Libby lawyers seek prison delay

Lawyers for Lewis "Scooter" Libby are preparing a last-ditch effort to delay the former US White House aide's two-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

Libby, the former chief of staff to US Vice President Dick Cheney, was sentenced yesterday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

He became the highest-ranking White House official sentenced to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.

He requested leniency but a federal judge said he would not reward someone who hindered the investigation into the exposure of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame.

Her husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

"Mr Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course," said US District Judge Reggie Walton, adding that the evidence of Libby's guilt was "overwhelming".

Libby's attorneys in Washington immediately sought to put the prison term on hold until his appeals have run out.

Walton said he saw no reason to do so but reluctantly gave Libby's attorneys until tomorrow to submit legal papers on the issue.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald - who had called for Libby to spend up to three years in prison - will oppose the request.

"We need to make the statement that the truth matters ever so much," Fitzgerald said.

Delaying the sentence would give President George Bush more time to consider calls from Libby's allies to pardon the longtime aide.

Bush has sidestepped the pardon question since Libby's conviction in March. Reaction yesterday from the White House was supportive - but sombre.

The president, travelling in Europe, said through a spokesman that he "felt terrible for the family", especially Libby's wife and children.

Libby did not apologise and has maintained his innocence.

"It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider, along with the jury verdict, my whole life," he said in brief remarks in court before the sentencing, his first public statement about the case since his indictment in 2005.

Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about Plame.

Fitzgerald questioned Bush and Cheney in a probe that became a symbol of the administration's deepening problems.

"Mr Libby was the poster child for all that has gone wrong in this terrible war," said defence attorney Theodore Wells. "He has fallen from public grace. It is a tragic fall, a tragic fall."

A Republican stalwart, Libby drew more than 150 letters of support from military commanders and diplomats who praised his government service from the Cold War through the early days of the Iraq war.

Walton also fined Libby €250,000 (€184,833) and placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires.

There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years.