MATT KENNARD
Matt Kennard is chief investigator at Declassified UK. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Follow him on Twitter @kennardmatt
Burma bloodbath is a lesson Britain must learn from
The terrible scenes of young people being gunned down by Burma’s military junta should make British diplomats think hard about why their policy of aiding and trading with the regime went so wrong.
Revealed: UK ignored Chechnya war crimes to push BP’s oil interests as it worked to get Vladimir Putin elected in 2000
The British government sought, in 2000, to integrate Putin’s Russia into the Western-ruled economic system, despite its brutal military campaign in Chechnya, documents obtained by Declassified show.
The British ambassador who supported a coup
Britain’s ambassador to Bolivia, Jeff Glekin, played a personal role in events leading up to the 2019 military-backed coup that deposed the country’s democratically elected president, Evo Morales — and strongly supported the new regime as it carried out two massacres of unarmed protesters, Declassified has found.
Revealed: The UK supported the coup in Bolivia to gain access to its ‘white gold’
After a coup in the South American country of Bolivia in November 2019, democratically elected president Evo Morales was forced to flee. Foreign Office documents obtained by Declassified show Britain saw the new military-backed regime, which killed 18 protesters, as an opportunity to open up Bolivia’s lithium deposits to UK firms.
Revealed: UK sets up media influencing project in Venezuela amid secretive £750,000 ‘democracy promotion’ programme
The UK government has established a journalism project to ‘influence’ Venezuela’s ‘media agenda’ while a Foreign Office-funded foundation is spending £750,000 on a secretive ‘democracy-promotion’ programme in the country, as Britain appears to deepen efforts to remove the Maduro government.
Revealed: UK Foreign Office has spent nearly half a million pounds in aid setting up anti-government coalition in Venezuela
The British government has surreptitiously given £450,000 from its overseas aid budget to establish an ‘anti-corruption’ coalition in Venezuela through a controversial fund which claims to ‘tackle instability and to prevent conflicts that threaten UK interests’, it can be revealed.
Revealed: Key Assange prosecution witness is part of academic cluster which has received millions of pounds from UK and US militaries
One of the US prosecution’s key medical witnesses in the Julian Assange hearing, who claimed that Assange’s risk of suicide is ‘manageable’ if extradited to the US, works for an academic institute that is funded by the UK Ministry of Defence and linked to the US Department of Defence, it can be revealed.
As British judge made rulings against Julian Assange, her husband was involved with right-wing lobby group briefing against WikiLeaks founder
The husband of the chief magistrate overseeing Julian Assange’s extradition case was closely associated with a lobby group publicly criticising the WikiLeaks founder around the time his wife was ruling against Assange, it can be revealed.
UK government refuses to release information about Assange judge who has 96% extradition record
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice is blocking the release of basic information about the judge who is to rule on Julian Assange’s extradition to the US in what appears to be an irregular application of the Freedom of Information Act, it can be revealed.