Australia PM defended UK Spy
29 October 2015 by News Desk
Malcolm Turnbull helped to create a worldwide best-selling book when he defended a notorious British spy.
Turnbull, currently the Prime Minister of Australia, was a young lawyer down under when he successfully defended former MI5 agent Peter Wright against the UK government’s legal attempt to stop his book ‘Spycatcher’ from being published in Australia in the late 1980s.
Wright caused a sensation by revealing, for the first time, highly sensitive details about Britain’s spying activities and it created a global Edward Snowden/Wikileaks-style security scandal.
Details of the case are revealed in newly released ‘top secret’ documents only now made available by the UK government 30 years after the event.
Malcolm Turnbull’s “brilliant” handling of the Australian court case – he won, Wright’s book was published in Australia and went on to be a worldwide million-seller – humiliated British officialdom and eventually led to much-needed intelligence service reform.
