'Scooter' Libby found guilty in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON: In what is bound to be seen as a setback to the White House, a federal grand jury on Tuesday convicted I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

The former White House aide has been found guilty on two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, while the jury acquitted him of a single count of lying to the FBI.

Libby faces a possible prison term of between one-and-a-half to three years when he is sentenced, the date for which has been set for June 5.

The verdict was reached by a jury of 11 who sat in deliberations for ten days at the end of a seven-week trial.

Libby is the highest ranking official of the White House to be indicted in recent times.

The trial, which followed an investigation of about three years, was on whether Libby deliberately lied about several conversations he had about Valerie Plame, the CIA undercover officer whose husband was a prominent Iraq war critic.

Plume's husband former ambassador Joseph C Wilson IV, was sent by the CIA on a mission to Niger in 2002 to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear materials there.

Wilson concluded that the reports were false and in a piece in The New York Times in July 2003 rebuked the White House for distorting his findings to exaggerate the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The prosecution took the position that Libby told reporters about Plame's CIA job as part of an administration strategy to discredit her husband by insinuating that the agency had dispatched Wilson to Niger because of nepotism.

The defence maintained that Libby had a notoriously bad memory and, consumed by his work on sensitive national security matters, did not recall accurately what he knew and said about Plame and that the former top White House official did not have a motive to lie as he was not aware that Plame's job at the agency was classified.

The defence also asserted that Libby did not have a motive to lie because he did not know Plame's job was classified.