Brown denies role in Tory arrest

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his government denied involvement on Friday in the arrest of a senior opposition politician by counter-terrorism police over information leaks.

Damian Green, 52, the Conservative Party's immigration spokesman, was detained by police at his home in the county of Kent, southeast England, on Thursday as part of a probe into leaks of government material by a Home Office official which he then made public.

Green was questioned for nine hours at a central London police station and counter-terrorism police searched his offices.

Conservative leader David Cameron said the arrest, and the "heavy-handed" manner in which it was carried out, raised very serious questions.

"I think these are extraordinary and rather worrying circumstances," he told reporters. "What seems to be the case is that he was arrested for making public information that the government did not want to have made public."

Former Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis said the action was "somewhere between an astonishing error in judgement through to judicial intimidation" and likened it to draconian actions taken by political leaders in Zimbabwe.

The Metropolitan Police said they acted after receiving a complaint from the Cabinet Office -- the department charged with enforcing the rules governing the conduct of all government employees and ministers.

Detectives said the decision to detain Green had been made solely by the police. Brown and other senior ministers insisted the government had not played any role.