The Labour leader (pictured in 1984) found himself at the centre of a storm yesterday after secret documents revealed that he had met Lieutenant Jan Dymic
A secret agent who Jeremy Corbyn hosted in the House of Commons was part of a spy ring later expelled from Britain by Margaret Thatcher, it emerged last night.
The Labour leader found himself at the centre of a storm yesterday after secret documents revealed that he had met Lieutenant Jan Dymic — who was posing as a Czech diplomat under an alias — on at least three occasions in the Eighties, when he was a new MP.
But while Mr Corbyn denied knowing that he was a spy, it emerged yesterday that Dymic was publicly exposed and expelled by Mrs Thatcher’s government just three years after making contact with Mr Corbyn in 1986.
Experts said that Dymic’s real name was Jan Sarkocy, a Slovak engineering graduate with ‘James Bond good looks’ who was known for his cunning espionage tactics.
Sarkocy was expelled by Mrs Thatcher’s Government in 1989 amid an ongoing ‘spy war’ between Britain and the Soviet Bloc, when his supposed role as a diplomat was exposed as a sham.
Documents revealed yesterday that Mr Corbyn was given the codename ‘Cob’ after meeting the highly-ranked agent, who was actually working for the secret police in Czechoslovakia during his time in the UK. The Labour leader was apparently being used as a contact by Dymic in order to access information from MI5 and MI6.
The Labour leader met the Czech agent at least three times after being vetted by communist handlers in 1986, papers reveal
Last night, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said Mr Corbyn’s ‘betrayal’ showed why he should never be trusted as prime minister.
He said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn has never had Britain’s interests at heart. Time and time again he has sided with those who want to destroy everything that is great about this country, whether it is sympathising with terrorists, backing rogue regimes — or cosying up to those who want to inflict pain and misery on the British people.
‘That he met foreign spies is a betrayal of this country. He cannot be trusted.’
Mr Corbyn met ‘Lieutenant Jan Dymic’ on three occasions across 1986 and 1987, apparently believing he was a diplomat. In fact, he was working for the Statni Bezpecnost — known as the StB — a notorious Czech secret police force during the Communist era.
At the time of his expulsion there was significant concern that spies from behind the Iron Curtain were focusing their efforts on Labour MPs in London to uncover state secrets.
Mr Corbyn allegedly provided the spies with material about the arrest of an East German, according to the leaked documents
One page of the documents reveals contact was established with Mr Corbyn twice in 1986
Intelligence services described the operation to throw out Sarkocy and thee other alleged spies as a ‘highly significant blow against the intelligence networks operated by Czech agents on behalf of Russia’.
Documents seen by the Mail yesterday described how Sarkocy was ordered to infiltrate British contacts to gain information on America’s nuclear activity.
He was also tasked with finding out vital information about British industry and science to send back to Prague.
Soviet officials noted how Mr Corbyn was of interest because of his ‘active income of information from within the British special services’.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said Mr Corbyn’s ‘betrayal’ showed why he should never be trusted as prime minister
Secret police files reveal that the future Labour leader first met the spy in the Commons in November 1986, as the communist regime in the country was dwindling, after being introduced by Left-wing activists.
They approached Mr Corbyn, who was said to have shown a ‘positive’ view of the Eastern bloc, because he was ‘very well informed’ about people with ties to ‘anti-communist agencies’.
Notes from the meeting document how Mr Corbyn was ‘negative towards [the] USA, as well as the current politics of the Conservative Government’.
‘Behaviour is reserved and courteous, however, occasionally explosive (when speaking in defence of human rights), though the performance is calm and collected,’ it added.
The record noted his phone number and home address in North London’s Finsbury Park and listed his hobbies as owning dogs and fish.
The backbencher is said to have expressed interest in having more meetings with the Czech official.
A senior official from the Czech Interior Ministry signed off the vetting of Mr Corbyn in January 1987 after a ‘Top secret’ memo marked ‘contact established’ was sent back to Prague.
Documents seen by the Sun outline a second meeting at Mr Corbyn’s constituency office on July 3, 1987, which was also attended by a member of the Czech Communist Party’s central committee.
A third meeting lasting 90 minutes took place in the Commons on October 24 in the same year, during which Sarkocy raised concerns about British intelligence operations against Soviet spies.
Mr Corbyn is said to have warned of yet more British measures and handed over a copy of the Sunday People containing a story about an MI5 probe into suspected Stasi spy Ulrich Kempf.
While a note described the conversation as ‘limited’, the Czech outlined how he would focus on ‘issues along foreign counter-intelligence and the so-called high-risk areas in future’.
However, records of the spy’s activities in the StB archive in Prague do not note any further encounters between the pair.
Svetlana Ptacnikova, the archive’s director, said Sarkocy was known by his bosses as incredibly intuitive and adept in using ‘non-traditional’ measures to get close to contacts.
‘His main job was to uncover preparations by the USA for a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union,’ she said.
‘He was supposed to search NATO countries to follow the inner situations there, as well as diplomatic controversies between them.’
The spy was also tasked with monitoring Britain’s ‘technological and scientific successes’. She said that Mr Corbyn was not an ‘active informer’, but rather somebody who was being utilised for sensitive information.
Sarkocy gained his reputation working in Bratislava before being moved to the StB in the Czech capital Prague.
He was then transferred to the country’s foreign ministry where he was prepared for a new mission as a diplomat in the Czech embassy in Kensington, London, working as a second secretary.
Sarkocy was kicked out of the UK in 1989 for his part in an alleged spy ring said to have been masterminded by a Czech diplomat known as ‘Sinister Helena’ — Dr Helena Krepelkova, noted as an expert in espionage projects.
Mrs Thatcher told the Commons at the time that action had to be taken because of their ‘unacceptable activities’.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: ‘During the Cold War, intelligence officers notoriously claimed to their superiors to have recruited people they had merely met.
‘The existence of these bogus claims does not make them in any way true, as the Sunday Times found out to its cost when it published fabricated allegations about former Labour leader Michael Foot and the KGB.’