Former Cheney aide guilty in perjury case (1st Lead)

Mar 6, 2007, 18:11 GMT

Washington - The former top aide to US Vice President Dick Cheney was found guilty Tuesday of perjury, obstruction and lying to investigators about the leak of a CIA operative's identity during the Bush administration's battle to justify the Iraq war.

I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, could face up to 25 years in prison if the verdict by an 11-member grand jury in Washington stands, Cable News Network (CNN) reported.

At issue was whether Libby, 56, lied to the grand jury and investigators probing whether US administration officials intentionally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to retaliate for her husband's criticism of the Iraq war.

Libby has denied the charges. His lawyers said they would seek a new trial or, failing that, appeal the US district court's verdict. No sentencing date was immediately announced.

'We are very disappointed in the verdict of the jurors,' defence attorney Ted Wells said. 'We intend to keep fighting to establish his innocence.'

The jury reached a verdict on the 10th day of deliberations after a trial that included testimony from former Bush administration officials and some of America's best-known journalists.

Several witnesses undermined Libby's argument that he heard about Plame's CIA employment from journalists, not from inside the administration.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration of US President George W Bush respects the verdict, but declined further comment.

Exposing the identity of a CIA official can be a crime. Libby was not charged with leaking Plame's name to the media but with hampering the probe into who did. He resigned in 2005 after being indicted.

'Our point was that Mr Libby did not tell the truth to the system,' lead prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said after the verdict.

Plame's husband, former US diplomat Joseph Wilson, alleges that the White House intentionally blew his wife's CIA cover.

Shortly before Plame's name appeared in print in 2003, Wilson wrote a newspaper article that discounted one of the Bush administration's key arguments used to justify the war - that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to obtain yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger.