His great strength is that he can speak from a position of authority, being that rare creature who has found success both as an intelligence agent and as the operator of an enduring business.

FORBES: Book Review

As well as carrying out run-of-the-mill duties at the foreign ministry, he worked as an agent of Czech military intelligence under the codename Salima, responsible for the assignments of military spies under diplomatic cover.

ECONOMIST: A Czech scandal

Four years ago, a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands convicted a Libyan intelligence agent of planting the bomb that destroyed an American airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988 and killed 270 people.

ECONOMIST: Syria

After collecting intelligence in Poland, she was parachuted into France where an agent's life expectancy was just six weeks.

BBC: Polish spy Krystyna Skarbek remembered

According to the Sunday Telegraph, documents sent by MI6 to Libyan intelligence chief Moussa Koussa reveal a double agent was recruited to infiltrate an al-Qaeda terror cell.

BBC: Gaddafi