British defence computer recovered

The British defence ministry has denied that a laptop computer recovered after being stolen two weeks ago from an intelligence official at a railway station contained classified information.

The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the BBC that the computer, which apparently held details of a joint British-American project on a revolutionary fighter aircraft, may have contained commercially-sensitive material.

But he said there was nothing on it that would compromise national security. It was the third case in recent months of a laptop being stolen from senior military and intelligence personnel or lost by them.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service