Death Penalty? Are you listening Nirvana Fan, Wilster, Bob
Cheese? Taken from the ME branch.
The following article appeared in the South China Morning
Post on 24 May.
An Australian who allegedly tried to sell his country's
secrets in Bangkok asked an e-mail
chat group what canned fruit was best to use for sex.
Jean-Philippe Wispelaere's contacts with various sex,
travel and defence chat groups
reveal a conceited, penny-pinching, immature and
perhaps lonely man.
The trail that eventually led him to wait - for FBI
agents, as it turned out - by a baby
grand piano at a Thai hotel with some of his country's
top secrets in a shoulder bag
criss-crossed the Internet for months before he joined
the Defence Intelligence
Organisation in mid-1998.
Wispelaere, 28, was lured from Bangkok to the United
States in an FBI sting operation and
charged last week.
Apparently, he had thought he was clever trying to sell
top-secret papers to a so-far
unnamed Asian country using a false identity. That
arrogance shows strongly in the sharp
put-downs he loved dishing out in, for example, travel
advice on the Internet.
To a Canadian who wondered what currencies can be used
in New Zealand, he wrote: "We use
coconuts and trinkets. Blue marbles are especially
appreciated, as they can buy no fewer
than three sheep apiece."
A guru of budget globe-trotting, "JP" laid down the law
about travel from Tibet to South
America, from Hong Kong to Africa.
But his "advice" was racist at times.
"Gypsies are filth," he wrote. "I had no trouble with
them in Italy. As soon as one got
near I punched it very hard, male or female. I'm a
110kg bodybuilder, which makes life
easier in that respect."
Wispelaere - or Piggy Le Hogg, as he styled himself on
sexual matters - could pontificate
knowingly about which sex films you should watch with a
girlfriend.
He once asked what canned fruit to use in sex, writing:
"Pears and apricots tend to be a
little bulky."
Whatever his diversions, he acquired enough knowledge
of military matters as a graduate
student at the Australian National University to
convince his country's spy masters to
give him access to top-secret papers, many supplied by
the US under sharing arrangements.
A travelling companion of Wispelaere's told an
Australian paper Wispelaere was amazed at
how easy it had been to steal secrets and that he had
planned to spy for Britain.
The Sydney woman, 42, was quoted by the Sun-Herald as
saying Wispelaere told her he was
able to photocopy sensitive documents and "just walk
out the door".
Wispelaere allegedly handed over 713 secret documents
in exchange for US$120,000
(HK$930,000) from FBI agents posing as spies.
He faces the death penalty in the US if it is shown the
secrets concerned nuclear weapons
or military aircraft.
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Inside Inside Inside.
Let herea round of applause for an ANU local. Got to get
off this Canberra crap.
This spy guy has the same personality problems as someone
else we all know.
Based on the above, 'obviously factual account', maybe there is a sinister plot to remove unwanted posters from the TT. A bit extreme I must say, but some folks just won't budge will they? This makes the shutup thing look very tame indeed.
that this was a spy den???