Buckingham Palace defends Queen's private secretary against 'conflict of interest" claims There are currently two draft royal charters being discussed. One is a document drawn up with the agreement of all three party leaders, the other has been produced by the five largest newspaper groups. A leader column in The Guardian newspaper today stated: "One of the final arbiters of press regulation in this country is likely to be a former military intelligence officer who once successfully sued a British media organisation for reporting that he was part of an SAS operation training allies of the dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia. Geidt appears to be a very able aide to the head of state. But should he have any say in how the press is regulated? The obvious answer is no. The little that we know about him suggests a life in the shadows, not in daylight. Sir Christopher, who spent three years with the Army Intelligence Corps before working at the Foreign Office, the United Nations and the European Commission in the Balkans, sued Mr Pilger and Central News in 1991 after they wrongly suggested he was working for the SAS in Cambodia. Mr Pilger said that his and Central TV's defence collapsed after the Government issued a gagging order, citing national security, which prevented three ministers and two former heads of the SAS from giving evidence about Sir Christopher. The intervention of Ministers also meant the judge would have been asked to rule out any evidence relating to the SAS or secret intelligence services and their involvement in the South East Asian country. As a result Mr Pilger and Central TV were forced to pay Sir Christopher, and his colleague Anthony de Normann, a former army officer, "substantial damages." The libel case came after the pair travelled to Cambodia in 1989, where they joined an international group observing the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia, following their overthrow of Pol Pot. The intervention of Ministers led to the case being likened to the Spycatcher affair. In a statement to the Commons the following year Ann Clwyd, a Labour MP who had been among the international observers and met the men in Cambodia, said she was not convinced by the pair's explanation that they had been on holiday. Mrs Clwyd settled and paid costs to the two men after they took action against her when she wrote to Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister, calling for a public inquiry into their role and suggesting the accusations in the Pilger documentary broadcast on Central TV were accurate. Referring to the life cases, the Buckingham Palace spokesman added: "The fact that The Guardian refers to comments made by Ann Clwyd and Chris Mullin using Parliamentary privilege is frustrating."