Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
the Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Team, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office
Thank you for your 24 April letter. The Committee
asked for copies of two documents from January 2003, following
its 19 April oral evidence session with Philippe Sands QC.
We have made a careful search of our records,
based on your letter and the descriptions of these documents given
by Mr Sands in his oral evidence to the Committee and in his book
Lawless World.
We do have a copy of the first document you
refer toa private note from the Foreign Secretary to the
Prime Minister from January 2003. After careful consideration,
the Foreign Secretary has decided that to release a document of
this nature, which is highly classified, and refers both to intelligence
matters and to confidential exchanges between her predecessor
and the US Secretary of State, would be likely to be detrimental
to the conduct of Government business and to the conduct of our
international relations. I regret, therefore, that we are unable
to release a copy.
We have been unable to find anywhere in the
FCO's records a copy of the second document you refer to
a record of the Prime Minister's 31 January 2003 meeting with
President Bush.
Chris Stanton
Parliamentary Relations & Devolution TeamForeign
and Commonwealth Office
12 June 2006
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