LONDON, Oct. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A British policeman was sentenced to two and a half years on Monday for passing on information to a Saudi Arabian embassy officer in London for money.

    Ghazi Kassim, 53, admitted three charges of public office misconduct by misusing his position to gain and sell information about people of Middle Eastern origin in Britain including Abu Hamza, an Egyptian-born British national, who is now in jail in London awaiting possible extradition to the US on terrorism charges.

    A total of 14,000 pounds had been traced to the bank account of Kassim, a Yemen-born married man, who used confidential databases run by the Metropolitan Police to conduct research into private information including the registration number of the car of a Saudi dissident and home addresses of "question people".

    Kassim passed his information to Ali al-Shamarani, a third secretary at the Saudi Arabian embassy in London, who flew out of Britain shortly before Kassim was arrested in July last year.

    Judge Peter Rook told Kassim he had abused his position with "grave breaches of trust" for considerable profit, adding "Your greed had the possibility of putting people at risk." Enditem