasy novel Twilight as tinder.

Unfortunately, much like the romance in the Stephenie Meyer book, the fire burned too hot.

“As the fire burned, lots of thick smoke began wafting out from the hut. Suddenly, I heard shouting and as I emerged coughing and spluttering from the smoke-filled sniper hole, a ton of soldiers came down the mountain; they must have thought they were under attack,” Stephen continued.

Happily the teacher managed to slip away from the fire and the approaching soldiers, only to come face-to-face with a beekeeper, surrounded by bees.

“The bees swarmed me and got inside my clothing. I basically tore everything off to avoid being stung and ended up in just my boots, beanie, and boxers, which just so happened to be Union Jack boxers. That beekeeper must have thought I looked crazy…patriotic, but crazy,” he continued.

The misadventure wasn’t to end there however. Stephen rushed back towards the town where he was staying, only to stumble into a soldier. Despite Stephen’s best efforts to explain in Korean that he was simply lost, the guard remained deeply suspicious.

And as he stared at the guard’s M16 machine gun with its grenade launcher attachment, Stephen realized he needed to be far more persuasive. In a desperate bid to prove his innocence, Stephen called a former Korean student of his, who was now serving as the personal doctor to the South Korean president.

Handing the phone to the guard, Stephen pleaded, “Hangook chingu, Hangook chingu!”, translating to “Korean friend, Korean friend!”.

Despite initial fears that the guard was trigger-happy, he took the call instead. The ex-student managed to convince the soldier to escort Stephen safely through the base.

Stephen recounted, “It was hard to believe the guard actually thought I was a spy. But it’s exactly what my friend later told me the guard was accusing me of being. Back then, South Koreans were very wary of North Korean espionage; you even had options on your mobile emergency list for reporting spies!”.

“The guard was prepared for a North Korean around the corner, not a semi-naked hiker from the UK. South Korean guards have emergency numbers on speed dial that let them report a spy.”

While having a gun waved in your face is an experience best avoided if possible, the whole escapade has taught Stephen a valuable lesson.

“The lesson learnt is don’t set fire to things in public places,” he concluded.

Aug. 25 (UPI) — The United States military reported it scrambled a response contingent over the weekend after a Russian spy plane flew close to American airspace.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, reported Sunday it detected an IL-20 COOT reconnaissance aircraft flying through the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ.

NORAD responded by sending two F-16 fighter jets, an E-3 Sentry radar plane and two refueling tankers to intercept and make a visual confirmation.

The Russian aircraft stayed within the ADIZ and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace.

The ADIZ is located within international airspace but lies close enough to American and Canadian sovereign airspace to require “the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” according to NORAD.

NORAD also noted such activity in the ADIZ is a regular occurrence that does not constitute a threat.

A Russian IL-20 COOT was also detected in the ADIZ last week on Wednesday and Thursday and took the same responsive measures.

Aug. 22 (UPI) — Russian spy planes entered U.S. air space near Alaska twice in the past three days, said North American Aerospace Defense Command, though it said the incidents weren’t out of the ordinary.

In separate incidents on Wednesday and Thursday, Russian IL-20 COOT surveillance and reconnaissance planes flew into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, prompting NORAD’s response, according to a statement. Neither plane flew into U.S. or Canadian airspace.

On Wednesday, NORAD launched a pair of F-16 Fighting Falcons and a KC-135 Stratotanker for refueling as they identified and monitored the Russian plane.

On the following day, NORAD again sent up two F-16s and a KC-135, along with an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft to intercept and monitor the Russian IL-20. Both planes flew into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.

The Alaskan ADIZ, like other such zones, is a defined area of international airspace beginning at the edge of sovereign airspace around the state that requires any aircraft entering into it to be identified for national security reasons.

“This Russian activity in the Alaskan [airspace] occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” NORAD said about both incidents.

The timing and type of aircraft involved draw special attention. These intercepts happened less than a week after a meeting between Trump and Putin, in which the war in Ukraine was the central topic. The Russian flights are seen by U.S. defense officials as routine but underscore continued military posturing near American airspace.

While the U.S. Air Force frequently monitors Russian Tu-95 bomber flights in the area, the use of an Il-20, equipped for electronic intelligence gathering, is rarer, Newsweek reported.

“NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions. NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America,” NORAD said in a press release.

“An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” the release said.

Last month, NORAD intercepted two Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers and Su-35 Flanker fighter jets that were escorting them when they strayed into the ADIZ for some three hours.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says change upholds privacy of US users.

Apple will no longer be forced to provide the United Kingdom’s government with access to American citizens’ encrypted data, Washington’s spy chief has said, signalling the end of a months-long transatlantic privacy row.

Tulsi Gabbard, the United States’ director of national intelligence, said on Monday that London agreed to drop its requirement for Apple to provide a “back door” that would have allowed access to the protected data of US users and “encroached on our civil liberties”.

Gabbard said the reversal was the result of months of engagement with the UK to “ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected”.

The UK government said it does not comment on operational matters, but that London and Washington have longstanding joint security and intelligence arrangements that include safeguards to protect privacy.

“We will continue to build on those arrangements, and we will also continue to maintain a strong security framework to ensure that we can continue to pursue terrorists and serious criminals operating in the UK,” a government spokesperson said.

“We will always take all actions necessary at the domestic level to keep UK citizens safe.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The UK’s climbdown on encryption comes after Apple in February announced it could no longer offer advanced data protection, its highest-level security feature, in the country.

While Apple did not provide a reason for the change at the time, the announcement came after The Washington Post reported that UK security officials had secretly ordered the California-based tech giant to provide blanket access to cloud data belonging to users around the world.

Under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, authorities may compel companies to remove encryption under what is known as a “technical capability notice”.

Firms that receive a notice are legally bound to secrecy about the order unless otherwise granted permission by the government.

Like other tech giants, Apple has marketed its use of end-to-end encryption as proof of its steadfast commitment to the privacy of its users.

End-to-end encryption scrambles data so it cannot be read by third parties, including law enforcement and tech companies themselves.

Governments around the world have made numerous attempts to undermine or bypass encryption, saying that it shields serious criminals from scrutiny.

Privacy experts and civil liberties advocates have condemned efforts to weaken the technology, arguing that they treat innocent people as potential criminals and put the privacy and security of all users at risk.

John Pane, chair of the advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia, welcomed the UK’s reversal as a win for digital rights and safety.

“Were Apple to create a backdoor to its encrypted user data it would create a significant risk which could be exploited by cybercriminals and authoritarian governments,” Pane told Al Jazeera.

“EFA believes access to encryption technologies is vital for individuals and groups to be able to safeguard the security and privacy of their information and it is also  fundamental to the existence of the digital economy. The right to use encrypted communications must be enshrined in law.”

The far-right former president is accused of using Brazil’s intelligence agency to conduct illegal spying.

Brazil’s federal police have formally accused far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro of involvement in an illegal spying network that allegedly snooped on political rivals, journalists and environmentalists during his administration.

Court records allege that under one of Bolsonaro’s aides, Brazil’s spy agency, Agencia Brasileira de Inteligencia (ABIN), ran a “criminal organisation of high offensive capability” from 2019 to 2023, local media reported Tuesday.

According to the police, ABIN used a software called FirstMile, developed by the Israeli company Cognyte.

A Supreme Court document contains the names of several Brazilian public figures who were targets of the snooping operation, including Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, former Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, and the current head of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies or lower house, Arthur Lira.

The agency was also used to illegally spy on tax auditors who were investigating the president’s eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro, according to prosecutors. The intention was to find dirt on them to halt a corruption probe from when the younger Bolsonaro was a Rio de Janeiro councilman.

Names of senior officials from the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) were also on the list. As president, Bolsonaro cut the budget of IBAMA by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, while also cutting funding for other environmental agencies. When he was in office, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged, and Bolsonaro was accused of facilitating this destruction.

Journalists Monica Bergamo of Folha de S Paulo newspaper and Vera Magalhaes of O Globo newspaper were also targeted, the document alleges.

The allegations add to a slew of probes against Bolsonaro, who was rendered ineligible to run for office in 2030 after a failed 2022 re-election campaign. He is also embroiled in a jewellery embezzlement case as well as a case pertaining to him forging his COVID-19 vaccine records.

Last week, Bolsonaro appeared before the Supreme Court for the first time and denied participation in an alleged plot to remain in power and overturn the 2022 election result that he lost to current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia was one of the primary targets of a rioting mob of supporters known as “Bolsonaristas”, who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to oust Lula, an insurrection attempt that evoked the supporters of Bolsonaro ally United States President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

Bolsonaro was abroad in Florida in the US at the time of this last-gasp effort to keep him in power after the alleged coup planning fizzled. But his opponents have accused him of fomenting the rioting. Bolsonaro said in his testimony that the rioters were “crazy,” not coup mongers.

“There was never any talk of a coup. A coup is an abominable thing,” Bolsonaro said. “Brazil couldn’t go through an experience like that. And there was never even the possibility of a coup in my government.”

The far-right politician admitted to discussing “possibilities” with the heads of the armed forces following his defeat to Lula, but argued that it had been within constitutional limits.

A coup conviction carries a sentence of up to 12 years in Brazil. A conviction on that and other charges could bring decades behind bars. The former president has repeatedly denied the allegations and asserted that he is the target of political persecution.

Approached by Britain’s MI6 while reporting on Nigeria’s Biafra War, he mined his experiences for literary inspiration.

Best-selling British novelist Frederick Forsyth, author of about 20 spy thrillers, has died at the age of 86.

Forsyth, who was a reporter and informant for Britain’s MI6 spy agency before turning his hand to writing blockbuster novels like The Day of the Jackal, died on Monday at his home in the village of Jordans in Buckinghamshire, said Jonathan Lloyd, his agent.

“We mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest thriller writers,” Lloyd said of the author, who started writing novels to clear his debts in his early 30s, going on to sell more than 75 million books.

“There are several ways of making quick money, but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank,” he said in his 2015 autobiography, The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.

The gamble paid off after he penned The Day of the Jackal – his story of a fictional assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle by right-wing extremists – in just 35 days.

The novel met immediate success when it came out in 1971. It was later turned into a film and led to Venezuelan revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez being nicknamed Carlos the Jackal.

Forsyth went on to write a string of bestsellers, including The Odessa File (1972) and The Dogs of War (1974). His 18th novel, The Fox, was published in 2018.

Forsyth trained as an air force pilot, but his linguistic talents – he spoke French, German, Spanish and Russian – led him to the Reuters news agency in 1961 with postings in Paris and East Berlin during the Cold War.

He left Reuters for the BBC but soon became disillusioned by its bureaucracy and what he saw as the corporation’s failure to cover Nigeria properly due to the government’s postcolonial views on Africa.

His autobiography revealed how he became a spy, the author recounting that he was approached by “Ronnie” from MI6 in 1968, who wanted “an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave” in Nigeria, where civil war had broken out the year before.

In 1973, Forsyth was asked to conduct a mission for MI6 in communist East Germany, driving his Triumph convertible to Dresden to receive a package from a Russian colonel in the toilets of the Albertinum museum.

The writer said he was never paid by MI6 but in return received help with his book research and submitted draft pages to ensure he was not divulging sensitive information.

In his later years, Forsyth turned his attention to politics, delivering withering, right-wing takes on the modern world in columns for the anti-European Union Daily Express.

Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. He lost a fortune in an investment scam in the 1980s and had to write more novels to support himself.

He had two sons, Stuart and Shane, with his first wife.