Government ordered to pay former spy 5,000

Rhiannon Edward

THE government has been ordered by European judges to pay the Soviet spy George Blake more than 5,000 - because the length of a court wrangle over royalties from his autobiography breached his human rights.

Blake was a British secret agent from 1944 until 1961 when he was jailed for 42 years after being caught spying for the former Soviet Union. In 1966 he escaped from prison in London and fled to Russia, where he has lived ever since.

When he wrote No Other Choice, the story of his MI6 career, the government took legal action to stop him receiving any payment.

The case lasted nearly nine years, with the House of Lords finally ruling that Blake should not receive the profits from the book sales.

However, from his Russian home, Blake then complained to the European Court of Human Rights.

Yesterday judges rejected a government submission that he had “brought the proceedings on himself as a self-confessed traitor who wished to profit from his treachery”.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1428862006