A former Southend Tory party chairman has escaped the death penalty after he was cleared of waging war against India - but still faces up to ten years behind bars.

Peter Bleach - ex-Conservative party chairman in Southend's St Luke's ward - was found guilty of conspiracy to commit offences against the state and now faces a jail sentence of up to ten years.

The charges relate to parachuting crates of weapons, including Kalashnikov rifle rocket launchers, anti-tank grenades and ammunition, from a cargo plane into the troubled state of West Bengal where fighters want independence from Delhi.

The 48-year-old had been waiting for trial in a squalid Calcutta jail since 1995 and is now expected to appeal against his conviction.

He will be sentenced later this week.

The former army intelligence officer always claimed he was acting as a James Bond-style "double agent" and was setting up a bogus deal to expose Bangladesh firearms criminals.

Sir Teddy Taylor , MP for Rochford and Southend East, backed Mr Bleach's claim and insisted the Government had evidence to prove it was true.

He called on Home Secretary Jack Straw to open the Secret Service files on the case to the Indian authorities, which would give Mr Bleach more chance of winning his appeal.

Mr Bleach's ex-girlfriend Joanna Fletcher, who lives in London, said he would definitely appeal against the verdict.

She said: "I'm disappointed he was found guilty but it was as we expected. There wasn't any way they would find him guilty on waging war against India because that carries the death penalty and the British Government would have had to step in.

"I don't have the words to describe how badly he has been treated by the Government. The only person who has supported him is Teddy Taylor, who has been absolutely brilliant. The rest of the Government have washed their hands of him."

Ms Fletcher, who last saw Mr Bleach before he was arrested, said she had no idea how long he was likely to be jailed for.

Mr Bleach's plane was intercepted by Indian air force jets and forced to land in Bombay as it tried to make its way back to Bulgaria, where the Briton says he picked up the cargo a fortnight before the drop.

The jets were scrambled after Indian police were told by villagers that a cargo plane had been seen dropping crates by parachute over the Purulia district, in the east of the country, near the border with Burma.

The crates contained 500 AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, 12 rocket launchers and 100 anti-tank grenades, but landed miles away from their target.

Police said that the arms were intended for guerrillas from the Hindu cult Ananda Marg (Path of Bliss), which had been fighting West Bengal's communist state government.

Mr Bleach, a former British Army intelligence officer, mercenary and arms dealer, claims that he contacted the Ministry of Defence as soon as he was approached to make an illicit delivery of arms to India.

North Yorkshire Police said that they spoke to Mr Bleach and urged him not to get involved.

But he maintains that he was forced to go ahead with the drop because of threats to his family, and says that he was in contact with MI5 throughout the operation.

He says that the Secret Services encouraged him to proceed in order to help infiltrate the European suppliers of the cult, and assured him that the Indians were being informed about the progress of the operation.

In 1998, the Home Office released details to the Calcutta court of a 1995 meeting between Mr Bleach and two Special Branch officers at the arms dealer's home in Howdale, North Yorkshire.

But it emerged that sections of the documents referring to Mr Bleach's contact with MI5 were removed before they were seen by the court.

Sir Teddy said today: ''The document had had the top and bottom cut off. I obtained a full copy of the document and took it and the version shown in court to Jack Straw, and he said it was an administrative error.

''The plain fact is that the Government has abundant evidence that Peter kept in touch with UK authorities about everything he was doing in this episode, so the Indian government should have been told.

''There is no doubt that Peter was involved with dropping the arms, but he believed he was doing this with the full knowledge of both governments

''It would be so much better if the British Government had told the court what had happened, which would have got him a better result. My hope is that they will now let the Indian government know about the contacts they had with him.

''This case has worried me more than any other I have had to deal with in my 35 years in Parliament."

Guilty - former Southend Tory Peter Bleach

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