A Russian woman accused of spying while working for a British MP will not be deported

A RUSSIAN woman accused of spying for Moscow while working for a British MP has won her appeal against deportation after insisting she is innocent.
Britain's Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) has ruled that 26-year-old Katia Zatuliveter was not liaising with Russian intelligence services while working as a researcher for Mike Hancock, a 65-year-old MP with whom she had an affair.
Britain wanted to deport her on the grounds that her presence was a danger to national security.
Hancock, the member of parliament for Portsmouth South on England's south coast, the city where the Royal Navy is based, sat on parliament's defence select committee, which scrutinises government defence policy and expenditure.
"Our conclusion, at least on the balance of probabilities, is that she was and is not a Russian agent," SIAC chairman judge John Mitting said in his written ruling.
Ms Zatuliveter was stopped at London Gatwick Airport in August last year, and arrested in December amid fears she was engaged in spying.
The SIAC panel heard that she had a string of relationships, mostly sexual, with unidentified officials from European countries when she acted as a chaperone to delegates attending conferences in Russia.
Ms Zatuliveter said after the ruling: "I feel fine. I am very happy. Incredible relief."
In his ruling, Mr Mitting said that even if Ms Zatuliveter was approached by the Russian security services, "we have seen nothing which satisfies us that she was recruited as an agent or was tasked, or acted, as one.
"We cannot exclude the possibility that we have been gulled - but, if we have been, it has been by a supremely competent and rigorously trained operative," he said.
"That does not fit all that we know about the appellant's age, background and characteristics. Accordingly, we allow this appeal.
"Although we have ...