Adam Werritty was involved in a shadowy international plot to topple the Iranian leader, it was claimed yesterday.
Liam Fox’s right-hand man was said to have regularly met Iranian dissidents, Israeli spies and right-wing U.S. groups with an interest in destabilising President Ahmadinejad.
Mr Werritty, 33, was highly regarded by the feared Israeli intelligence service Mossad, who believed he was the Defence Secretary’s chief of staff.
He travelled the globe enjoying extraordinary access to politicians, diplomats, lobbyists and military personnel, apparently revelling in the James Bond-style trappings of first-class travel and luxury hotels.
One of the companies which helped fund Mr Werritty’s extravagant lifestyle even had a charitable foundation named Universal Exports – the pseudonym for MI6 in Ian Fleming’s 007 books.
Mr Werritty, who can speak some Farsi, has visited Iran several times, including a trip to the country in 2007 alongside Dr Fox.
He is said to have acted as a ‘facilitator’ and ‘taken messages’ between opposition parties in Tehran. And he arranged a meeting in Portcullis House, Westminster between Dr Fox and an Iranian lobbyist with close links to President Ahmadinejad’s regime.
It was also claimed yesterday that he had been briefed by MI6 after returning from overseas trips.
According to one source, Mr Werritty worked closely with right-wing neoconservative groups in the U.S. who believed they could put enough pressure on Tehran to ‘bring down Ahmadinejad’.
Dr Fox was forced to quit on Friday following a two-week torrent of damaging revelations about his personal and professional relationship with his former flatmate and best man.
The disclosures led to questions over how Mr Werritty was given such high-level access, even though he had no security clearance. The new claims that Dr Fox’s unofficial envoy was involved in plans to unseat the Iranian government will fuel concerns that he was acting as a ‘rogue operator’ pursuing a freelance foreign policy.
In February this year, Mr Werritty arranged a dinner with Dr Fox, Britain’s ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould and senior political figures – understood to include Mossad agents – during an Israeli security conference in Herzliya. Sanctions against Iran were discussed at the meal.
Israeli sources said there was ‘no question’ that Mr Werritty was regarded as anyone other than Dr Fox’s chief of staff and an ‘expert on Iran’. Any plot against Iran would have been almost unworkable but Mr Werritty’s activities appear to run counter to the British government’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear programme.
One Whitehall source said: ‘I can’t think of anything more stupid, wandering round Iran flying the British flag. Does he really think the answer to Iran’s nuclear ambitions – which we all want to resolve – is to have a bunch of people encouraging the opposition there in that way?
You are inviting people to believe you have the Government’s resources behind them, and in fact the opposition is likely to be brutally crushed.
A former diplomat expressed concern that Mr Werritty was being funded to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds by the pro-Israeli lobby.
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said: ‘It is plain as a pikestaff that Fox had retained his effective partnership with Werritty in lobbying activities that not only were concerned with Israel ... but which actively sought to promote the geo-strategic interests of those countries – for money.
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