§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pope.]
9.58 pm§ Mr. Paul Keetch (Hereford)On 8 December last year, the remains of three British subjects—Mr. Peter Kennedy, Mr. Rudolph Petschi and Mr. Darren Hickey—along with those of a New Zealander, Mr. Stanley Shaw, were found on the roadside in Chechnya. The four had been kidnapped in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on 3 October that year, and held in unspeakable horror. The four men had been starved, regularly beaten, and then one night woken from their sleep, kicked, beaten about the head, taken outside and beheaded. Their end was videoed. I am sure that the House will want to extend its condolences to their families. Chechnya is still in our thoughts, but, as was mentioned in the previous debate, the events there which relate to our country are still very much in the thoughts of those families.
I shall concentrate on one of those hostages, Mr. Peter Kennedy.
§ It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McNulty.]
§ Mr. KeetchMr. Kennedy lived in Herefordshire. I shall discuss the reasons why he went to Chechnya, the conditions that he expected, the reasons why his stay was so long delayed and what happened after he was kidnapped and eventually murdered.
On 9 December, the then Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), answered my private notice question. He said in the presence of the Prime Minister that a company called Granger Telecom
communicated with those responsible for taking the hostages".He also said:Granger Telecom took the lead on the ground"—[Official Report, 9 December 1998; Vol. 322, c. 322–4.]—during the negotiations, but my constituent, Mr. Peter Kennedy, was not working for Granger Telecom, as I believed during that debate. He was working as a self-employed sub-contractor for one of Britain's largest companies, British Telecom. It is BT's involvement in this tragic affair that I wish to highlight.On 9 July 1998, Granger Telecom wrote to our ambassador in Moscow asking for support in installing a mobile phone network in Chechnya, but it stated in the letter that, although it could provide the internal system, it could not link that system to the outside world. That had to be part of a separate contract—an international gateway. It was BT that, against stiff competition from Deutsche Telekom, finally won the contract.
The Government were aware from July that BT was involved. They were told again of BT's involvement at a meeting with Granger Telecom in September and told later that month that a BT engineer would have to travel to Chechnya. The first question is: why at no stage during the private notice question debate was BT's involvement not stated by the Government?
446 I can understand why BT wanted to keep its involvement in the affair quiet. It understood the risk of Chechnya. When it bid for and won the contract, it knew that two British aid workers, Camilla Carr and John James, by some tragic chance also constituents of mine, were being held in Chechnya.
BT nationally had what it described as an on-going relationship with Control Risks, a leading international security company. BT had already decided that it did not want to send one of its own staff to Chechnya. Indeed, it tried to train Granger Telecom staff to install the link instead, but to no avail. Therefore, BT nationally, a company that recently announced profits of £105 per second, decided to pass the decision of how to install the international link to its satellite station at Madley in Herefordshire in my constituency.
After being advised not to sent its own staff, BT in Herefordshire was asked to find someone else. Enter Mr. Peter Kennedy, a former member of staff who had taken early retirement from BT some years earlier. The staff at Madley in Herefordshire were as disturbed as anyone at what subsequently happened. They knew Peter and, in giving him that job, they thought that they were doing him a favour.
Peter had done some work overseas before. He had been to Russia on several occasions. He was approached to do the work. He was told that it would take just four days and he was offered £350 a day, plus expenses, to do it. When he was told that he would get a bodyguard, he joked about it to friends and to his wife. He thought that he was going back to Russia.
On 22 August, Peter Kennedy agreed to go, but I believe that he never knew the full risk that he was taking. I believe that he was not told exactly what the Foreign Office had told Granger Telecom, what Granger Telecom had told BT and what BT knew from its sources. That information was never passed down. One e-mail that was sent to him before he left said:
They say it is safe enough, but very boring".Another e-mail that was recovered from Peter Kennedy's computer after he died and had been sent for him to read when he returned said:just a bit of info as to what was going on whilst you were sunning yourself in Grozny.I have spoken to senior managers and ex-managers at Madley, who tell me privately that BT nationally never told them about the risks that Kennedy was taking. We must ensure that if our major companies send their staff—semployed directly or indirectly—overseas, they fulfil their responsibility to pass on Foreign Office advice, particularly if people are being sent to a dangerous place. If they then choose to go, fair enough, but Peter Kennedy's ex-colleagues, his widow, his daughter and I firmly believe that he never understood the dangers, in which case it was wrong for him to go.
When Peter Kennedy arrived in Grozny, things began to go very wrong. He was not able to begin the installation immediately. Instead, there was a dispute as to the exact location where he was to install the satellite equipment. Should it be on the building of Granger Telecom, as he originally believed, or should it be on a hill? When that was decided, he had to prepare a base on the side of a hill to install the equipment. There then followed another dispute with Chechen television, which was worried about the potential interference as a result of the installation.
447 Finally, Mr. Kennedy completed the installation, not after four days, as he originally believed, but after 10. His final act was to start a 24-hour test of the equipment on a link back to Herefordshire. He was due to fly out after that test, but during those 24 hours he was kidnapped.
Had those responsible at BT taken the installation more seriously, had they bothered to understand the situation on the ground, had they wished to ensure that he could do the work in the time scale that they believed was possible, he would not have been kidnapped. That is of no consequence to the others who were kidnapped, but in the case of my constituent it meant his life.
After seeking various meetings with BT, my constituents, who were already in touch with me, asked me to get involved. After some delays, I eventually spoke to Mr. John Steele, British Telecom's group personnel director. Peter's daughter, Sarah, and I attended a meeting with him on 13 April this year. I asked him some questions and expected some answers, as did Peter Kennedy's daughter. We asked him how many guards Peter had. He did not know. We asked him whether Peter had been told of the risks. He did not know. We asked him where Peter was staying in Chechnya. He did not know. We asked him why he had left Granger to make the arrangements. He told me that that company's staff had been in and out so often that he thought that it knew the risks.
British Telecom felt that if the kidnappers knew that BT was involved, a possible ransom would be increased. However, we have discovered that when Peter Kennedy went to Chechnya he carried with him British Telecom equipment. He was asked to sign and have signed by the local people a handover document stating that he had completed the work. The antenna that he carried had a BT symbol on it.
As the delays continued while Peter was out there, alarm bells began to ring at Madley in Herefordshire. One e-mail from a member of staff whom Peter knew well said:
To all concerned, whilst people are casually passing the onus of this problem around, please have a thought for the person who is, at this moment, in Chechnya trying to get this system up and running for BT.I believe that those responsible at BT acted disgracefully. They did not give the local staff in Herefordshire or their one-time employee Peter Kennedy any idea of the dangers that he faced. When the kidnapping happened, it was BT, not Granger, as the Government said, which led the negotiations. I was told that Granger could not cope and Control Risks conducted negotiations via Granger. Those at BT claimed to me in a meeting that they could not remember ransoms, but they were in regular negotiations. The Foreign Office and the Government must have known about that. The Foreign Office must have kept an eye on what Control Risks, Granger and BT were offering. Was a ransom on offer? What was said in the telephone conversations with the men before they were killed? Was a rescue planned?
The answers to these questions never came out fully at the recent inquest, and they will not bring back those who have died. However, the families should not have to resort to legal action against Granger or BT to find out what happened. I believe that Parliament should answer their questions for them.
448 I have always believed that the Government acted honourably in this incident. They knew the risks, and they passed them on to companies. Granger, and BT nationally, also knew the risks, but failed to pass them on. I hope that the law will be strengthened to ensure that companies have a duty of care to ensure that Foreign Office advice is passed on in the future.
Why did BT nationally fail to lay on adequate security for one of its own? Why, corporately, did it hide in London, allowing a local satellite station to take control? In a letter to me, John Steele from BT lists some of the ways in which he felt BT had supported the family. The list includes lending a mobile phone, providing a chauffeur to bring the family to London and attending Peter's funeral. BT also continued to pay Peter £350 a day until he was murdered.
In The Sunday Times yesterday, more came out about this tragic incident. The account of Raul, aged 36, who was held with the three Britons and the New Zealander, was published. In it, he tells of how the foreigners were beaten about the heads with rifle butts. Although it was dark, he said that he believed that they were already dead when they were decapitated. The video that he was shown the following day showed several figures cutting off the heads of the hostages. Afterwards, two of them were lying still; two had convulsions. Nothing can bring back those men, but we must learn from what happened.
Hereford is well known as the home of the Special Air Service regiment, and we have more than our fair share of ex-members of that regiment working in international security. We are proud of that, and we must say that at no time did Peter Kennedy ever work for the SAS. None of those involved worked for the SAS or were spies—that suggestion, made privately, and in Russia, is wrong.
I have spoken to a number of people involved in security, and I have asked how much it would have cost to provide Peter with some security. I am told that the first thing one does in international security is to send out a reconnaissance group to identify what is on the ground. Local support and a way of getting the person out is then provided. That could have cost between £20,000 and £25,000. BT could have provided that for Peter Kennedy. I should have thought that that would be a small price to pay in a multi-million pound deal. Instead, BT left a small company to cope.
It is no wonder that BT is making the profits that it has made. In the time it has taken me to make this speech, it has made £94,500 in profit. I wish that some of that money could have provided adequate security for my constituent.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. John Battle)The House is grateful to the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) for raising this matter and for the way in which he raised it. He referred to the dreadful practice of hostage taking in Chechnya, and particularly to the tragic incident involving his constituent. Wider issues and questions of international affairs have emerged following this case, and that is what these Adjournment debates should be about. The hon. Gentleman has raised the case in an exemplary manner.
The timing of the debate is poignant, as it is almost a year since the deaths in Chechnya of the three British citizens and the New Zealander who were kidnapped in 449 Grozny in early October 1998 and whose remains were found on 8 December. I extend my condolences to the bereaved families. Our admiration goes out to them for their courage and fortitude over the past year.
As the House is well aware from our earlier debate and from the international news, the security situation in Chechnya was highly precarious at the time of the murders. It has deteriorated sharply since August, when Islamic militants from Chechnya invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan. The Russians responded with air, artillery and ground attacks in Chechnya, which is now a combat zone. The Government are deeply concerned about the human suffering caused by the operations. There is little reliable information, but we believe that about 200,000 Chechens have fled to other regions, with many more displaced within Chechnya.
I want to use this opportunity to bring the House up to date on our efforts to get to the truth about what happened to the four murdered men. Despite the deteriorating security situation in Chechnya, we remain determined to press for those responsible for their murders to be brought to justice. Kidnapping is a crime; murder is a crime. We have repe,atedly emphasised to both the Russian and the Chechen authorities their responsibility for investigating the kidnap and murder of the men and for bringing their murderers to justice. The Metropolitan police and the British embassy in Moscow have done everything in their power to establish what happened, but ultimately we have to rely on the Russian and Chechen authorities to enforce the law.
Both the Russian and the Chechen authorities have opened investigations into the kidnaps and murders. We are in close touch with the Russian authorities and have encouraged them to share information on the progress of their investigations, but the fact remains that they did not exert control in Chechnya at the time of the kidnapping, and the current hostilities mean that Russia has no formal contact with the Chechen authorities.
The Chechen authorities have claimed to be making progress in their investigations. They informed us in March that they had resolved the kidnapping part of the case and that four Chechens had been charged. They said that the murder investigation continued. Despite all our efforts, we have not been able to obtain any further information from the Chechen authorities, and there does not appear to have been a trial. As the security situation worsens, the prospect of getting to the truth must be increasingly remote. A face-to-face meeting with the Chechen authorities is now all but impossible; nor can we rely on local media reports.
We will continue our efforts; the matter will not rest unresolved. We want more headway to be made, but any further progress in the investigations by the Russian and Chechen authorities at this time is highly unlikely. We will continue to keep the case open and to press for information.
The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the subject of BT's involvement in this tragic affair, but I must correct any mistaken suggestion that the Government did not recognise BT's involvement. From the time when the Department was informed of the kidnap, it was recognised that Mr. Kennedy was subcontracted to BT.
The division of responsibilities and tasks between Granger and BT is a matter for them, but our understanding is that Granger did indeed take the lead, as 450 my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), said in his reply to the hon. Gentleman's private notice question on 9 December 1998. It was Granger's contract and it had the high-level contacts at Chechen Telecom and in the Government.
If the Government's public comments at the time emphasised Granger's role, there was a good tactical reason. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the Government's overriding concern at such times is to safeguard the lives of the hostages, and it is important to minimise the risk of a ransom demand and to avoid raising their value in the eyes of the hostage takers.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether a ransom was on offer in negotiations between Granger and the kidnappers. That is an important point. The House is well aware of the policy of successive Governments. We do not pay ransoms and we do not condone the payment of ransoms, which ultimately only encourages further kidnaps and puts more lives at risk. Families and companies do not always follow Government policy; that is their right, but we do not condone it.
In the case of Mr. Kennedy and his colleagues, we were aware that Granger had discussed a ransom with the hostage takers. We actively discouraged that and made it clear that the Government could not be associated in any way with the payment of a ransom. Both companies were fully aware of Government policy and that we disapproved of paying a ransom.
The inquest at the Westminster coroner's court on 3 November into the death of the four men reached a verdict of unlawful killing. At the inquest, the Metropolitan police gave their assessment of the available evidence. They have concluded that there is no evidence to confirm or rebut any of the various explanations given for the deaths.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that many rumours and theories have circulated about the reasons for and circumstances of the men's murder. Some of those rumours and theories have surfaced in the press, and my predecessor reported to the House on 25 March our best assessment at the time. We have been careful to pass on to the families any report that might shed light on why their relatives were killed, but I must emphasise that we have no evidence. The best that we can do is to speculate on the basis of rumour and report—but, I might add, we must be circumspect in doing so out of respect for the families' feelings. It should not come as a surprise to the House that there is so little reliable information, given the nature of Chechnya, but I wish to stress that every report and every rumour relating to the murdered men was, is and will be closely examined by officials here and in the region.
The security situation, dangerous at the time, has worsened considerably since that dreadful crime. I cannot stress enough the importance of companies and individuals heeding the FCO's travel advice. The advice for the Russian Federation has warned clearly and unambiguously against travel to Chechnya since 1994. My predecessor quoted the travel advice in full during a previous debate on the subject on 25 March and I shall repeat it. It reads:
We strongly advise against travel to the Chechen Republic because of the unstable security situation. Kidnapping for financial gain is common. Westerners are particularly vulnerable. Those who travel to Chechnya despite this advice are taking severe risks, and must accept that the ability of the FCO and British Embassy in Moscow to render assistance is severely limited".451 That is the current advice. FCO officials brought that advice to the attention of Granger Telecom in both July and August 1998. Granger has told us it shared that advice with its staff. BT has also told us that it was aware of the FCO travel advice and of the dangers of visiting Chechnya.I wish to draw particular attention to the last part of the advice about the ability of the FCO and the British embassy in Moscow to render assistance being severely limited. Travellers and their employers should not overestimate the ability of the FCO to help them if they get into trouble in a place such as Chechnya. British officials do not and should not travel to Chechnya—rightly, in view of the security situation. In view of our severely limited ability to render assistance, it is all the more important to heed our clear travel advice against travelling to Chechnya.
The advice applies to all who may wish to visit Chechnya, whatever their motive. Travel advice is aimed not just at tourists, but applies equally to business travellers, journalists, humanitarian aid workers and others. The deaths of the men whom we are discussing tonight should act as a tragic and sobering warning. Unfortunately, individual travellers and their employers, and other organisations, continue in some cases to ignore FCO warnings against travelling to certain dangerous parts of the world and, in doing so, put themselves at risk.
The hon. Gentleman raises many questions for BT to answer. He believes that BT never told Mr. Kennedy of the risks. That is clearly an issue for BT. For my part, I can only repeat that the FCO travel advice was clear and unambiguous and that both companies were aware of it.
What lessons can we learn from that tragic event? The hon. Gentleman suggests that companies should be obliged to warn their staff of the security situation in a country before they are posted there. I know that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) made 452 a similar proposal in the House on 25 March. I fully agree that employers have a moral responsibility to provide such information to their staff, including showing them the FCO travel advice. That is part of employers' duty of care towards their staff. It is not for us to become directly involved in the personnel operations of private companies, but we do expect UK employers to take our advice into account before posting their staff overseas. The individual also bears a responsibility to find out about the security situation in a country to which he or she is being posted.
The FCO takes every possible action to ensure that our travel advice is seen by companies and individuals. The advice is disseminated widely—it is circulated to the travel industry and is even accessible on BBC 2 Ceefax. It is also accessible worldwide on the internet and is available at any of our posts overseas. Our diplomatic missions overseas circulate all appropriate advice to resident Britons who are registered with them. It is up to each individual company to ensure that its employees are properly informed and that our advice is taken seriously.
As we all know, Chechnya is currently a dangerous place where the safety of British nationals cannot be guaranteed. British citizens should simply not go there. I hope that that advice will be heeded by both individuals and companies.
The House owes the hon. Gentleman a debt for the way in which he has taken the particularly tragic case of one of his constituents and highlighted how there may be flaws in structure and approach, leaving some individuals at great risk. Questions have been asked in this debate that will be for other people to answer, and I suspect that this debate will not mark the end of the case. The FCO will do what we can to examine all the available evidence and to discover what happened. We will continue to demand answers.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes past Ten o'clock.