THE renegade former MI6 spy Richard Tomlinson has finally come in from the cold.

After more than a decade in exile, where he lived in fear of arrest and extradition to face trial in the UK, Tomlinson has at last buried the hatchet with Sir John Scarlett, chief of MI6.

The deal between the head of Britain’s overseas spies and the whistleblower who claimed MI6 had a secret “licence to kill” follows a decision to send a mediator to negotiate with Tomlinson in Spain.

As a result, MI6 has agreed to let him return to Britain, unfreeze royalties from his book and drop the threat of charges. It has also apologised for its unfair treatment of him.

In return, the former spy who was sentenced to a year’s jail for breaking the Official Secrets Act in 1997, has agreed not to speak to the media or make further damaging disclosures about the shadowy work of his former employer.

Tomlinson, 46, who was born in New Zealand, joined MI6 in 1991. He served in the Soviet operations department at the end of the cold war before being posted to Sarejevo during the break-up of Yugoslavia.

He also worked as an undercover officer against Iran and investigated Tehran’s trade in weapons of mass destruction.

The deal, brokered several months ago, marks the end of a bitter battle which began in 1995 when he was sacked without explanation. Malcolm Rifkind, then foreign secretary, ruled that his case could not be heard at an industrial tribunal.

Tomlinson was stung by the apparent in justice . He approached The Sunday Times, which published a series of articles about MI6 dirty tricks.

In 1997, he became the first MI6 agent to be prosecuted for secrets offences since the Soviet spy George Blake in 1961. He admitted breaking the Official Secrets Act after he sent a synopsis of his proposed book on MI6 to a publisher in Australia.

He served five months of a 12-month sentence and then fled to France in breach of his sentencing conditions.

Later he tried to help Mohamed al-Fayed, the Harrods tycoon, with his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and Fayed’s son Dodi in a Paris car crash in 1997.

Tomlinson claimed that MI6 plotted to kill Slobodan Milosevic, the late president of Serbia, by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to blind the driver.

He suggested Diana and Dodi may have been killed by MI6 in the same way, although that claim was dismissed at their inquest.

Last week, Tomlinson was unavailable for comment. His father, David, declined to discuss the matter. Friends of the former spy say, however, that he has already been back to Britain. “He was determined not to give in to them . . . He’ll probably feel at a bit of a loss now,” said one.

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