Three Danish journalists who published classified intelligence reports on Iraq's former weapons program were acquitted Monday on charges of endangering national security.
The Copenhagen City Court ruled that Niels Lunde, chief editor of the Berlingske Tidende newspaper, and reporters Michael Bjerre and Jesper Larsen acted in the public interest when they published a series of articles in 2004 citing leaked Danish intelligence reports.
The articles said there was no evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, one of the key reasons cited by the U.S. and Britain for going to war.
A former intelligence officer previously has been sentenced to four months in prison for leaking the documents in the case, which was viewed in Denmark as a landmark test of media freedom. ...
Judge Peter Lind Larsen said the "considerable public interest" in the information outweighed the government's concerns that its intelligence-gathering operations were jeopardized.
Here's a link to the BBC story too.