It turned out to be 51-year-old Angus Lapsley, who worked for a long time at the British Foreign Office, The Times notes.
According to TASS, citing The Times, the official of the British Ministry of Defense, who lost secret documents about the destroyer Defender near a bus stop in the English county of Kent, turned out to be 51-year-old Angus Lapsley, who had worked for a long time in the United Kingdom Foreign Office.
It is noted that Lapsley was temporarily sent to work in the defense department, but after checking the circumstances of the loss of documents carried out by the Ministry of Defense and not finding “traces of espionage”, he returned to his professional duties at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, as the newspaper clarified, the diplomat was restricted from accessing the state secret.
According to the newspaper, Lapsley was on the waiting list for appointment to the post of the permanent representative of Great Britain to NATO. According to government sources, now his chances of promotion have decreased, but he has “the opportunity to rehabilitate.” At the same time, according to The Times, many officials in the Ministry of Defense expressed bewilderment that Lapsley, in principle, managed to keep his job in the government after the incident.
In the Defense Department, Lapsley served as Chief of Directorate responsible for NATO relations and security policy in the Euro-Atlantic area. From 2017 to 2019, he headed the Directorate for Defense, International Security and Southeast European Countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1999. His current position in the Foreign Ministry was not specified.