A former spy who exposed an Australian bugging operation against the tiny nation of East Timor has been charged with criminal offences along with his lawyer, independent MP Andrew Wilkie has sensationally revealed in Parliament.

The charges against the former officer with the Australian Secret Intelligence Service - the nation’s foreign intelligence collection agency - is the latest chapter in a long-running saga about the 2004 bugging of East Timor’s ministerial offices, allegedly to help Australia in its dispute with East Timor over a key maritime boundary.

The boundary determined ownership of the lucrative Greater Sunrise undersea gas fields - the negotiations for which were finally resolved diplomatically earlier this year.

Mr Wilkie told Parliament’s Federation Chamber that the former spy, known as Witness K, and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, a former ACT attorney-general, were now the subject of criminal charges by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.