UKIP Uncovered

UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?

Friday, November 24, 2006

Gerrard Batten MEP and UKIP (continued)

In the transcript of Monday's Channel 4 news item quoted and linked below Gerrard Batten begins by referring to Professor Scaramella by his christian name, Mario, implying that this was not a casual first time conversation. So who is this Mario Scaramella involved with the now deceased Russian spy?

Not very much can be found on the web except for this intriguing reference on a blog titled "Logrus Amazing Stories" which is well written, wide ranging and seemingly well informed as may be seen from this link to http://marelles.blogspot.com/. I quote from the particular posting of 21st November titled 'Another Good Guy Goes Down' linked here, which begins in the Lebanon but later continues:

"I mentioned the character of Mario Scaramella. First, I would feel extremely nervous in his situation. Most of the people who seem to have information about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya or at least the involvment of the Russian services in it are disappearing. Violently... Who is next on the list? But it is also interesting to know who is "il professore Scaramella". I had the curiosity to search around. Mario Scaramella was until recently the head of the ECPP. The Environmental Crime Prevention Program is presented by Scaramella as a UN agency, but it is in fact an intergovernmental program. It regroups about 25 countries, the most active ones being Italy, Angola and the Samoa. Though its seat is in Washington, most of its activities take place in Naples. Scaramella presents also himself as a professor of the University of San Jose California, as well as an (unidentified) Colombian university. Unfortunately, there is no mention of his name on any website belonging to the famous American university. So who is Mister Scaramella?

He appears a couple of times in the Italian press (Il Corriere della Serra, as well as the weekly newspaper Espresso). He was a consultant in the Mitrokhin Parliamentary Commission, intended to study the consequences of the publication of the Mitrokhin Archives in Italy. In this position, he claimed that he could locate the nuclear mines that a "November" class submarine would have dropped in 1970 in the Naples gulf. The sub in question, the K8, was actually lost in the Bay of Biscaye the same year, and 20 of its torpedoes were indeed never found. For this, he said that he had the help of Russian officers who were responsible for the 1970 operation. Nobody knows really why and in which quality he was a consultant for Sismi in this Commission. As far as I know, his public references are limited to the use of satellite imagery for the monitoring of environmental crimes.

It's in this other quality that Scaramella was involved in another curious affair. He led an investigation on the illegal dumping of waste by a camorra clan in a lake of the Herculanum area. After this succesfull investigation, he went with two police agents to a suspected villa. There, the trio was actually shot at by camorrists. After returning fire, they managed to arrest one and to discover an important weapon cache in the villa. This episode led itself to many questions about what a simple consultant was doing there, in the company of armed agents in civilian cloths...

I have no other information on Mario Scaramella, but I think it is a somewhat colorful character. And a strange contact for Alexander Litvinenko in his research for the murderers of Anna Politkovskaya..."

In the view of this blog a stranger still character to be on first name terms with UKIP's MEP for the London Region. So what more can we find out about Mr Batten? My memory from the hours of researching the motivations of UKIP put him as a founding party member who has I believe claimed he himself chose the party name. He was initially against UKIP sending MEPs to Brussels and became less active later, returning to stand himself. He has been a long term NEC member. The information he provides the party may be read from here. He once wrote a brief report on the Euro and more recently an item on the cost to Britain of EU membership.

This report on a speech by Mr Batten last April, concerning the KGB, provides further background on this but as it is from a website of which I have never before heard it should perhaps be treated with some suspicion. The speech was indeed made but the rest of the report, if true, does show that Mr Batten has become involved in very murky matters far removed from the question of Britain's place in the EU.

posted by Martin |8:27 AM