Former government minister Clare Short said yesterday that Britain conducted spying operations on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the run-up to last year?s war on Iraq.

The claim comes a day after Prime Minister Tony Blair?s government dropped charges against a translator accused of leaking a top-secret US memo seeking London?s help in spying on United Nations members in the run-up to the Iraq war. Asked whether British spies had been told to carry out operations within the United Nations, Short replied: ?Yes, absolutely.?

The ex-aid minister, who resigned after the war but was in government during the period when London and Washington sought UN authorisation for military action, said Annan?s office had been specifically targeted. ?I read some of the transcripts of the accounts of his conversations,? she told BBC Radio.

On Wednesday, government prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to prove that 29-year-old translator Katharine Gun broke the Official Secrets Act, although she freely admitted she had leaked a secret document which she said revealed a US plot to spy on UN missions. Blair?s opponents said they believed the government?s top lawyer, the Attorney-General, killed the case for fear that sensitive questions about the legality of the Iraq war would have been asked.

?There must be a question as to whether this was a political decision,? Conservative foreign affairs spokesman Michael Ancram said. He has tabled questions demanding to know what part Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had played. Blair will be pressed on the issue at his monthly press conference later in the day.