MERSEYSIDE MP Peter Kilfoyle last night insisted charges which could see him jailed for leaking state secrets would come to nothing.
Senior lawyers are on the verge of deciding whether to prosecute him over allegations he flouted the law by exposing confidential papers about the Iraq war.
The Walton MP insisted he had never leaked anything and the case has been “hyped up”.
He added: “I have not spoken to anybody about it for more than a year. I made a statement about the memo in the papers as former defence minister and a critic of the Iraq war.
“I never leaked anything. It’s going to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but it is much ado about nothing.”
Mr Kilfoyle has increasingly become a thorn in the Government’s side since resigning from his ministerial role in 2000 over the direction New Labour was taking.
A fierce opponent of the war in Iraq, he believes the country was taken in on a false premise.
The confidential dossier reportedly summarises a discussion at the White House in April, 2004, between the Prime Minister and the US President during the American assault on the city of Falluja.
In it, George Bush is said to have talked about bombing the Al-Jazeera TV station in Qatar, but was persuaded against such an attack by Mr Blair. Officials later denied having any record of the discussion.
The explosive nature of the memo led to Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, threatening to prosecute newspapers under the Official Secrets Act for referring to it.
But Mr Kilfoyle has sponsored two motions in the House of Commons calling on Tony Blair to publish it.
He wants a full transcript to be released and claims political embarrassment is the only reason it is being withheld, not national security.
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