 LIVERPOOL MP Peter Kilfoyle will escape prosecution despite admitting passing on secret details of George Bush’s alleged threat to bomb the Al-Jazeera TV station. The Labour left-winger was questioned under caution for three hours last year by Scotland Yard detectives investigating a possible breach of the Official Secrets Act. It followed the leak of what was said to be a summary of President Bush’s meeting with Tony Blair in April 2004, at which the Prime Minister apparently argued against missile strikes on Al-Jazeera’s Qatar headquarters. The two leaders also discussed the American assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, in which up to 1,000 civilians are feared to have died. Pictures were shown on al-Jazeera, infuriating US generals. Mr Kilfoyle did not see the four-page memo himself, but admitted passing on the information it contained to John Latham, a leading Democrat in California. The police inquiry threatened the Walton MP with a possible two-year prison term, the maximum sentence for breaching the relevant section of the 1989 Act. However, the Metropolitan Police’s special prosecution unit has now told Mr Kilfoyle that no further action will be taken “due to insufficient evidence”. In the letter, DC Jasper Bartlett said: “I am writing to you regarding the police investigation into the leak of a classified government document, for which you were interviewed under caution. “The Crown Prosecution Service has advised me that no further action shall be taken with regards to this investigation due to insufficient evidence.” Last night the MP told the Daily Post: “I think the case has been dropped for political reasons, because they did not want me to discuss the memo in open court. “They knew that’s what I would do, even if it breached the Official Secrets Act, because I wanted to ensure the information got out. Thousands of people died at Falluja, which must be considered a war crime, and there has been a cover-up of what happened there.” Section five of the Official Secrets Act forbids a person from revealing any information “disclosed to them by a Crown servant without lawful authority”. Asked last year if he believed he was guilty of breaching the Act, Mr Kilfoyle replied: “I think the public will be the best judge of that.” The MP had hoped to influence the 2004 US election, but the memo was not revealed in the US because Democrats feared the revelation would be a vote-winner for President Bush. Mr Kilfoyle has become one of the fiercest critics of the Iraq invasion, supporting moves to impeach the Prime Minister for allegedly deceiving MPs and the public. He has also sponsored two motions in the House of Commons calling on Mr Blair to publish the memo, to show “just what George Bush stands for”.
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