al-jazeera memo

Note: The following post has been corrected due to an error on my part regarding the date of the article in question which came up in a recent Google alert. Apologies for any confusion.

It's worth revisiting some of the details related to the leaking of the al Jazeera memo we covered in January last year because this article in The Guardian from the same time which popped up in a Google alert this morning seems to confirm that Peter Kilfoyle (with Tony Clark) did breach the Official Secrets Act and this raises some old questions, mainly: how come David Keogh and Leo O'Connor were prosecuted but not Peter Kilfoyle and Tony Clark? Also, who passed on the memo to The Daily Mirror? After David Keogh leaked the document to Leo O'Connor...

So that's a pretty clear admission of breaking the Official Secrets Act but is 'revealing contents' the same as passing on a document? That isn't made clear. Re-reading the timeline of events shows that the attempts to leak the memo in the US and to the Daily Mirror happened shortly after Leo O'Connor was arrested (in September 2004) and that couldn't have happened until Tony Clark got cold feet or "did the right thing" and returned the document. So when Peter Kilfoyle says he "discussed it with all and sundry", perhaps he's right.

Most of us are now aware of the gagging order imposed on the media by Mr Justice Aikens, the judge presiding over the secret trial of David Keogh and Leo O'Connor who were convicted for attempting to leak the al Jazeera memo. Today in the New Statesman, Martin Bright offers his opinion on what senior journalists should do if the appeal against this outrageous judgement fails.

Let's hope that the journalists will find the courage to do so. We'll be happy to help.

We have been trying to make sense of what has come out of the trial of David Keogh, and Leo O'Connor, sentenced yesterday for 3 and 6 months respectively for the leaking of the al-Jazeera Memo. Obviously, 'events'* have rather taken over the story.  Some of what we know has been confirmed by the trial, but some things we thought we knew have become less clear.

What we do know for certain is that two men are tonight in prison, after a trial held largely in secret after being mercilessly pursued by a government in a futile attempt to protect what is left of the reputations of George Bush and Tony Blair.  Not only are we prevented from learning about what was disclosed in camera, but even comments made in open court, and information already in the public domain are the subject of a gagging order.

All on the basis of the principles outlined by, the prime minister's foreign policy adviser  Sir Nigel Sheinwald.

Davide Simonetti went down to record a brief piece for today's Democracy Now on the subject [29 minutes into the show], and we hope to round up what we do know, what we think we know, and what we don't know tomorrow.

*on the subject of 'events', and to further tempt you into watching today's Democracy Now - If you enjoyed Tariq Ali in today's Guardian, you can also see him in full swing if you start the same episode of Democracy Now 16 minutes into the show. Tariq is followed by the Sex Pistols, and then Davide...

The shameful misuse of the Official Secrets act to protect the reputations of Messrs Bush and Blair:

via email:

More from Davide tomorrow.

I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise but it's sad news nonetheless. David Keogh and Leo O'Connor, the two suspects in the trial over the leaking of the al Jazeera memo have been found Guilty. Very few details are known about the trial as much of the evidence was heard in secret and the judge has warned the jury not to disclose any of this information.

The surprise is that both men were found guilty. I suspected David Keogh would be convicted but Leo O'Connor merely passed the memo on to his boss. Peter Kilfoyle who admitted passing on details of the alleged plan to bomb al Jazeera in Qatar, will escape prosecution. Perhaps one day the contents of the memo will be leaked and when they are, we will publish them.

More from:

• Bloomberg
• The Guardian
• Central Florida News
• Sky News

*UPDATE*
Both men have been given jail terms. David Keogh received a six month sentence and Leo O'Connor has been sentenced to three months in prison. Those are fairly lenient sentences, it could have been two years.

As you would expect, we're following the trial. So far we've just had the opening statement, including the claim that leaking the memo could put our boys at risk (cliche copyright The Sun newspaper). Helpful hint - follow the reporting by non-UK reporters, such as al Jazeera.

If anyone gets hold of a copy of the memo, we are still pledging to publish it.

The postponed trial of David Keogh and Leo O’Connor, who are accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act by leaking the al Jazeera memo, is due to take place on April 18 at the Old Bailey. The trial is to be held in secret because the government argues that it could "could have a serious impact upon the international relations" and that the "risk is of such magnitude to outweigh the interest of open public justice". That sounds familiar doesn't it? It's like the excuse used by Lord Goldsmith to halt the SFO investigation into BAE corruption with Saudi Arabia when he said that his decision was made "to safeguard national and international security".

For some more background into the case, here is some of our previous commentary. Because of the reporting restrictions, it is going to be difficult to get any substantial information about the trial. One fairly recent development however, was news that the government is considering charging Peter Kilfoyle MP in connection with the leaking of documents, something he denies. If Mr Kilfoyle is charged, it will be much harder for the government to silence any reporting. Ohmy News has more. We can only hope that in the course of the trial the memo does get leaked.

It's not just Bush who tried to convince Tony Blair that bombing Al Jazeera was a good idea, David Blunkett is claiming that he also told Tony to attack the news outlet. On this occasion it was the transmitter in Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq.

So if Blunkett can own up about suggesting a war crime, isn't it time Blair came clean about his little discussion with Bush?

Well, I guess there are many answers to that question, but in this case it's when the trial magically transforms itself into a pre-trial hearing. I'm referring here to the case of David Keogh and Leo O'Connor who are accused of violating the Official Secrets Act by leaking the Al Jazeera memo.

What little media coverage there was of this case showed that the actual trial of these two men was to take place on October 9. First The Guardian:

That seems pretty straightforward to me, and yet on October 9 when the case reached the Old Bailey, things seem to have changed.

I'm certainly no legal expert but this strikes me as very odd, especially as the BBC had also announced the actual trial date as being on October 9 and had already reported the pre-trial hearings. From January 2006 we have this:

Fast forward to 25 April and the BBC provide us with this:

That seems pretty straightforward too. So what has changed to suddenly turn the trial into yet another pre-trial hearing? We are now being told that the actual trial will take place on April 18 next year. We have not been told that the trial has been postponed or delayed for any reason, just this revision of dates. There has been no media coverage to explain this. Apart from the BBC report the only other coverage I have found so far is in the Washington Post and the Edmonton Sun.

Could it possibly be that the Government has not so far found a way to successfully prosecute David Keogh and Leo O'Connor and needs more time, or has it realised that the case might well make the Al Jazeera memo become public? That would never do just before America's mid-term elections.

Another thing to consider is that a separate case is being brought to court in the United States in which the Widow of a murdered Al Jazeera journalist has filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration for bombing the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera in 2003. The longer the delay in a trial here in the UK, the more chance there is of the memo being made public in the USA.

*UPDATE*

The Guardian has a more comprehensive report.

So according to the Guardian the BBC's claim that the new date for the trial is April 18 next year is wrong if they are saying a date hasn't even been set. The Government is claiming the need for secrecy is to do with national security (apparantly embarrasment is a national security issue), something which is disputed by lawyers for Al Jazeera and the two defendants. However, only the contents of the memo are required to be kept secret if I understand Mr Justice Aikens ruling correctly so other details of the trial such as any delays, for example should be availabe to the public. Yet the Government seems to be arguing that the whole trial be kept secret. Perhaps this explains the delay. The sooner someone leaks the damned memo the better.

In two days time the trial of David Keogh and Leo O'Connor at the Old Bailey will commence. They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act with leaking what is known as the Al Jazeera memo in which the details of a conversation between George Bush and Tony Blair are recorded. Allegedly, in this memo, Bush had to be dissuaded from bombing the Qatar offices of Al Jazeera by Blair. We have covered this story extensively over the last year (the most recent posts are here and here), so this trial should be interesting. However, it would be even more interesting if the most important part of the trial wasn't going to be held in secret.

Even with the secrecy, this will be an important trial and should be worth following. In the meantime there is always a chance that the memo will get leaked. Fingers crossed.

There is a great article listing the myths and the facts about Al Jazeera by the Excellent Hugh Miles.

New Blairwatch readers should find our earlier interview with Hugh to be interesting.

via Press Release

and from monday

Bearing in mind Israel's sponsor's attitude to the lives of al-Jazeera journalists, does anybody spot a pattern here?

Steve Wood from the FOIA Blog has been trying to get hold of the Al Jazeera memo or related documents using the Freedom of Information Acts of both the UK and the USA.

We reported on Steve's efforts in the UK here, here, here and here. Basically the Cabinet Office confirmed the existance of the memo and what was in it but wouldn't release it because of the damage it would do to US/UK relations.

Well, obviously the memo exists otherwise two men wouldn't be on trial for leaking it.

So its strange that Steve's request to the US State Department should meet with a rather different response. After a seven month wait, his patience was rewarded with the not very illuminating:

Really? Despite the then Secretary of State Colin Powell being present with Bush and Blair at the meeting (according to Peter Kilfoyle MP who saw the memo) there is apparantly no record of it in the USA.

Read the whole post which has relevant links to Steve's other attempts to get to the bottom of this.

Sorry, still no memo yet but… There is a link between the current battle between the Government and Craig Murray over the publishing of documents which support the case he makes in his book, and the upcoming court case over the leaking of the Al Jazeera memo. The link was touched upon in the Oh My News article we posted in relation to the media catching on to the Craig Murray story.

Some of the documents Mr Murray had were obtained under the FoIA, and Al Jazeera want to obtain the memo (that allegedly has a discussion between Bush and Blair about the bombing of the Al Jazeera buildings in Qatar) under the same act, but may face the same problems as Mr Murray.

This is interesting for several reasons. On October 9 this year David Keogh and Leo O'Connor will appear at The Old Bailey criminal court to face charges under Britain's Official Secrets Act in the leaking of the memo. As part of their defence, they will attempt to use the memo as evidence in court.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith has already used the heavy-handed tactic of banning the media from revealing anything from the memo under the official secrets act, so presumably they will be prohibited from reporting on the trial if the memo is admitted as evidence. Even if that ban is lifted, the copyright law will leave them unable to print anything.

In another development, the widow of Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayyoub, who was killed in 2003 when the US military bombed the Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad, is filing a lawsuit against the Bush administration.

This could have big implications for the releasing of the memo and the trial in Britain. Read the whole transcript of her interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now. US laws are a little different from British laws and if Dima Tahboub is successful in her lawsuit or even manages to have the memo read out in a US court, then it won't be long before we get to hear about it in Britain. That is, of course, a very big "if".

Meanwhile both the US and UK governments are going out of their way to halt the series of leaks that have been occurring since the invasion of Iraq. I feel we may be hearing more about the Al Jazeera memo quite soon.

Amongst the many damming allegations in Ron Suskind's new book The One Percent Doctrine, is the one about the bombing of the al-Jazeera offices in Kabul being a deliberate act.

Given that the US had the co-ordinates of the offices in Kabul, and the repeated bombing by mistake of al-Jazeera offices and staff elsewhere, not to mention the plans to bomb the headquaters in Doha, there are very few people who belive it was anything but deliberate - but the US administration has hotly protested it's innocence.

Listen to a short mp3 grab of Suskind's interview discussing the allegation here, or head over to Crooks and Liars for the full video link.

Thanks to Rimone for the tip