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LONDON - Police charged a former British intelligence employee with breaking state secrecy laws Thursday, after she was linked to the disclosure of a memo in which U.S. officials allegedly asked for British help in eavesdropping on U.N. envoys.
Katharine Gun, 29, who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters, was arrested in March after a British newspaper published the memo, which came as the United States still hoped to win U.N. backing for the war in Iraq.
In the memo allegedly from U.S. officials, the intelligence agency was asked for help bugging the home and office telephones of delegates of key countries on the U.N. Security Council. The agency in Cheltenham, western England, uses high-tech equipment to monitor international communications.
Gun, who was fired in June, was charged under a section of Britain's Official Secrets Act, which bars the unauthorized disclosure of security and intelligence information.
Police didn't elaborate on the charges or say if they were in connection to the memo.
The Jan. 31 memo sent to the Observer newspaper reportedly originated from the U.S. National Security Agency. It said that the NSA had begun a "surge" of extra eavesdropping on officials from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan - then all members of the Security Council.
The NSA in Washington couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. Britain's Government Communications Headquarters refuses to discuss the case, saying it is a matter for police.
Gun, who is free on bail pending a hearing Nov. 27, said that the disclosures were justified because they "exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. government who attempted to subvert our own security services." She also defended the disclosures as an attempt to prevent the deaths of Iraqi civilians and British troops in a war.
"No one has suggested - nor could they - that any payment was sought or given for any alleged disclosures. I have only ever followed my conscience," she said in the statement, released by Liberty, a human rights group representing her.