U.S. President George W. Bush was "saddened" by the jury's verdict on Tuesday that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was guilty in the leak case regarding the identity of Valerie Plame, a former covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the White House said.

"He said that he respected the jury's verdict, that he was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family," White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said at a news briefing.

Perino said Bush's reaction to the verdict was that "he respected the verdict, respects the jury," and that she would not comment on the president's reaction further.

Libby, who served as Cheney's chief of staff during 2001 and 2005, was found guilty on Tuesday of four out of five counts of charges, which included obstruction of justice, perjury and false statement.

He was the only administration official that has been indicted and tried in connection with a federal probe into how the identity of Plame, then a covert CIA agent, was given to reporters in the summer of 2003.

The leak case started in the summer of 2003, when Plame's name was disclosed in a newspaper column, days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat, criticized the Bush administration for "twisting" intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Wilson, who was sent by the CIA in 2002 to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material there and later accused the White House of distorting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq, said he was "very appreciative" of the verdict.

"So I am very appreciative when I see that these institutions, in fact, function in defense of the Constitution of the United States," he said.

"No man is above the law. Mr. Libby had his day in court, and a jury of his peers reached their conclusion," said Wilson, who had said administration officials leaked Plame's identity to retaliate for his public criticism of the president's rationale for war.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the case's special counsel, said he was "satisfied" by the verdict.

He said the jury was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby had lied and obstructed justice "in a serious matter."

"The results are actually sad. It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official, a person who worked in the Office of Vice President, obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened," he said.

Source: Xinhua