Ekaterina Zatuliveter was 'flirty and intimate' with MP Mike Hancock, according to two former interns
A parliamentary researcher awaiting deportation to Russia for suspected espionage controlled the office computer of the MP for whom she worked and used his parliamentary email address.
Ekaterina Zatuliveter, the assistant of Mike Hancock, was also the subject of a complaint to the Liberal Democrat whips' office after accusing an intern of trying to read files stored on the office hard drive, the Guardian has learned.
The disclosures raise fresh questions about Zatuliveter's access to information and whether she could have used Hancock's email to seek privileged information without his knowledge.
Zatuliveter, 25, was taken into custody on Thursday last week, reportedly on MI5's orders. Her presence was claimed to be not "conducive to national security". She is alleged to be the first Russian spy caught in parliament since the cold war.
She had worked for Hancock for two years when she was arrested and detained on immigration charges. Two former interns told the Guardian last week that Hancock had a "flirtatious" and "intimate" relationship with Zatuliveter, known by friends as Katia. Hancock tonight declined to comment on those allegations.
Hancock confirmed this week that Zatuliveter had access to his official email and sent messages from it. He has admitted he did not use one of two computers in his parliamentary office and left it to her.
Asked if he was aware she was sending emails from his parliamentary address, Hancock said: "Of course I was. I didn't use the address at all. I had my own private address that she didn't use. Other members of my staff in Portsmouth also access my parliamentary emails.
"I don't use the computers ? I just occasionally look at the internet. When I need to use it, I have to call up the computer people in the house for the password.
"I don't think she used my email address to do anything behind my back."
Zatuliveter was the subject of an official complaint in 2009 to the Lib Dems' office by a fellow intern for alleged paranoid behaviour.
Zatuliveter accused the young woman, who had worked in the office for two weeks, of trying to read Hancock's emails and personal files including bank accounts stored on the parliamentary computer.
The intern, who had already decided to leave her post, wrote in an email to Hollie Voyce in the whips' office that the allegations were false and that Zatuliveter had shouted at her and acted in an unprofessional way.
A Lib Dem source said that the allegations from the intern were looked into by the whips' office, who contacted Hancock. The MP said that at the heart of the dispute was a personality clash, but he stood by Zatuliveter's version of events.
"The whips were told by me what had happened and were happy with this explanation," he said.
Russia's most senior diplomat in London this week warned that any attempts to remove Zatuliveter could result in recriminations in Moscow. Alexander Sternik, the charg� d'affaires at the Russian embassy, claimed the allegations were a smokescreen to hide Britain's embarrassment over the WikiLeaks allegations and England's failure to beat Russia in the race to host the 2018 World Cup.
Zatuliveter started working for Hancock in 2008 and had previously been an intern at the House of Commons. She was first stopped in the summer and police have interviewed her at least four times since.
She came to Britain three years ago to study for a master's degree in peace studies at Bradford University. She has vowed to fight her deportation case.
Today the Russian embassy's consul and doctor visited Zatuliveter at Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. They described her as in good spirits and confident that "justice will be done".
The embassy said Zatuliveter had still not been given an explanation for her arrest, despite "numerous requests". It described the reasons for her detention as "unsubstantiated".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/russian-spy-researcher-used-hancock-email
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