UAE tried to make ministers mislead British public, claims bodyguard in court papers
THE United Arab Emirates tried to “influence” government ministers to “mislead” the British public about important international affairs, a sacked embassy bodyguard has claimed in court filings.
Tory politicians, including Ben Wallace and Gavin Williamson, the current and former defence secretaries, Leo Docherty, the military veterans minister, and Alistair Burt, the former minister for the Middle East, were named as alleged targets of the Gulf state in legal court papers seen by The Sunday Telegraph. Lee Hurford, a close protection officer of the former ambassador, Sulaiman Almazroui, at the London embassy, has also said the UAE “paid” a company to “monitor” Jeremy Corbyn, the then Leader of the Opposition.
He also alleges the Gulf state tried to “discredit” Al Jazeera, the Middle East news channel, and “undermine” the Free Princess Latifa Campaign, a group trying to help the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE prime minister, who fled from her family but was seized and brought back to Dubai four years ago. The bodyguard’s allegations form part of a defence bundle lawyers prepared after he was accused of conspiring to blackmail the former ambassador.
While Hurford, 49, admitted stealing confidential documents and money from the embassy in 2018, he denied plotting to blackmail the ambassador.
The blackmail trial was dropped and the charge ordered to lie on file at a court hearing this month.
But the claims in Hurford’s defence statement have emerged just days after the UAE was accused of being behind spyware infecting phones at Downing Street and the Foreign Office in 2020 and 2021. Citizen Lab, at the University of Toronto, contacted the British Government to warn it had detected “multiple suspected instances of Pegasus spyware infections” at the departments.
Hurford’s legal bundle says that while a close protection officer until 2018 he “overheard conversations in meetings and saw correspondence”, which gave him “a number of concerns regarding the conduct of the UAE”.
The documents claim: “The UAE government was seeking to influence British politicians including Ben Wallace, Leo Docherty, Gavin Williamson and Alistair Burt (among others) in a way which the defendant feared might result in the British public being misled about important international issues.
“A company … was being paid to monitor the Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn.” It further alleges that the UAE was trying to “undermine the Free Princess Latifa Campaign” and he had been “instructed to monitor” protests by the group outside the embassy.
Hurford also claims he overheard how there were “efforts to discredit the work of Al Jazeera”, as well as attempts to “suppress” news relating to a West London mosque the UAE had funded.
While the defence bundle does not outline what proof the former Royal Marine had about how the UAE may have wanted to influence British ministers, he planned to tell the court what he had heard and read if called to the witness stand.
The UAE declined to comment. Hurford could not be contacted for comment last night. He is due to be sentenced for the theft at the embassy in June at Southwark Crown Court.