340 • MATRIX CHURCHILL
had been monitoring Hussein’s illicit procurement program, using
sources in both companies to supply information, although the pre-
cise date when SIS first heard of it remained a matter of considerable
debate.
Having failed to prosecute the steel fabricators, four months later
Customs raided Matrix Churchill, a company employing 600 and
based in Coventry, which was also engaged in exporting to Iraq. The
directors were charged with supplying Baghdad with dual-use ma-
chine tools, including several consignments of sophisticated com-
puter-controlled lathes that could have a military application. When
Henderson, one of the three directors, protested that all his activities
had been supervised by SIS, he was served with a Public Interest
Immunity Certificate (PIIC), a legal maneuver to prevent him from
disclosing his previous contacts, dating back over 20 years, with SIS
andMI5.
Henderson originally had been recruited by MI5 in 1970 when he
had been traveling across Eastern Europe as an export sales manager
and had acted as a source supplying information about Soviet Bloc
personalities visiting Britain. In April 1989 he was contacted by an
SIS officer interested in the Middle East, and as the controlling inter-
est in Matrix Churchill was owned by Iraqis, Henderson willingly
cooperated. Known to him only as ‘‘John Balsom,’’ Henderson’s case
officer held frequent meetings with him and debriefed him on his re-
turn from eight visits to Baghdad, but when he learned that Customs
had arrested his agent, Balsom disconnected him, avoiding all further
contact.
When Henderson disclosed to his defense lawyers that for years he
had been an agent for MI5 and SIS—and his evidence was supported
by another colleague, the former Matrix Churchill export manager
Mark Gutteridge, who also had been recruited by MI5 and then
passed to ‘‘Ian Eacott’’ of SIS—Balsom was offered to the prosecu-
tion as a witness. Balsom declared that he had not known of Hender-
son’s previous contracts with Baghdad, nor of the potential dual use
of his exports. Usefully, Balsom testified to Henderson’s great per-
sonal courage and his willingness to risk his life by visiting Iraq a
month after Hussein had executed an Iranian-born British journalist,
Farzad Bazoft. ‘‘He was a very, very brave man who, on top of all
the other pressures on top of him, took these extra risks.’’