A former MI6 spy stole top secret files on intelligence gathering techniques and offered to sell them for 2 million pounds ($2.9 million) to an unspecified foreign government, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Prosecutor Piers Arnold told a London court that Daniel Houghton, 25, is alleged to have attempted to sell the highly classified documents, but was arrested Monday after British intelligence posed as the potential buyer.
Houghton was not asked to enter a plea during a brief hearing.
Arnold said Houghton, who is a dual Dutch and British national, is accused of copying top secret files from the domestic agency MI5 to CD and DVDs while working for the MI6 overseas intelligence service between September 2007 and May 2009.
He did not specify what job Houghton had with MI6, but said the alleged attempted sale came after he left the agency.
Arnold told the court that disclosure of the files would compromise the ability of MI5 and MI6 to gather intelligence, and could potentially endanger national security.
"Some of these files had a security classification of top secret, others were classified as secret," Arnold said.
PTI
