LONDON -- A jury Monday acquitted two remaining Royal Air Force signalers charged with betraying secrets 'by the bagful' to the Soviets, ending Britain's longest and costliest spy trial amid allegations of brutality against the defendants.
The trial ended without convictions against any of the eight original defendants charged with passing intercepts from a top-secret listening post in Cyprus to Russian agents.
The acquittals came just eight months after civil servant Clive Ponting was found innocent of breaking the Official Secrets Act by passing classified material about the 1982 Falklands War to an opposition parliamentarian and are certain to embarrass Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government.
Prosecuting counsel alleged the men took part in homosexual orgies and were blackmailed into spying for the Russians by a shadowy Arab known as John and a Cypriot called Alex.
Defense attorneys said the case rested solely on untrue confessions obtained under duress. The 119-day trial cost some $7.1 million and all but a few hours of it was held in secret.
Conservative lawmaker Anthony Beaumont-Dark demanded the Ministry of Defense pay compensation, opposition defense spokesman Denzil Davies accused military police of 'Gestapo-style methods' and Labor Party Home Affairs spokesman Gerald Kaufmann called for a full explanation of 'this pointless and humiliating charade.'
Armed Forces Minister John Stanley was expected to make a statement in the House of Commons Tuesday.
Pam McCann, mother of alleged ringleader Geoffrey Jones, 22, who was acquitted Monday, said her son was questioned for 150 hours, including a non-stop interrogation session lasting 96 hours.
'I believe it got to the stage when he could take no more mentally or physically and he would have signed anything just to be let alone,' Mrs. McCann said.
'At one stage, he said they had him against a wall, punching him in the stomach. I think it would make you confess to murdering your mother after being treated like that,' she said.
'They werethugs. His brain just felt it was going to explode.'
Jones smiled at his mother and Christopher Payne, 26, rocked back on his heels as the jury announced the unanimous verdicts at the Old Bailey.
The jury acquitted five other Royal Air Force servicemen last week. The judge ordered an eighth serviceman found innocent shortly after the trial started in April.
The prosecution charged the defendants betrayed 'some of Britain's most precious secrets' and passed on classified information 'by the bagful' to Soviet agents.
Defense attorneys maintained their clients had been 'brainwashed' by their interrogators and never took part in spying or homosexuality.
The Mail Sunday newspaper reported that Aircraftsman Gwynfor Owen, who was acquitted last Thursday, was kept in solitary confinement in a cell the size of a lavatory after his arrest and that he was interrogated for up to seven hours a day.
The jury deliberated a total of seven days.
