Beijing, March 8 (Reuters): A military doctor who exposed China’s Sars cover-up last year was questioned today over a media leak of a letter he wrote to top leaders asking for a reappraisal of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.

A source close to Jiang Yanyong said two officials from his hospital came to his home today and asked him how his letter to the Communist Party’s 24-seat Politburo had reached the media. “He told them he didn’t leak the letter and that he didn’t know how the outside world knew about it. He told them they could conduct an investigation into it,” the source said.

Jiang, met by two Reuters reporters outside his 12th storey flat in western Beijing, waved his hand and said: “No filming.”

“The timing is too sensitive,” the 72-year-old surgeon said, apparently referring to the 10-day annual session of parliament currently under way in Beijing.

He declined further comment because of a gag order imposed after he blew the whistle on the Sars cover-up last year.