Is Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) orchestrating the anti-Putin campaign of Aleksey Navalvny? As reported in yesterday’s Briefing, RT and Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), believe that is the case, and RT broadcast a 2012 video of the executive of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, asking a British Embassy official and reputed MI6 agent for millions of dollars. The video shows James William Thomas Ford, said to be operating under the cover of First Secretary at the British Embassy, meeting with Ashurkov at a restaurant in 2012. [https://www.rt.com/russia/514291-navalny-aide-funding-alleged-british-spy/]
While RT said the FSB believed Ford to be an MI6 agent, but gave no proof, what little facts can be found on the internet, do point in that direction.
A search on the website of Her Majesty’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), came up with one hit. In May 2013 Ford was a member of the British delegation at the annual U.K.-Russia Human Rights Dialogue. The delegation was led by the FCO’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director Colin Roberts, who raised a number of issues including the impact of the new NGO “foreign agents” law. Referring directly to Ford, the FCO document said, “British Embassy official James Ford, who participated in the talks, expressed gratitude to Russia for hosting the dialogue in Moscow….”
Ford gives the following profile of himself on his Twitter account (https://twitter.com/jamesforduk?lang=en) which he opened in 2011: “British diplomat in Brussels. European foreign policy. Russia, Turkey, Balkans, Middle East. Previously in Moscow, Paris, Ankara. English-Swedish family.”
The above entry is dated Aug.14, 2019 reporting that Ford drove by car from his previous posting in Ankara to Brussels. The page is current with tweets and retweets through January 2021. While the rest of the entry appears typical for a diplomat, mostly retweeting official statements.
Ford’s posting in Turkey is of particular interest. He was first secretary between 2015 and 2019 according to the publication of the Turkish Foreign Ministry of the foreign diplomats. What is interesting is that the British Ambassador to Ankara between 2014 and 2017 was Richard Moore, who is now Chief of MI6 and in reality was always an MI6 agent. There is one Turkish media report of him announcing an official meeting with the governor of Hakkari province Idris Akbiyik in March 2019. The picture of their meeting includes no comment of what they discussed. Hakkari is a province at the extreme southeast, in Turkey’s Kurdish region, bordering the Kurdish regions of both Iraq and Syria. The province is the hotbed of PKK terrorist activity. Akbiyik, like all provincial governors, is appointed by the government and is also responsible for security. Akbiyikl was appointed as the new mayor of Hakkari Municipality after Cihan Karaman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party was arrested as part of an terrorism investigation.
Accompanying Ford to that meeting was another first secretary, named Alfred Isaac Munro Le Prevost who is now posted at the British Embassy in Bosnia dealing with human rights.
There is apparently nothing else to be found on the internet about Ford.