Briton Who Told Falklands War Secrets Is Cleared

LONDON — A British defense official who embarrassed the government by giving secret documents about the Falklands War to an opposition politician was cleared today of breaking secrecy laws.

After a two-week trial, held partly in secret, the jury acquitted Clive Ponting of a charge under a 1911 law forbidding civil servants to pass information to an unauthorized person.

Ponting had pleaded that he leaked the documents because he felt a duty to expose a government cover-up.

The case was seen as a test of the controversial secrecy laws, and Ponting’s supporters greeted the verdict with cheers.

The leaked documents concerned the sinking of the Argentine warship General Belgrano by a British submarine in May, 1982. They showed that the cruiser had been heading home for 11 hours before it was torpedoed, contradicting government claims that it threatened British forces.