Civil servant cleared on data leak

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Derek Pasquill, 48, of Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill, west London, faced six counts that he made damaging disclosures after passing confidential documents to the New Statesman and The Observer.

But on Wednesday prosecutors told an Old Bailey judge that internal Foreign Office documents disclosed as part of the legal process would have undermined the prosecution case that the leaks were damaging.

Julian Knowles, defending, told the court the documents should have been released earlier, saving Mr Pasquill the stress of a 20-month Special Branch investigation.

Mr Knowles said Mr Pasquill saw Wednesday's decision as a "vindication of his position that what he did was not damaging".

The documents dealt with topics such as "hearts and minds of Muslims", "engaging with Islamists", conversations between the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, "detainees" and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Mr Knowles said the disclosure of the documents was in the public interest in relation to debates about public policy on engaging with radical Islam and the practice of "extraordinary rendition".

New Statesman editor John Kampfner said: "This is a spectacular and astonishing victory, not just for the New Statesman and The Observer, but for freedom of the press in the United Kingdom.

"This was a misguided and malicious prosecution, particularly given that a number of Government ministers privately acknowledged from the outset that the information provided to us by Derek Pasquill had been in the public interest and was responsible in large part for changing Government policy for the good in terms of extraordinary rendition and policy towards radical Islam."