Parents deny aid worker Linda Norgrove was MI6 spy

Linda Norgrove was killed in October 2010

The parents of the Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove, who died after she was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan, have denied she was a spy.

They said that the allegation made by an American investigative journalism website was "ludicrous and hurtful".

Ms Norgrove, from Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, was killed by a US grenade during a failed attempt to rescue her in 2010.

She had been working on humanitarian projects when she was seized by rebels.

Claims about Ms Norgrove's work emerge in a report on The Intercept website focusing on the activities of the US special forces which tried to free her.

It reports that the rescue operation was code-named Anstruther - in a nod to her Scottish heritage - and it was authorised by David Cameron, the prime minister at the time.

It adds: "The operation commanded high-level interest because Norgrove, though in Afghanistan as an aid worker for DAI, an American NGO, secretly worked with Britain's MI6, according to four US military and intelligence sources."

In statement, Ms Norgrove's parents, John and Lorna, said: "These recent claims, emerging six years after our daughter died, are ridiculous. The people who have fabricated this story did not know Linda.

"We were very close to her and kept in touch every week by Skype throughout the life she had working in third world countries.

"Linda was passionately against war, disliked the military with a vengeance and mostly sided with Afghans rather than western governments.

"She loved her work, tirelessly striving to improve the lives of others by supporting projects which improved their environment."

"She was highly principled, would not compromise on her views and the suggestion that she was working for MI6 is both ludicrous and hurtful."

An inquest into Ms Norgrove's death recorded a narrative verdict, which did not apportion blame to anyone. Wiltshire coroner David Ridley said the soldier who threw the grenade that killed her made a "critical decision in a fraction of a second".

Since her death, her parents have established The Linda Norgrove Foundation, which has raised more than £1m to help women and children in Afghanistan.