Lawyer's case with Iraq war files stolen on train

PRIVATE government files on the Iraq war have gone missing after a lawyer lost a briefcase on a train.

Police are trying to trace the Ministry of Defence documents, which are believed to have been stolen.

The files went missing when a solicitor working for the Treasury Solicitor's Department travelled by train from Leeds to London on Monday morning.

It is believed the lawyer, from Eversheds, one of the UK's leading law firms, left the case in the carriage. When the train reached King's Cross the briefcase was gone and he called police.

Police are focusing investigations on Doncaster station, but it is not known whether it was a targeted theft.

Eversheds has done public-private partnership work for the MoD, including advising on the £300 million Aerial Target Service project. It also worked on an inquiry into the death of Iraqi civilian Baha Mousa, who died in the custody of British forces in 2003. The inquiry is due to begin on 13 July.

A spokesman for the Attorney General said: "Action is under wayto recover the papers."

It is another embarrassing loss of government records. A senior Whitehall official left highly-classified intelligence documents about al Qaeda and the Iraqi security forces on a train in October. A laptop holding the details of 600,000 people was taken from a Navy officer's car in January last year, and in November 2007 two CDs with data on 25 million people were lost after being sent in the mail.