TASMANIA'S Police Commissioner Jack Johnston has been arrested overnight and charged with two counts of disclosing official secrets.

He was fingerprinted, photographed and DNA swabbed and was expected to appear in the Hobart Magistrates' Court this morning, the Mercury reports.

Mr Johnston was arrested by police on a warrant at his Tranmere house in the early hours of this morning.

Mr Johnston, who stood down in August as Tasmania's top police officer over allegations he improperly disclosed official secrets linked to a police investigation.

UPDATE PENDING      13.10.08

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Tasmania's Top Policeman Arrested

TASMANIA'S Police Commissioner, Jack Johnston, has been arrested for disclosing state secrets, in fallout from dealings with the former Lennon government.

He has been charged with two counts of breaching the state's Official Secrets Act.

Mr Johnston is charged with having told then premier Paul Lennon details of a police investigation into an allegation involving discredited former deputy premier Bryan Green.

The commissioner is also alleged to have sent a briefing note to the Police Minister, Jim Cox, detailing the course of the investigation.

Mr Johnston, 58, was arrested at his home early yesterday, two months after he stood aside from his post after being interviewed under caution by detectives.

He appeared in court via video-link to a Launceston magistrate, Zygmunt Schramka, whose Hobart colleagues had disqualified themselves from hearing the case.

Mr Johnston pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on bail to appear in the Hobart Criminal Court on February 2.

A former long-serving deputy commissioner, Mr Johnston was appointed to command the force in March when Mr Lennon was still in power.

The charge sheet said that Mr Johnston told Mr Lennon in April about an investigation into a claim that a senior lawyer would be appointed solicitor-general in return for acting free of charge for Mr Green in criminal proceedings.

The claim involving the solicitor-general's job was reported to police by a former government adviser.

Mr Johnston is also said to have provided a briefing note to Mr Cox in April that outlined an allegation of impropriety involving the job, a delay in investigating the allegation, and the fact it had resumed.

The Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Daryl Coates, said on the charge sheet that Mr Johnston had a duty to keep secret the facts of the case, which came into his possession by virtue of his office.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Tim Ellis, separately found there was no reasonable prospect of conviction of anyone over the claimed deal on the job.

The charges come at a time of growing public debate about ethical governance in Tasmania.

Mr Ellis recently told a parliamentary committee, under privilege, that when it came to investigating government in Tasmania, police and government were so deliberately intertwined that the appearance of independence could not be given.

Source: The Age  15.10.08