Britain Drops Case Against Translator

The British government Wednesday backed away from a potentially divisive and embarrassing prosecution of an intelligence worker who last year made public secret American attempts to bug foreign envoys during the diplomatic maneuverings before the war in Iraq.

Charges were dropped against Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old translator employed by a top-secret British eavesdropping service who had learned of a U.S. plan to listen in on home and office communications of members of United Nations delegations. The information was to be used by Washington in its diplomatic push for a U.N. mandate authorizing an invasion of Iraq.

Although Gun, as a condition of her employment, had signed a pledge never to disclose state secrets, she took the document detailing the plan to the Observer newspaper. She said she considered the plan illegal under international law.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison said in court Wednesday that the case was being dropped because the evidence was insufficient, a surprising assertion since Gun had already admitted giving the secret memo to the Observer.

The underlying issue appeared to be more political than legal -- the latest manifestation of the government’s eagerness to put behind it the polarizing debate about whether the war in Iraq was justified.

Analysts said Prime Minister Tony Blair, who plans to seek reelection next year, did not want a trial that might aggravate the still-raw feelings about the war and occupation, which have claimed the lives of 59 British service personnel.

Reports had been circulating for several days that the case would be dropped. After Gun entered a plea of not guilty at a hearing Wednesday morning, Ellison told the judge at the Old Bailey criminal court that the prosecution would offer no evidence. Refusing to elaborate, he said, “There is no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction.”

“I am absolutely overwhelmed and obviously delighted,” Gun told reporters outside the court. “I have no regrets, and I would do it again.”

Her lawyers hinted that the government might have been concerned that the judge might have compelled the government to reveal the prewar advice it received from its attorney general about whether such a conflict would be legal. Gun’s lawyers had requested that information, arguing that it would support her contention that she acted to prevent Britain from being drawn into an illegal war.

Gun, who was arrested in early March soon after her disclosures appeared in the Observer, was fired in June from her position with the Government Communications Headquarters. She was not formally charged with a crime until November, when she was accused of violating the Official Secrets Act.

The Government Communications Headquarters, a secrecy-shrouded agency similar to the U.S. National Security Agency, is believed to monitor, intercept and analyze global telecommunications networks.

Political foes of Blair called the decision to drop the case an admission of a lack of confidence on the Iraq issue.

“This is a government retreat,” said Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman of the opposition Liberal Democrats. He said that Gun and her attorneys would have put the legality of the war at the center of their defense.

Although a recent report by a senior judge exonerated Blair of “sexing up” intelligence to strengthen the case for going to war, polls showed that many Britons considered the report a whitewash.

And a panel conducting a post-mortem on British intelligence failures has been instructed to stay focused on the espionage and not go into the government’s actions leading up to the war.

Times staff writer Janet Stobart contributed to this report.