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Conservatives angered by arrest of MP

The Conservative opposition party expressed outrage on Friday over the arrest of its spokesman on immigration issues for allegedly leaking secret government information.

  • AP
  • Published: 23:23 November 28, 2008
  • Gulf News

London: The Conservative opposition party expressed outrage on Friday over the arrest of its spokesman on immigration issues for allegedly leaking secret government information.

Member of Parliament Damian Green was taken into custody on Thursday and released nine hours later in an operation that involved anti-terrorist police. Conservatives said the arrest was related to the publication of stories about Britain's Home Office, which is responsible for managing Britain's borders and immigration.

The Home Office has suffered a string of embarrassing leaks over the past year - including the revelation that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in parliament.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, a Conservative, said it was "hard to believe that on the day when terrorists have gone on the rampage in India that anti-terror police in Britain have apparently targeted an elected representative of parliament for no greater crime than allegedly receiving leaked documents."

Green said opposition politicians have a duty to hold the government accountable and that he would continue to do so.

Defiant

He added, "I have many times made public information that the government wanted to keep secret, information that the public has a right to know."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said Brown had no prior knowledge of the move. Brown's Labour Party said the issue was a police matter.

Conservative Party leader David Cameron described the police operation as "heavy-handed" and said questions needed to be answered over Green's arrest.

Senior Conservative lawmaker George Osborne told British Broadcasting Corp TV that Green was "handling information that was leaked from the Home Office, information passed to him by a civil servant."

He then qualified the statement, saying "this was all alleged."

Asked about Green, Britain's Metropolitan Police Service released a statement saying police arrested a 52-year-old man on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office," adding that the man was released on bail without being charged.

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