David Shayler is a former British MI5 officer and a conspiracy theorist.
15 Facts About David Shayler
2.
David Shayler graduated with a 2:1 degree in English in July 1989.
3.
David Shayler joined MI5 in October 1991 after responding to an oblique job advertisement in the 12 May edition of The Observer titled "Godot isn't coming", a reference to the play Waiting for Godot in which Godot never arrives.
4.
David Shayler started work in F branch, which dealt with counter-subversion, including the monitoring of left-wing groups and activists, where he worked vetting Labour Party politicians prior to the 1992 election, later being transferred to T branch, which handled Irish terrorism, in August 1992.
5.
David Shayler stated that MI6 had been involved in a failed assassination attack on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in February 1996 without the permission of the then foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind.
6.
David Shayler claimed the intelligence services were deliberately planting stories in newspapers and the mainstream media by feeding willing journalists with misinformation, such as a November 1996 article in The Sunday Telegraph by Con Coughlin linking Gaddafi's son with a currency counterfeiting operation, citing the source as a British banking official when in reality the source was MI6.
7.
In 2000, David Shayler appeared on Have I Got News for You via satellite, where he was the subject of a number of jokes.
8.
David Shayler was charged with three counts of breaching the Official Secrets Act 1989 on 21 September 2000, one charge of passing on information acquired from a telephone tap, and two others of passing on information and documents obtained by virtue of his membership of the service.
9.
At pre-trial hearings he ruled that David Shayler had to disclose all information and argument he intended to present to the jury to the judge and prosecution beforehand.
10.
At the trial David Shayler represented himself, claiming that the Official Secrets Act was incompatible with the Human Rights Act and that it was not a crime to report a crime; these arguments were dismissed by the court with the latter being ruled irrelevant.
11.
David Shayler's defence attempted to argue that there were no other avenues to pursue his concerns with the service and its performance.
12.
David Shayler was finally released on 23 December 2002, although he was electronically tagged and under a 7pm to 7am curfew for a further seven weeks.
13.
In February 2007, David Shayler appeared in Ireland with Annie Machon and William Rodriguez.
14.
David Shayler has said he is committed to destroying what he calls the "Zionist empire".
15.
David Shayler has since told newspapers that his transvestite 'alter ego' is called Delores Kane.