AN IRISH political adviser expelled from Afghanistan for speaking to the Taliban has said he did not make an error of judgment and was not a "fall guy", as was suggested in some quarters.
Michael Semple, an Irish national, was working as a political adviser to the EU special representative to Afghanistan last December when President Hamid Karzai expelled him and UN worker Mervyn Patterson over allegedly threatening national security by talking to the Taliban.
In the past two days, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Mr Semple have dismissed allegations he was a "spy" or that there was a hidden agenda to his operations. Documents released to RTÉ News under the Freedom of Information Act show he was paid €120,000 during 2007 by the Irish Government for his work for the EU.
Speaking to RTÉ from Islamabad, in Pakistan, Mr Semple, originally from Co Wicklow, said he found suggestions carried in some newspapers that he was a spy or a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia figure to be comical. He has lived in the region for 20 years, wears a long beard, wears the local tribal costume and speaks several of the local languages. "I am not a spy. I never have been a spy," he said. "I have to chuckle at some of the Lawrence of Arabia descriptions. I am trying to maintain contacts at all levels of Afghan society so that we can understand what is going on."
He said the question of his funding was straightforward. He was working as an adviser for the EU in Afghanistan, which asked the Irish Government to fund its office.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said last night that payments to Mr Semple stopped only because it coincided with the end of the EU special representative's mandate in that area.
"The reporting line was from our office through to Brussels and through the political security committee. My office was accountable to the Irish Government. All the reports that were produced from our office are on file."
He said an Irish official who wrote that he [ Mr Semple] may have made an error of judgment was mistaken. "When the department get a chance to be fully briefed and see all the facts, they will not think that."
On his expulsion, he said: "I was told at the time I was expelled for talking to the Taliban, something which I had been doing for quite a while as part of our reconciliation mandate."
