Annie Machon

Annie Machon    (whistleblower)
Annie Machon at 30C3 in Hamburg in December 2013
Born	1968
Exposed	1994 London Israeli Embassy attack
Member of	Belmarsh Tribunal
Machon quit together with fellow MI5 whistleblower David Shayler in 1996/7 to expose details of various illegal actions by the organisation. She is currently a political activist working to help other whistleblowers. In office August 1993 - August 1995 Employer MI5/T Branch , In office August 1995 - October 1996 Employer MI5/G Branch

Annie Machon (born 1968) is a former MI5 British intelligence officer who with her partner David Shayler in the 1990s helped blow the whistle on a range of illegal spy activities, including files on government ministers, illegal phone taps on journalists, IRA bombs that should have been prevented, innocent people being thrown in prison, and an illegal assassination attempt against Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 1996. As a result they had preemptively to go on the run around Europe in 1997, live in hiding for a year, or face arrest.

Following the controversial car crash in Paris on 31 August 1977 in which Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed were killed, Dodi's father, Mohamed al-Fayed, offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Oswald LeWinter, claiming to be a CIA officer, told al-Fayed he had CIA documents showing that MI6 had arranged the assassination at the behest of Buckingham Palace.

In November 1997, Annie Machon and her partner David Shayler, who were living in a remote farmhouse in France, were surprised to receive a call from Mohamed al-Fayed inviting them to Paris. A chauffeur-driven limousine was sent to bring the pair to Paris to inspect the documents. Machon described her reaction upon seeing the documents:

"They looked good but if you knew what a proper MI6 document looked like, there were some simple errors: things like the date/time line; things like the addressee list; they weren't quite right. They were forgeries, very good forgeries. You know al-Fayed was asked for $20 million for these documents and would have paid if they were real. Because he was desperate to prove that there was a plot against his son and his possible future daughter-in-law. Anyway, we saw they were fakes and saved him $20 million, but also saved him embarrassment. This was a classic 'straw man' operation whereby he would have bought them, held them up to the world's media saying 'Look I've got proof'. Then the authorities would have turned round and said 'It's so obvious, look at these simple errors' and everything else he would have found out, he would have been dismissed as a fantasist. So his entire campaign for justice for his son would have stalled before it had even started."

Background

Annie Machon read Classics at Cambridge University and after her academic years started a career in publishing.

MI5

In 1991 she was recruited by MI5 where she was posted to their counter-subversion department, officially known as F2. It was there she met Shayler. She then spent two years working in T Branch, investigating Irish terrorism, before being reposted to the international counter-terrorist division, known as G Branch. In 1996 she and Shayler resigned to blow the whistle on a range of matters including:

• Secret MI5 files held on the same ministers responsible for overseeing the intelligence services.
• Illegal MI5 phone taps
• MI5 lies to government
• IRA bombs that were allowed to happen
• False convictions following the 1994 Israeli Embassy Bombing in London, when two innocent people were wrongfully convicted.
• The attempted MI6 assassination of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya

After MI5

Drawing on her varied experiences, Machon is now an intelligence expert, author, journalist, political campaigner, media trainer, and PR consultant. She is also a recognised international public speaker on a variety of intelligence-related and civil liberties issues.

In 2006, Machon ended her relationship with Shayler due to his use of hallucinogenics and his messianic claims. In 2008 she worked for Make Wars History. Machon is featured in Last Man Out, a 90-minute documentary movie by Jonathan Kerr-Smith about William Rodriguez.

Author, public speaker

Annie Machon is the author of the 2005 book "Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5 and the David Shayler Affair".

Machon is now a writer, media commentator, political campaigner, and international public speaker on a variety of related issues: the war on terrorism, the war on whistleblowers, the war on drugs, and the war on the Internet. Currently Annie Machon is serving as European Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and has announced the starting of a new whistleblower protection organisation called 'Courage' at the 30C3 conference in Hamburg on 29 December 2013.

She blogs at anniemachon.ch.

Recent Broadcasts

Machon made several broadcasts on Russia Today in 2013, including:

• "US looks even more like Stasi..."
• "Manning verdict..."
• "GCHQ effectively prostituting itself to NSA"

External links

• Machon, A. (2005). Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5 and the David Shayler Affair. Book Guild Ltd. ISBN 1-85776-952-X
• "The spy who loved me"; Stuart Jeffries; The Guardian, 15 November 2002. Retrieved on 8 April 2008.
• "No place to hide"; Sabine Durrant; The Guardian, 3 April 2000. Retrieved on 8 April 2008.
• "International speaker"
• "David Shayler's former partner reveals: How the bullying State crushed him"; Annie Machon; The Daily Mail, 11 August 2007. Retrieved on 8 April 2008.
• whistleblower and his girl split up; Jason Lewis; The Daily Mail, 6 January 2007. Retrieved on 8 April 2008.
• Real News interview (first of two parts)

• Radio show about false flag attacks featuring Annie Machon