An academic and leading campaigner against racism and fascism has been exposed as a police spy-master who led a network of undercover officers in political activist groups.
Bob Lambert, now a lecturer and expert on Islamophobia who regularly speaks at civil rights rallies, infiltrated organisations including Greenpeace as part of a covert police unit.
During his previous 26-year career as a Special Branch officer, he placed moles inside political protest groups, including anti-racism organisations, impeding their activities.
Spy: Bob Lambert during his undercover days in the mid-1980s (left) and the academic and lecturer as he is now (right). He has been exposed as a police spy-master who led a network of undercover officers in political activist groups
Mr Lambert became head of the unit after around a decade working undercover, reported The Guardian.
He has previously admitted working for special branch between 1980 and 2006, but has never revealed his past as a police spy.
Ironically, Mr Lambert's secret undercover work was revealed on Saturday at a Unite Against Fascism conference, at which he was a speaker.
Fellow activists at the event claimed he used the alias Bob Robinson while a member of London Greenpeace between 1984 and 1988.
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The group campaigned for environmental issues including nuclear disarmament and claims 'Robinson' attended numerous protests and meetings.
It is also believed that Mr Lambert infiltrated animal rights groups.
But he was actually a member of the Special Demonstration Squad, a police unit dedicated to infiltrating political groups thought to pose a threat to public order.
When urged to apologise at the conference for his undercover work, Mr Lambert refused to comment, the activists claim.
Undercover: Mr Lambert (wearing a red jacket) attends a protest during the period he infiltrated London Greenpeace
He last week urged people to attend to 'show a united front against hatred and bigotry and celebrate the diversity of our multicultural communities'.
In the late 1990s, Mr Lambert became head of the Special Demonstration Squad and was responsible for placing police moles in political organisations.
From 2002 to 2007, he was in charge of Scotland Yard's Muslim Contact Unit, tasked with preventing Islamic extremism by way of two-way dialogue with the Muslim community.
Since 2006, he has lectured at Exeter and St Andrew's universities.
Mr Lambert is the seventh police officer to be unmasked as a spy inside protest organisations.
Alternate life: Mark Kennedy spent seven years undercover as an eco-activist before allegedly going 'native' and naming another campaigner as an officer
The most high-profile of these was Mark Kennedy, who spent seven years undercover as an eco-activist before allegedly going 'native' and naming another campaigner as an officer when he was rumbled.
A spokesman for London Greenpeace today said: 'By publicly exposing this latest scandal, campaigners have demonstrated that the recent police spies outed were not "rogue officers", but part of an unacceptable pattern of immoral infiltration of environmental groups, condoned at a high level.
'We demand action to ensure that the full truth is revealed and that justice is done.'
A report into Kennedy and the work of undercover police officers in protest groups is scheduled to be published on Thursday.
Racked with guilt at betraying his new friends after seven years of pretence, Kennedy apparently confessed that a female officer in her 30s was also a spy.
She lived in Leeds and played a major part in organising a protest intended to close down the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire.
The group had already grown suspicious after she disappeared overnight in 2008 claiming she had fallen in love with a man in Coventry. She was never seen again.
Senior police chiefs were in January said to be worried Kennedy, who went under the name Mark Stone in his alternate life, had also compromised the safety of other officers working covertly.
Telling friends who were protesters that the officer was working undercover is a serious breach of protocol which could mean other operatives have to be moved for their safety.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050051/Lecturer-exposed-police-spy-master-infiltrated-Greenpeace-groups-posing-threat-public-order.html#ixzz1b3ByAYRh
Monday, 17 October 2011
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nice article
thanks
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