Secrets left at bus stop had locations of special forces in Kabul
The secret locations of British special forces soldiers in Kabul were among classified documents left at a bus stop by a senior civil servant, sources have told The Times.
Angus Lapsley, 52, who describes himself as a “diplomat” at the Foreign Office, sparked a transatlantic row after taking a bundle of papers home in June.
The Americans were “furious”, said a Whitehall source, because of concerns the breach could endanger the lives of elite US soldiers who were in many of the same locations as the British.
The documents, which included at least one marked “Secret UK eyes only”, were said to have contained the exact number of soldiers in the locations dotted around Kabul. Such documents are not allowed to be taken from government buildings unless properly logged out and securely stored.
Lapsley, who was in line to be the UK’s ambassador to Nato before the incident, was quietly shuffled back to the Foreign Office, having been on secondment to the Ministry of Defence.
It is unclear why he was not charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. His security clearance was suspended at the time of the investigation and he was removed from sensitive work.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Lapsley, who earned as much as £125,000 as director-general of strategy at the MoD, has been a “diplomat” at the Foreign Office since August.
His Twitter profile links to a government site about the UK mission to the European Union. The Foreign Office declined to say what his latest role was.
The Foreign Office also declined to answer questions on whether he faced any repercussions, whether he still had his security clearance revoked or why the police appeared not to have been involved.
Colonel Simon Diggins, a former military attaché at the British embassy in Kabul, said that information on the whereabouts of special forces was “normally very sensitive and deeply close held”. “Special forces operations are regarded as very discreet so for that information to be revealed I would regard it to be a serious breach of security. Having the information in the public in such a careless way would be regarded as a serious security failure.”
Richard Jackson, a senior civil servant, left top secret documents on a train in 2008 and was charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act and fined £2,500. He left highly sensitive Whitehall intelligence files on al-Qaeda and Iraq on a train from London. They were handed to the BBC by a member of the public.
The source said that Lapsley picked up 50 pages from the in-tray on his desk and went home. The next morning he was rushing to work when it is understood the documents fell out of his bag and were found in a soggy heap behind a bus stop.
Once dried out they were also surrendered to the BBC.
The source said Lapsley had claimed none of the papers were secret. It was only after conversations with the BBC about the documents that it emerged they included sensitive documents.
The BBC said at the time of reporting on the documents that it had “decided not to report details which could endanger the security of British and other personnel in Afghanistan”.
Two months after the documents emerged, all Nato troops withdrew and the Taliban took over.
Most of the papers were marked “official sensitive”, a relatively low level of classification.
The documents also contained details of the Royal Navy’s decision to sail HMS Defender 12 miles off the coast of Crimea, which resulted in an aggressive response from Russia.
A government representative said at the time that an investigation had “independently” confirmed the circumstances of the loss and the manner in which it occurred and there was “no evidence of espionage”.
