Jeremy Corbyn dismisses Czech spy story as 'nonsense'
2 min read
Jeremy Corbyn has dismissed as "nonsense" claims that he passed information to a Czech spy at the height of the Cold War.
The Sun has published a series of reports based on 30-year-old documents showing the Labour leader met with Czech intelligence officer Jan Sarkocy on several occasions.
Papers from the former Czech state police, known as the Statni Bezpecnost, showed Mr Corbyn was first approached in 1986 by left-wing activists and agreed to further meetings.
The paper claimed that at one of those, Mr Corbyn passed information to the diplomat, including warning him about a clampdown by British intelligence on eastern European spies operating in the UK.
Labour have described the allegations as "a ridiculous smear and entirely false".
'NONSENSE'
At a conference in London today, the Labour leader was asked by a Daily Mail reporter whether he could be trusted when there were "serious questions" about his past actions.
The question drew a withering response from the veteran leftwinger, who said: “Thanks for your question, I’m very sorry that the Daily Mail has reduced itself to reproducing some nonsense that was written in the Sun beforehand”.
Host Steph McGovern then jokingly asked Mr Corbyn whether he had ever been a Czech spy, to which he replied: "No."
'NAIVE OR COMPLICIT'
Last week the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has claimed Mr Corbyn was either "incredibly naive or complicit" in agreeing to meet representatives of communist Czechoslovakia.
"These are genuine documents which shows he was targeted and the case was advanced, at a time when a very unpleasant Czech regime was persecuting dissidents. They were the enemies of the West," he said.
"They wouldn’t have targeted him unless they believed he was a Communist fellow traveller."
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