Arts and media figures support jailed journalist

Reporter Judith Miller does not regret her decision. Picture / Reuters

Leading figures from the arts and media in Europe have joined forces to appeal for the release of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter, who has just spent her 50th day in prison for refusing to testify in the probe into the leaking of the identify of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

"At a time when the most extremist ideas are gaining ground, and when growing numbers of reporters are being killed or taken hostage, arresting a journalist in a democratic country is more than a crime: it's a miscarriage of justice," the group said.

Its 27 members include Spanish film director Pablo Almodovar, German literary Nobel laureate Gunther Grass and the former chief BBC reporter Kate Adie.

Miller was sent to a federal prison for refusing to reveal her sources in the case of Plame, whose identity as a CIA agent was revealed to American journalists in 2003, apparently in violation of federal law.

Miller's prison time has overtaken that for William Farr, a reporter for the former Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, who was jailed in 1972 for 46 days for not revealing sources in a criminal case.

Democrats claimed that Plame's name was leaked by the White House in retaliation against her diplomat husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who wrote an article in the New York Times accusing the Bush team of over-stating evidence of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons.

After a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate the leak, Miller and other journalists were required to testify to a grand jury about what they had been told and by who.

She and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine refused. The latter finally agreed but she wound up behind bars.

Friends and supporters say Miller remains certain she made the right decision to stand up for the right of reporters to protect their sources.

It seems likely she will remain incarcerated at least until the grand jury completes its work on the case, probably sometime in October.

The scandal reached a new level when Cooper named Karl Rove, senior adviser to President George W. Bush, as one of those who had told him about Plame. Rove had previously told the grand jury he had had no such knowledge.

The furore - which triggered calls for Rove to be sacked - has subsided somewhat over recent weeks. Even Miller seems to have been briefly forgotten by the wider press, although that may change with Bush's return from his summer break.

Criminal charges could still be issued in the case over the next couple of months. If any are directed at members of the White House, the scandal for President Bush could be damaging.

Fitzgerald has already extended his investigation beyond its original remit - to discover who leaked Plame's name and whether laws were broken. He is also looking at whether officials at the White House lied to the grand jury and tried to cover up what was said to reporters.

Miller has supporters and critics. Last week former presidential candidate and Republican Bob Dole lamented her incarceration and voiced support for a new federal law protecting reporters from legal consequence for protecting sources.

Sympathy for her has been tempered elsewhere, however, because of news articles she wrote in the run-up to the Iraq war that offered support for the Administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

- INDEPENDENT