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UK names new MI6 boss

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-16 20:45

LONDON - Britain's top diplomat at the United Nations has been appointed the new head of the country's MI6 overseas spy agency.

John Sawers, currently the UK's permanent representative to the UN, will take up his new post in November, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said Tuesday. [Agencies]

John Sawers, currently the UK's permanent representative to the UN, will take up his new post in November, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said Tuesday.

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He replaces John Scarlett, whose career has been dogged by concerns over the intelligence used to build the case for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Scarlett is retiring after five years in the post.

Brown's Downing Street office said in a statement that Sawers, 53, was rejoining MI6 - but declined to give details of his previous appointment with the intelligence agency.

Scarlett was head of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee prior to his appointment as MI6 chief in May 2004. Two government inquiries have examined intelligence gathered prior to the Iraq war - one panel criticized intelligence officials for relying on seriously flawed or unreliable sources.

Scarlett has overseen a rapid expansion of MI6 since the September 2001 attacks on the United States, and led the agency's work attempting to thwart attacks on Britain plotted overseas - chiefly in northwestern Pakistan.

Sawers previously served as ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, and has had diplomatic postings in New York, Washington, Syria, Yemen and South Africa.

He studied in Britain and at Harvard and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.