The United Nations said on Friday it recently found a bugging device at its European headquarters in Geneva, while a UN source hinted that similar devices may have been discovered in the past.
”I confirm that in the course of the renovation of the Salon Francais [French Hall], UN technical workmen found what was considered to be a sophisticated listening device,” said the UN spokesperson in Geneva, Marie Heuze.
”An investigation has failed to determine who could have planted the device,” she told a news conference, reading from a statement.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is the first time the world body has acknowledged such a discovery after a local Swiss television station broke the news on Thursday evening.
”We made an investigation, but it did not identify who had been responsible for installing this device and nobody was able to say when it was planted,” the source said.
”The investigation is now closed,” the source said.
It is also the first time that such a discovery has been made recently at the UN’s sprawling Geneva offices, where top-level meetings are often held, but the source indicated that similar discoveries might have been made in the past.
”That could be,” the source said, without revealing further details.
The bugging device was found in the French Hall — so named because it was decorated by the celebrated French artist Jules Leleu in the 1930s — in the first week of November, while it was being renovated, a French diplomat said.
The spacious room, with a high ceiling and fancy mirror on one wall, was used by a French delegation during a meeting of foreign ministers in September 2003 from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States to discuss Iraq, the diplomat said.
France’s President Jacques Chirac also used the room — which is next door to the main Council Chamber where top-level discussions are held — in January when he met his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss famine.
The French diplomat, however, dismissed the notion that France had been the target of the listening device, noting that whoever put it there had probably been more interested in UN discussions between New York and Geneva.
”The Salon Francais is often reserved for bilateral meetings between all of the countries because it is the most beautiful room in the Palais [des Nations — the name of the UN’s Geneva headquarters],” the diplomat said.
”France uses it a lot less than the others. I believe nothing confidential is said in this room,” he said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
Paris financed, in part, the renovation of the room that took place between October 25 and November 20, he said.
It was in charge of renovating artistic objects and ornaments, while the UN team, which found the bug, had attended to the larger paintings and other items such as the carpet and ceiling.
”This room is not an important room that is why we were surprised at the discovery,” added the UN source.
The source declined to speculate whether the UN is worried that other recording equipment may have been installed at other high-profile locations as well.
”It is the first time since the Cold War that a piece of evidence has been found of such bugging in a UN building,” said Jacques Baud, the author of an encyclopedia on the world’s intelligence agencies.
An expert contacted by Swiss TSR television, which broke the story on Thursday, said the listening device had been very sophisticated and difficult to detect.
Made of components from Russia or eastern Europe, the device was probably three or four years old, said the expert.
The discovery echoed allegations by a former minister in Britain that British spies had bugged the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during the tense weeks leading to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. — Sapa-AFP