An MI5 officer whose wife was one of the prostitutes who exposed a sex scandal involving the motor racing chief Max Mosley has been forced to resign because he was a potential security risk, a Whitehall official confirmed yesterday.
Although MI5 have denied any involvement, it has emerged that an MI5 officer, whose identity is being kept secret for legal reasons, was forced to resign after admitting that his wife was one of the prostitutes involved in the lurid episode.
A counter-intelligence official yesterday said of the officer: “His partner being involved in prostitution obviously raised questions about his judgment. ” Mosley, 68, son of the British Union of Fascists leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, maintains the activity he engaged in was “eccentric” but legal. Quest, a security firm, has been appointed by Mosley to investigate whether he was the victim of a conspiracy to discredit him.
He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and says his private life should have no bearing on whether he is doing a good job running the FIA.
At the same time, it emerged last week that the sport is locked in a bitter commercial struggle behind the scenes. Last Friday, Mosley made public a letter to the club presidents of motor sports bodies affiliated to the FIA, highlighting the financial dispute which, in his view, threatens the sport’s future.
By revealing the details, Mosley is hoping it will help to win him support from the members of the FIA council, who will decide his fate at a meeting in Paris on June 3.
In it he writes: “During my period as FIA president, the economics of F1 have changed beyond all recognition. We are now dealing with a sport involving billions of dollars and interests that would like nothing better than to remove the FIA from the championship entirely. I have been determined to fight for the rights and role of the FIA in F1. “
Mosley added that, whatever the outcome of the vote of confidence over the sex scandal, it should not reward those “who have deliberately set out to destabilise the FIA at such a crucial time. ”
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