BRITON'S TRIAL OPENS FOR BREACH OF SECRETS ACT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302340007-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-R
771 7. r,PnAr:ED
Briton's Trial Opens for Breach
of Secrets Act
WASHINGTON POST
29 January 1985
DP90-00965R000302340007-6
By Michael Getler
%Munroe Poet Foreign Serviae
LONDON, Jan. 28?A trial that
could become the most severe legal
challenge to Britain's Official Se-
crets Act opened here today, with a
senior civilian official from the Min-
istry of Defense pleading not guilty
to charges that he leaked sensitive
documents to an "unarthorine
person.
Defense lawyers admitted that
the defendant, 38-year-old Clive
Ponting, an assistant secretary of a
department handling naval affairs,
had "communicated" information to
a Labor Party member of Parlia-
ment, Tarn Dalyell, in July 1984,
dealing with the sinking on May 2,
1982, of the Argentine cruiser Bel-
gran? by a British submarine.
But defense counsel Bruce
Lzughland told the 12-member jury
in London's Old Bailey criminal
court that the live issue" in this
case is whether disclosures to a
member of Parliament, rather than
to the press, were violations of
state interests under Section 2 of
the 74-year-old act.
"This trial is not about spying. It
is a matter of lying, misleading Par-
liament," Laughland said.
The Ponting case has drawn ex-
traordinary attention from Britain's
civil service, from critics who
charge there is too much official
secrecy here, and from government ,
officials who say discipline must be
maintained and a steady flow of
leaks plugged.
The case involves the supplying
by Panting to Dalyell of two docu-
ments that contain contradictions of
the official government account
made to Parliament immediately
after the cruiser was torpedoe:::,
killing 386 Argentine crewmen.
Dalyell, a member of a House Of
Commons select committee that
has been investigating the Belgrano
affair for many months, has been
the most persistent critic of Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher's gov-
ernment on the sinking. He claims
the cruiser was not a threat to the
British fleet in the Falkland Islands
war at the time it was sunk, as was
claimed, and that it was torpedoed
for political rather than military
reasons.
The government flatly rejects
both charges.
Prosecuting attorney Roy Amlot
told the jury that the two docu-
ments?one of which was unclas-
sified and one which bore a relative-
ly low "confidential" classification?
did not actually damage British na-
tional security. Rather, he said,
"this case involves an alleged
breach 'of confidentiality" and a
breach of trust by a civil servant.
The prosecution also claimed
that the information given to
Dalyell fed a misleading impression
that the lawmaker had about the
attack, compared with "the true
position as known to Mr. Ponting."
The Official Secrets Act makes it
unlawful for any civil servant to
communicate any document or in-
formation, even if it has no security
designation and has nothing to do
with national security, to unautho-
rized persons. The act does not de-
fine who are unauthorized persons.
Ponting's attorney did not quar-
rel with an account, presented by
the prosecution today, of an initial
police questioning of Ponting in
which he first denied and then later
admitted he had sent the docu-
ments.
At first, Ponting told police:
"Good God, you don't suspect me?"
But then, he apologized and said: "I
did this because I believed that min-
isters within this department were
not prepared to answer legitimate
questions from a member of Par-
liament about a matter of consid-
erable public concern, simply in or-
der to protect their own political
Position."
Much of the tension surrounding
this case revolves around whether
the government has become in-
volved in what some critics have
called a cover-up because it did not
want to acknowledge some differ-
ences in the public account given to
Parliament in May 1982 and into
1983 by Thatcher and other offi-
cials.
For example, the documents
show that the Belgrano was first
spotted by the submarine on May 1,
rather than May 2, as Parliament
was told, and that for 11 hours be-
fore it was sunk it was sailing away
from the British fleet rather than
closing in on it, as Parliament was
told.
Thatcher and many others have
said?in recent months as the con-
troversy grew?that the cruiser's
course was irrelevant because the
ship was a threat to the British fleet
and could have changed coarse -
again. She also has since acknowl- ?
edged other inconsistencies in the
initial description of what happened.
One of the documents Ponting
sent Dalyell includes a confidential
memo from another defense official
to the new defense minister, _Mi-
chael Heseltine, advising him not to
provide the House of Commons
committee with all details on
changes in the Rules of Engage-
ment covering British military ac-
tion at sea and changes in the ex-
clusion zone around the Falklands.
The other is a memo for Heseltine
from Ponting answering some of
the questions with which Dalyell
had been hounding the ministry.
Heseline never used the memo.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302340007-6