Two men convicted in leaking of memo

A British civil servant and an aide to a legislator were convicted Wednesday of leaking a classified memo about a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush in a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Cipher expert David Keogh, convicted on two counts, had admitted passing on the memo about April 2004 talks in which Bush purportedly suggested the bombing of Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera.

The Daily Mirror newspaper reported that the memo described Blair arguing against Bush’s suggestion of bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar. But the paper said its sources disagreed on whether Bush’s suggestion was serious.

Blair said he had no information about any proposed U.S. action against Al Jazeera, and the White House called the claims “outlandish and inconceivable.”

Keogh was accused of passing the memo to his codefendant, Leo O’Connor, 44, who in turn handed it to his boss, Tony Clarke, then a Labor member of parliament who voted against Britain’s decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Keogh, 50, told London’s Central Criminal Court he felt strongly about the memo, which he had to relay to diplomats overseas using secure methods, and hoped it would come to wider attention.

“The main person in my mind was John Kerry, who at the time was American candidate for the U.S. presidential election in 2004,” Keogh had testified.

He admitted holding “unfavorable” views on Bush, but said he did not think publishing the document would hurt Britain’s security or international relations.

The document, marked “Secret-Personal,” was intended to be restricted to senior officials. The memo’s contents are considered so sensitive that much of the trial was heard behind closed doors. Witnesses and counsel did not refer to the contents in open court.