Ex British spy who wrote dossier on alleged Trump-Putin links fights legal action

Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev claimed the ‘Steele Dossier’ made defamatory allegations

A former British spy who wrote a 2016 dossier about alleged links between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is preparing for a High Court fight after being sued by a Russian businessman.

Aleksej Gubarev took legal action against Christopher Steele after Buzzfeed published the "Steele Dossier" in January 2017, the month Mr Trump was inaugurated as US president.

He says part of the dossier made "seriously defamatory allegations".

Mr Steele is fighting the claim.

A judge is due to begin overseeing a trial at the High Court in London on Monday.

Mr Justice Warby is expected to consider evidence and argument over five days.

Detail of the case emerged at a preliminary hearing earlier this year.

Lawyers representing Mr Gubarev then described the dossier as a "notorious document".

Andrew Caldecott QC, who leads Mr Gubarev's legal team, said the dossier consisted of a "number of memoranda" authored by Mr Steele.

He said, in a written case outline, that the dossier had been commissioned by a company acting for a law firm.

But he said the "ultimate client" had been the "Democratic National Committee and/or Hillary Clinton's Presidential election campaign".

He said the final memorandum, apparently produced after the company's commission had ended, made "seriously defamatory allegations".

Earlier this month, two businessmen behind a Russian investment conglomerate won a data protection fight at the High Court in London after making complaints about the dossier.

That litigation was also overseen by Mr Justice Warby.

Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman were each awarded £18,000 compensation after complaining that information about them in the dossier was inaccurate and a breach of English data protection law.

A memorandum in the dossier contained a number of allegations, and suggested that the two businessmen had been involved in delivering large amounts of "illicit cash" to Mr Putin when he was deputy mayor of St Petersburg.

Mr Justice Warby said more "energetic checking" should have been done into the cash delivery allegation.

The judge said, in a written ruling, that the dossier was produced in 2016 by Orbis Business Intelligence Limited on the instructions of a Washington DC consultancy, which wanted intelligence concerning any links which might exist between the Russian president and Mr Trump.

He said Mr Steele was a director, and principal, of Orbis, and the "main" author of the "Steele Dossier".

Reporting by PA

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