British newspapers’ reports reveal details of a leaked document alleging President Bush suggested bombing Al-Jazeera television.
LONDON: Tony Blair’s government has threatened to gag British newspapers if they go ahead with publishing details of the prime minister’s conversation with George Bush in which the American president suggested bombing the Al Jazeera news network.
Britain’s attorney-general Lord Goldsmith informed newspaper editors they could face prosecution under the Officials Secrets Act if they published the conversation between the two heads of state.
Lord Goldsmith informed editors that “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant could be a breach of Section 5 of the Officials Secrets Act”.
This is the first time that the Blair government has threatened newspapers so openly. Blair has faced much criticism, both from within his own party, the Opposition and the public over his alliance with the USA and the invasion of Iraq, and has been extremely defensive each time new revelations have emerged about the whole affair.
Though his government has obtained injunctions against newspapers in the past it has never prosecuted editors for publishing contents of leaked documents.
The gag order comes in the wake of a report on the front page of one of Britain’s tabloid newspapers Daily Mirror yesterday headlined “Bush plot to bomb his ally”. It carried secret minutes of the conversation in April 2004 which records Bush suggesting that he would like to bomb Al Jazeera’s studios in Doha.
The report caused a lot of embarrassment to Blair who is a close friend of Bush and has been towing the US line in foreign policy. Last night the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton told Blair in Parliament to publish the conversation as it was of ‘much interest to MPs and the public’.
Former British defence minister Peter Kilfoyle, who was opposed to the war in Iraq, also called for Blair to explain the situation to lawmakers, if records of the conversation existed.
The editor of the Daily Mirror Richard Wallace said “We had made No.10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given ‘no comment’ officially or unofficially. Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under Section 5”.
The Daily Mirror claims the document turned up at the office of the former Labour MP Tony Clarke, who lost his seat for Northampton South in the May election.
His former researcher Leo O’Connor was charged last week for receiving a document under section 5 of the act.
David Keogh a Foreign Office official was accused of sending the document to O’Connor.
The White House has called the report “outlandish”. A spokesman for Al Jazeera, which is planning to launch an English news channel next year, defended the network’s output on the BBC’s prestigious Newsnight programme last night.
The Guardian used similar language, describing the spectre of prosecution under section five of the act as a “legal gag”; the Times also spoke of “being threatened”.
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