The Spy Who Sued Me: MI5 wins legal battle with woman accused of interference for China

Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Surveillance cameras are seen in front of a Chinese flag in Shanghai, China on May 5, 2021. — Reuters pic

LONDON, Dec 17 — A woman who was branded a Chinese spy by Britain’s MI5 has lost her case to sue the domestic spy agency over an alert issued to politicians which said she was an agent working for Beijing, a London tribunal ruled on Tuesday.

Lawyer Christine Lee had sued MI5 over the alert issued in January 2022 in which it alleged she was “involved in political interference activities” in the United Kingdom on behalf of China’s ruling Communist Party.

The warning was circulated to lawmakers by the House of Commons speaker, who said MI5 had found that Lee had “facilitated financial donations to serving and aspiring parliamentarians on behalf of foreign nationals based in Hong Kong and China”.

Lee was born in Hong Kong and founded a firm providing consultancy services to Chinese migrants. She helped set up a parliamentary committee, chaired by Barry Gardiner, a lawmaker for the then opposition Labour Party, designed to discuss issues affecting the Chinese community in Britain.

Gardiner said he had received hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations from her, and her son had worked in his office.

She denied the MI5 allegations and sued the spy agency for unspecified damages, arguing the agency had acted unlawfully and unreasonably by labelling her a risk to the state without any prior finding of guilt.

In evidence given to the tribunal, Gardiner had queried whether the timing of the alert was to divert attention from former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s admission of an unlawful gathering at Downing Street during the first Covid lockdown.

But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal rejected the claim brought by Lee and her son, saying MI5 was in its rights to issue the Interference Alert (IA) and that it had not breached their human rights.

“The Respondent’s (MI5) functions include protecting Parliamentary democracy from actions intended to undermine it by ‘political, industrial or violent means’,” the IPT ruling said.

“While this may include means which are unlawful, and perhaps criminal, the implied powers of the Security Service are not confined to meeting only such unlawful means.”

The ruling came a day after a Chinese national, described in a ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) as a “close confidant” of Prince Andrew and banned from Britain on national security grounds, waived his right to anonymity.

While British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought to thaw ties with China since taking office in July, London and Beijing have repeatedly traded spying accusations, with British security services warning of Chinese attempts to infiltrate political, business and academic spheres. — Reuters