By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Two lawmakers accused the British government of a cover-up for refusing to admit that Britain helped launch Israel's nuclear program in 1959 by secretly selling the Jewish state a batch of heavy water - a key ingredient in producing weapons-grade materials, the BBC reported Friday.
The British Broadcasting Corp. first reported the allegations - contained in previously classified documents - in August, but Foreign Office minister Kim Howells swiftly denied the claims to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Howells' account "simply flies in the face of the known facts, now that we have access to previously classified documents," lawmaker Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman from the small centrist Liberal Democrat party, told the BBC's Newsnight program late Friday.