Jon Anketell Brewer Swain is an award-winning British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist and writer who was portrayed by Julian Sands

Julian Sands

Julian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in...

 in the 1984 Oscar

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

-winning film The Killing Fields

The Killing Fields (film)

The Killing Fields is a 1984 British drama film about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. The film, which won three Academy Awards, was directed by Roland Joffé and stars Sam Waterston as...

. Swain's book River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam chronicles his experiences from 1970 to 1975 during the war in Indochina, including the fall of Cambodia.

Swain was born in London and after an unhappy education at the independent Blundell's School

Blundell's School

Blundell's School is a co-educational day and boarding independent school located in the town of Tiverton in the county of Devon, England. The school was founded in 1604 by the will of Peter Blundell, one of the richest men in England at the time, and relocated to its present location on the...

, from which he was expelled, he ran away to join the French Foreign Legion

French Foreign Legion

The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...

.

For many years, Swain was The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

' correspondent

Correspondent

A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. During this time he had many famous scoop

Scoop (term)

Scoop is an informal term used in journalism. The word connotes originality, importance, surprise or excitement, secrecy and exclusivity.Stories likely considered to be scoops are important news, likely to interest or concern many people. A scoop is typically a new story, or a new aspect to an...

s, including uncovering the financial support extended by Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

's Colonel Gaddafi

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...

's to Arthur Scargill

Arthur Scargill

Arthur Scargill is a British politician who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 1984–85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history...

's National Union of Mineworkers. He also reported for the newspaper from East Timor

East Timor

The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...

 in 1999, at the time of its vote for independence, which saw widespread violence by Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n-backed militias. There he and American photographer Chip Hires were ambushed by Indonesian soldiers in the same place and by the same soldiers who had that day killed Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

 journalist Sander Thoenes

Sander Thoenes

Sander Thoenes was a Dutch journalist who was killed in Dili, East Timor, while covering the arrival of peacekeeping troops with the International Force for East Timor during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.-Early life:Thoenes was born in Enschede, the Netherlands, the youngest of three...

. They escaped by hiding in the bushes and calling The Sunday Times office in London on a mobile phone. The Times then rang the Australian army and Swain and Hires were rescued by Helicopter.

French journalist Denis Robert

Denis Robert

Denis Robert is a French freelance journalist and a writer. Robert formerly worked for Libération newspaper for 12 years....

, who unveiled the "Clearstream

Clearstream

Clearstream Banking S.A. is the clearing and settlement division of Deutsche Börse, based in Luxembourg and Frankfurt. Clearstream was created in January 2000 through the merger of Cedel International and Deutsche Börse Clearing...

 affair", wrote in 2006 in his book "Clearstream, l'enquête" that he believes Jon Swain was working in 2005 for Hakluyt & Company Limited, a private intelligence firm based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 with close links to MI6.