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No charges to be filed in UK honors probe

Associates of former British prime minister Tony Blair who were arrested during a lengthy police investigation of political funding will not face charges, the Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday.

Drawing an end to the probe that clouded Blair's last year in office, senior prosecutor Carmen Dowd said there was insufficient evidence to support the prosecution of anyone in the case.

"This investigation has ended as I always expected it would," Blair said in a statement released to the media.

"Those involved have been through a terrible, even traumatic time. Much of what has been written and said about them has been deeply unfair, and I am very pleased for all of them that it is now over," he said.

Dowd, who heads the agency's Special Crime Division, said she had considered charges under 1925 legislation banning the sale of honors such as knighthoods and seats in the House of Lords, offenses of perverting the course of justice and violations of the Political Parties and Referendums Act.

"Having considered all of the evidence in this case I have decided that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against any individual," she said, reading a statement.

The 15-month investigation followed a complaint by Scottish National Party legislator Angus MacNeil alleging that several individuals had agreed to make substantial loans to the Labour Party on the understanding that they would be made members of the House of Lords.

The probe begun in March last year later broadened to include the possibility of a cover-up.

News of the prosecutors' decision leaked out Thursday night, to the relief of Blair's associates.

"I think my face tells how I feel," a beaming Lord Levy, Blair's former fund raiser who was arrested twice during the police investigation, told reporters yesterday morning.

Blair became the first serving prime minister to be interviewed by police in a criminal investigation, though he was questioned as a witness, not a suspect.
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