Panetta revealed secret CIA info about bin Laden raid

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta has disclosed top secret information about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to an American filmmaker, new documents show.

The ex-CIA boss revealed the information to “Zero Dark Thirty” scriptwriter Mark Boal when he gave a speech at CIA headquarters marking the raid that killed bin Laden, the Associated Press reported citing CIA documents released on Tuesday.

However, Panetta spokesman Jeremy Bash said Panetta assumed all participants were allowed to hear the speech.

“I had no idea that individual was in the audience,” Panetta said in a statement. “To this day, I wouldn’t know him if he walked into the room.”

Judicial Watch, which is a government watchdog group, filed a request for the more than 200 pages of the documents, which concerned the internal probe of its role in the film about the bin Laden raid.

Meanwhile, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said the agency has since “overhauled its procedures for interaction with the entertainment industry after an extensive internal review.”

Boyd added that the CIA now maintains “a centralized record-keeping system for entertainment industry requests and, earlier this year, issued detailed guidance on contact with the industry and support for entertainment-related projects,” to make sure classified material is protected.

Zero Dark Thirty was earlier criticized by Washington over the access of filmmakers to sensitive, classified information about the raid.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also probed the case over torture, or “enhanced interrogation techniques” scenes. The committee’s investigation concluded in February 2013 that the CIA did not tell the filmmakers that “enhanced interrogations” led to the capture of bin Laden, but instead helped develop characters in the film.