Briton Who Told Falklands War Secrets Is Cleared
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LONDON — A British defense official who embarrassed the government by giving secret documents about the Falklands War to an opposition politician was cleared today of breaking secrecy laws.
After a two-week trial, held partly in secret, the jury acquitted Clive Ponting of a charge under a 1911 law forbidding civil servants to pass information to an unauthorized person.
Ponting had pleaded that he leaked the documents because he felt a duty to expose a government cover-up.
The case was seen as a test of the controversial secrecy laws, and Ponting’s supporters greeted the verdict with cheers.
The leaked documents concerned the sinking of the Argentine warship General Belgrano by a British submarine in May, 1982. They showed that the cruiser had been heading home for 11 hours before it was torpedoed, contradicting government claims that it threatened British forces.
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