Man who 'harboured gangster Kenneth Noye on Tenerife' after M25 murder named in court
EXCLUSIVE: Former offshore accountant Paul Blanchard, 79, who is fighting extradition to Spain in connection with a multi-million pound timeshare fraud, made the claim on the first day of the hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
A businessman who allegedly harboured gangster Kenneth Noye on Tenerife after he fled the UK following the road rage murder of Stephen Cameron was today named in court.
Former offshore accountant Paul Blanchard, 79, who is fighting extradition to Spain in connection with a multi-million pound timeshare fraud, made the claim on the first day of the hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Spain wants to extradite him in connection with an alleged timeshare fraud said to have been run by Mohamed Jamil Derbah, a former associate of the late British Brinks Mat crook John Palmer, who in turn was an associate of Noye, through the infamous robbery.
Palmer, nicknamed 'Goldfinger', had helped Noye launder some of the £26m worth of gold bullion stolen from the Brink's-Mat warehouse near Heathrow in 1983.
The haul, worth around £100m today, was smelted down in the West Country and then laundered.
Last year's BBC drama Gold told it changed the history of British crime.
Noye was subject to a massive surveillance operation over the robbery that led undercover police to the door of his Kent mansion.
It led to a tragic death when Noye stabbed undercover police officer DC John Fordham - but was later acquitted on the grounds of self-defence.
Noye was eventually brought to justice over his involvement in the robbery in 1986 and jailed for 14 years. He was released in 1994, having served eight years in prison.
Palmer was cleared in 1987 of smelting down Brink’s-Mat gold and went on to build up his £300million dodgy timeshare fortune, featuring on the Sunday Times Rich List.
Mr Derbah, 60, who now runs newspapers and encourages business links with the island and Africa, had worked with Palmer while the latter built up his timeshare empire on Tenerife in the 1990s but denies any criminality himself.
In 2001, Palmer was jailed in the UK for eight years after being found guilty of swindling 20,000 people out of around £30million.
Giving evidence on the first day of the extradition battle today, Mr Blanchard, 79, was questioned by Mark Summers KC, who represented Julian Assange during his legal fight against the USA.
Mr Summers asked: "You came to learn that he (Mr Derbah) harboured Kenny Noye, how did that come about?"
Blanchard explained that after becoming an accountant to Mr Derbah, to help him avoid tax, in the setting up of a number of companies, he was also asked to help him write an autobiography.
Blanchard said: "I came to know he was an associate of John Palmer and he wanted to write his autobiography and he said if I could arrange someone to ghost write it we could go 50/50 on it.
"I employed David Taylor to do it and like any journalist he recorded the conversation. I later found out the details in the conversation he had with him about Kenny Noye."
Noye, now 77, stabbed Mr Cameron on an M25 slip road in Swanley in 1996 during an argument about driving at the side of the road. It was in front of Mr Cameron's fiancee Danielle Cable and while on licence after his earlier release from prison.
The next day he fled the country in Palmer's helicopter and spent time in Tenerife.
He was not arrested until about two years later in the resort of Barbate, near Gibraltar, on August 28 1998.
In April 2000 Noye was jailed for life for the murder and released in 2019.
It is not clear exactly how long he spent on Tenerife, but Blanchard told the court he had Mr Taylor's recordings of the interview in which Mr Derbah admitted helping the villain for Palmer.
Mr Summers added: "How, on an island with police and in a first-word democracy, could someone harbour a criminal?"
Blanchard replied: "Because, he had the police and the chief of police and all the Government of Santa Cruz in his pocket and could do what he wanted to do without law enforcement interference."
Mr Derbah spoke about the recording to the Sunday Express in February 2023 after Blanchard published parts of the tapes on social media.
In the recording Mr Derbah said: “John Palmer told me to be involved and if I’m involved in that, I’m involved indirectly – not for the criminal case – I didn’t know exactly what he did...”
Asked about it by the Sunday Express in 2023, Mr Derbah denied any involvement in any crimes and said he only helped Noye for Palmer as a favour without having any idea about Mr Cameron's murder.
Mr Derbah said at the time: “I did not know Kenny Noye when he first came to Tenerife.
“I’m working for John Palmer, every time he brings some people and he surprises you. He asked me if I would help him to go away and he came over.
“When Kenny Noye came with Palmer he left Tenerife the next day or day after. I didn’t know what was going on and at the same time there was no order from the police looking for him.
“After he left, it all came out. If I knew someone killed someone, I would never do that even if John Palmer told me to.”
However, Blanchard today told the court that Derbah was behind a major timeshare scam after setting up his own operation from Palmer after they parted company.
Blanchard said he initially thought he was a legitimate businessman after police on the island certified his passport for a company formation.
But, he later saw a man on his knees in Derbah's office begging for forgiveness and realised something was "unusual" about him.
He defeated an extradition request from Spain at the Court of Appeal in July 2021, but the EU country has come back for round two, with a four-day hearing starting today.
Blanchard could be facing up to 15 years in a Spanish prison because of his former involvement in a shady world involving gangsters, money launderers and international terrorists, not to mention being implicated in the timeshare fraud.
He is fighting extradition to Spain for a second time to face charges that he conspired with Mr Derbah to defraud timeshare customers in a multi-million pound scam.
But, Blanchard claims he was actually recruited by Spanish police intelligence after he "blew the whistle on Mr Derbah's timeshare activities and was then recruited as an undercover agent to gain information on criminals operating on Tenerife and Spain, through his work as a specialist offshore accountant, helping wealthy people avoid tax.
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His clients included the late aristocrat Colin Tennant, the 3rd Baron Glenconner, whose wife Anne was a lady in waiting for Princess Margaret.
He claims he was also taken on as a prosecution witness against Mr Derbah and offered the protected witness status, but Spanish police turned their back on him after he inadvertently blew his own cover.
Blanchard claims he is only being extradited now so he can be forced to give evidence after he pulled out as a witness after being "hung out to dry" by his handlers.
Yet, the latest European Arrest Warrant from Spain alleges he was involved in major fraudulent activities as part of a criminal gang allegedly run by Mr Derbah.
Blanchard also claims Spanish police want to "silence him " because he revealed information about the London 7/7 bombers and Madrid bombings, before the attacks, but nothing was allegedly done.
He said he passed on the names of two of the 7/7 bombers a year before the Tube attacks and details of those involved in planning the March 2004 Madrid bombings, after coming across them during his undercover work, he claimed.
Parents of road rage killer Kenneth Noye's victim in emotional appeal for gangster in prison
These included Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the 7/7 bombers killed in the London July 2005 terror attacks and Salahuddin Amin, convicted in 2007 of plotting to blow up Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
The 7/7 bombings were a series of co-ordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks in 2005 that targeted commuters travelling by bus and Underground during the morning rush hour in London, killing 52 and injuring 700.
The Madrid train bombings, three days before Spain's general elections, killed 193 people and injured around 2,050.
Blanchard claims all this information he got was passed to his Spanish handlers, but was seemingly not acted upon.
At the earlier extradition hearing in late 2019, Westminster Magistrates Court heard how Blanchard's involvement in the case began in 1999 when he set up as an "offshore" tax adviser on Tenerife.
He admits he was helping "businessmen" set up offshore businesses and bank accounts for the purposes of avoiding tax, but denies this was for illegal or fraudulent reasons.
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The court heard he was approached by Lebanese-born Derbah to set up companies for the timeshare operation Derbah was running after splitting from Palmer, who was shot dead in his Essex home in June 2015.
Blanchard, who lives in York, said his own relationship with Derbah soured in 2001 after he discovered he was involved in unlawful fraudulent activities.
He went to police and was introduced to Spanish intelligence officers Enrique Estaban and Chief Inspector Fernandos Munoz in Madrid.
He agreed to be a witness and provide evidence for their investigation into Derbah.
While he recorded evidence he said he was promised "protected witness" status due to fears "of getting assassinated by Derbah's henchmen".
Blanchard said his handlers encouraged him to act as an informer against other clients or people he came in to contact with as he continued to work from the Costa del Sol. He said that in 2003 he became aware of two British fraudsters moving money for the IRA, and fed this back to police.
He said: "This involved a very large US conglomerate.
"The IRA had someone inside the company's bank who transferred £4.3 million to Spain." He told how he accompanied someone involved to a bank in Torremolinos to see the transfer completed, and ended up being arrested. But after making a phone call to Mr Munoz he was immediately released, he said.
Blanchard claimed his relationship with the Spanish police deteriorated in April 2004 after he was undercover on another fraud connected to a Birmingham Al-Qaeda cell.
He said he told his handlers about the British fraudsters ripping off two of his clients in the US for 100,000 euros.
John Palmer's family on life before the Goldfinger killing
One of the men was arrested and Blanchard claimed Mr Munoz obtained authorisation for him to look through his papers and phone records, which he claimed revealed details of the Birmingham terror cell and a scam to send £375,000 to Dubai and on to Spain. It was within these papers that he saw details of the two 7/7 bombers among several names and cash being moved from the UK to Spain, he claimed.
But, it was also at this time that he claims to have blown his cover by telling the local police he was assisting the intelligence service on terrorism matters.
He said that his handlers subsequently refused to give him the promised protection.
Secret recordings Blanchard made of phone calls with his Spanish handlers were played during the previous extradition hearing, with Spain making no comment on the.
Blanchard told the court in 2019: "Within 10 days it had completely destroyed everything because I had broken my cover."
Blanchard claimed that not only was he cut off by his Spanish handlers, but they refused to confirm his alleged role with them when his name came up during a British police investigation into the £4.3million and £375,000 frauds.
His lawyer made repeated requests to Judge Baltazar Garzon, who was investigating Derbah and Palmer, for confirmation of his work with Spanish police and payment of expenses incurred.
He said: "I thought they'd be bound to confirm everything I was saying and what I provided, but they never responded or gave any information." In 2006, he was arrested in the UK for his alleged involvement in the frauds.
He said that with his covert recordings stuck in a lawyer's office in Spain, on legal advice in February 2008, he pleaded guilty to a number of fraud and money laundering charges and was jailed for six and a half years.
Despite the outstanding charges against him, Derbah remained on Tenerife as a businessman and well-known philanthropist. He even published a book about his time with Palmer.
In April 2018 Blanchard was held on a European Arrest Warrant for allegations in Spain.
The Spanish warrant for Blanchard's arrest in 2018 stated that in 1998: "The (Spanish) police investigation begins at the request of the British authorities in connection with John Palmer."
Mark Summers, representing Blanchard in 2018, said about five months after his client began assisting the authorities, Derbah and a number of his associates, including a senior police officer from the island, were arrested in November 2001.
Derbah, who denies any wrongdoing, has never been charged and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.
He remains a successful businessman on Tenerife.
Palmer was arrested in 2002. He was about to stand trial over the case in 2015 when he was assassinated at his home in Brentwood, Essex.
At first his death was not regarded as suspicious but later it was discovered that he had several bullet wounds.
The murder remains unsolved. Daniel Sturnberg, representing Spain, said it was accepted Blanchard started out as a prosecution witness, but claimed that he later became a suspect due to incriminating comments made in his own statements.
He said there was no evidence he was ever guaranteed to be a protected witness.
The Court of Appeal threw out the earlier extradition request, saying Spain had failed to set out exactly what it was accusing Blanchard of in the extradition warrant, branding it “incoherent and defective”.
It took Spain a few years to send a new extradition request, sparking the current extradition case.
The ongoing hearing is expected to end on Thursday.
Express.co.uk has also previously asked Mr Derbah about the allegations in the original arrest warrant and he categorically denied any involvement in criminal activity.
The Spanish authorities, were contacted for comment.
