Brit Judge Steps In It.

Apparently our cousins across the pond and Bush's partners in crime, in the British government, know less about freedom of speech than we do.

Send the damned memo to us, we'll publish it!

Gagging Order as Two Are Jailed for Leaking Blair-Bush Memo
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian UK
Friday 11 May 2007


Judge bans disclosure of defendant's comment.• Whitehall man handed "deterrent" sentence.

An Old Bailey judge yesterday imposed gagging orders on the media after jailing a civil servant and a Labour MP's researcher for disclosing the minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush about Iraq.

Mr Justice Aikens prevented journalists from publishing a comment by David Keogh, a Whitehall communications officer, on what the minutes revealed, even though it was said in open court. He also said that allegations already in the public domain could not be repeated if there was any suggestion they related to the contents of the document.

The Guardian and other media organisations immediately said they intended to appeal against the orders. The judge suggested that the allegations could be "recycled," but only if they were published on a separate page of a newspaper from that containing references to the trial. Foreign newspapers, including those in the US, are not bound by the contempt orders.

At one point in argument in court, Anthony Hudson, counsel for the Guardian, Times and BBC, said the media would be in a "ridiculous" situation. He said the judge was making a "serious intrusion" into the media's rights of freedom of expression.

The restrictions were imposed after the judge jailed Keogh, 50, for six months in what he called a "deterrent sentence". On Wednesday, an Old Bailey jury by majority verdict convicted him of breaching the Official Secrets Act. The judge said the document about the meeting between Mr Blair and Mr Bush in the White House in April 2004 which the civil servant had disclosed was "highly sensitive" and contained information passed from the US to Britain.

In evidence at the trial, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the prime minister's top foreign policy adviser, said private talks between world leaders must remain confidential however illegal or morally abhorrent aspects of their discussions might be.

The judge said yesterday that Keogh had decided to disclose the document to Leo O'Connor, researcher to the then anti-war Labour MP for Northampton South, Anthony Clarke. The idea was that its contents would be raised in the Commons and also passed to John Kerry, the then Democratic presidential candidate in the US. Keogh believed the document exposed Mr Bush as a "madman," the court heard.

O'Connor, 44, was jailed for three months for passing the document to Mr Clarke. The judge said that while it was accepted that the disclosure of the document caused "no actual damage", it posed a significant risk to British interests abroad. Journalists and the public were barred from the court when evidence about the contents of the four-page document was heard during the three-week trial.

The judge also ordered Keogh to pay £5,000 of the £35,000 prosecution costs. He told him: "You decided that you did not like what you saw. Without consulting anyone, you decided on your own that it was in the best interest of the UK that this letter should be disclosed. Your reckless and irresponsible action in disclosing this letter when you had no right to could have cost the lives of British citizens. This disclosure was a gross breach of trust of your position as a crown servant."

After the sentencing, Keogh's solicitor, Stuart Jeffery, said: "He took a moral stance on something that he found shocking and has to accept the decision of the court as far as his guilt is concerned. It was never his intention to put lives at risk. He would state rather that it was his intention to save innocent lives." Mr Jeffery said he would be looking at avenues of appeal.

A spokesman for the Stop the War Coalition condemned the prison sentences, adding: "While not a single government minister has been held to account for the disastrous policy of war in Iraq, two men are imprisoned for trying simply trying to shed some light on Tony Blair's relationship with George Bush."

He added: "The prison sentences are another sign of the double standards perpetrated in relation to the war."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.