Russian 'spy' who worked for UK accompanying Prince Charles fails to win back citizenship

A MAN who worked for GCHQ and the Foreign Office accompanying prime ministers and royalty has lost an appeal to win back British citizenship after judges ruled he was likely a double agent for Russia.

The Afghan-born man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, came to the UK as an asylum seeker in 2000 and worked for police and then the government on sensitive operations, including the war in Afghanistan.

From 2009 to 2011 he negotiated with senior Afghan officials on behalf of the UK and frequently accompanied high-level

British officials and royalty, including Prime Ministers Brown and Cameron, and then Prince Charles and Prince William.

But, he had his citizenship revoked in 2019 after Britain assessed he was an agent for Russia's military intelligence service, known by the Russian acronym GRU.

The man, called C2 during the appeal, had lived in Russia as an illegal immigrant from 1994 to 1999.

He claimed during an appeal to the Special Immigration Appeal Commission (SIAC) in February that claims he was acting for Russia were "pure fantasy."

However, in a judgement published on Friday, SIAC judges, who heard some of the evidence in private, disagreed.

They were swayed by Home Office lawyers who said C2, had been trained to be a Russian agent since he was a child, something he vehemently denied.

The SIAC written judgement said that British officials' "assessment, on advice, that C2 was an agent of the GRU as at September 2019 is amply justified".

C2's lawyer, Shirin Marker, said in a statement: "C2 is deeply disappointed with the judgment. He has attempted at all times to provide a full and transparent account of his life, in the face of appeal proceedings in which he has been given the barest of detail about the allegations against him.

"To date, he still does not understand the basis for these allegations and he disputes their substance. He is considering his legal options going forwards."