Whistleblower reveals all in New Statesman

Posted by Rachael Gallagher on 17 January 2008 at 11:57
Tags: Journalism

The Foreign Office official who had all charges under the Official Secrets Act against him dropped last week has revealed in the New Statesman why he became a whistleblower.

Derek Pasquill leaked documents on the Government’s policy on extraordinary rendition and radical Islam to the magazine’s political editor, Martin Bright, who at the time was working at The Observer.

In this week’s New Statesman he gives a blow by blow account of the events surrounding the leak and why he took the step in sending the documents to Bright, which led to his arrest and suspension from his job in January 2006.

He said: “When the police came to my door at the end of January 2006, I knew why they were there, but that didn’t make it any easier. The officers later told me I turned as white as a sheet. I immediately admitted what I had done, but argued that I felt it necessary because I wished to reveal that the government was pursuing a potentially catastrophic policy for Britain.”

Tags: Journalism