Found Body May Be British Weapons Adviser

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030718/ap_on_re_eu/britain_weapons_adviser

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/2003/07/18/bbc_bodyfound030718

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20030718/capt.sge.ime85.180703125617.photo00.default-232x384.jpg

David Kelly went missing after facing a grilling from MPs on the foreign affairs committee. Police confirmed that a body found in Oxfordshire appeared to be that of the missing Iraqi arms expert.(Thames Valley Police/HO)


By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - A body found Friday in central England has been tentatively identified as a missing Ministry of Defense adviser suspected as the source of allegations that the government doctored a report about Iraq (news - web sites)'s nuclear program.



David Kelly's family reported him missing late Thursday when he didn't return to his home in Southmoor, about 20 miles southwest of Oxford, from an afternoon walk.


The body, found by police in a wooded area about five miles from Kelly's home, was to be identified Saturday, said Acting Superintendent David Purnell of Thames Valley Police. The cause of death was yet unknown.


"But what I can say is that the description of the man found ... matches the description of Dr. David Kelly," Purnell told reporters.


In Tokyo, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said an independent judicial inquiry was expected. "The Ministry of Defense should be making an announcement this afternoon in terms of the name of the judge and how he will conduct the inquiry," Blair's spokesman said.


"The government would cooperate fully and he would have access to any papers that he wants and to any people he wishes to speak to," the spokesman said.


Kelly, a 59-year-old former U.N. weapons inspector, was at the center of a political storm over allegations that Blair's office altered intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs to support the decision to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The government denies the claim.


The Ministry of Defense said Kelly may have been the source for a British Broadcasting Corp. report that Blair aides gave undue prominence to a claim that Iraq could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes' notice.


The ministry said Friday that Kelly was told he had violated civil service rules by having unauthorized contact with a journalist, but "that was the end of it." It said Kelly was not threatened with suspension or dismissal.


BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan subsequently said his source accused Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director, of insisting on including the 45-minute claim. A Parliamentary probe cleared Campbell of that allegation.


The controversy centers over the May 29 BBC report citing an unidentified official saying the 45-minute claim was inserted to build up an intelligence dossier published last September.


Kelly told the Parliament committee this week he had spoken to the BBC. But he said he didn't make the claims in the report and didn't believe he was the source cited. The BBC has refused government requests to reveal who the source was.


Donald Anderson, who chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee where Kelly testified Tuesday, said the committee "felt pretty confident that he (Kelly) was not in fact the source."


Anderson, a Labor Party lawmaker, told BBC television that Kelly had appeared "rather relaxed" during his testimony and seemed to be "on top of things


The BBC report fueled a wider controversy that has left Blair facing a barrage of questions over prewar intelligence.


In a historic address to Congress in Washington, Blair said Thursday he and President Bush (news - web sites) would not be proven wrong in their prewar claims about Iraq's weapons capabilities. Even if they are, says Blair, a menace has been defeated.


Television journalist Tom Mangold said he had spoken to Kelly's wife, Janice, on Friday morning, and she said her husband had felt stressed after appearing before the parliamentary committee to face questions about the BBC report.



"She didn't use the word depressed, but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in," Mangold told ITV news.

Conservative committee member Richard Ottaway also said Kelly had suggested he was under great strain.

"At the meeting last week he did hint at the sort of pressure he was under," Ottaway said. "He was asked to provide some evidence and he replied that he would do so but he could not get into his house because of the media pressure."

The Ministry of Defense said it had offered accommodation for Kelly so that he could avoid media attention. The ministry and Blair's office separately expressed concern Friday for Kelly's welfare. "Our thoughts are with his family and friends," a Blair spokesman said.

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Britain's Iraq dossier row heats up as body of suspected "mole" found


LONDON (AFP) - A political row in Britain over claims the government "sexed up" an Iraq (news - web sites) arms dossier took a dramatic turn after a defence ministry adviser at the centre of the controversy was apparently found dead.


Police said they were treating the case as an "unexplained death" while a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), speaking on a plane between the United States and Japan, said that the defence ministry would launch an independent judicial inquiry if the body proved to be that of Dr David Kelly.


After a corpse was found near Kelly's house in the English countryside, west of London, a police spokesman said: "What we can say is that the description of the man found matches the description of Dr David Kelly," a weapons expert who worked as a UN inspector in Iraq.


Although the formal identification of the body will not take place until Saturday, the British media were Friday reporting that it was that of the defence official.


It brings a tragic twist to the increasingly convoluted tale of whether the British government misled the country over its reasons for going to war with Iraq.


Press reports speculated the death could lead to the resignation of Alastair Campbell, the government's director of communications and a key aide to Blair, and put the administration under pressure over the way it handled the affair.


Kelly, 59, has been named as the possible source behind a BBC report which alleged the British government had "sexed up" its dossier on Baghdad's arms capabilities ahead of the war on Iraq in order to beef up the case for military action.


Kelly disappeared on Thursday afternoon, two days after facing a grilling by a parliamentary committee investigating the affair.


His appearance there prompted an angry reaction from MPs sitting on the committee, who claimed that Kelly had been "set up" by the defence ministry.


The microbiologist admitted he had met BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan a week before he broadcast his controversial story but he said he did not think he could have been the main source for the report, which became the subject of a bitter row between the government and the BBC.


Kelly had alluded during questioning by the foreign affairs select committee to the intense pressure he was under amid the fierce media interest in the affair.


Tom Mangold, a television journalist and close friend, said he had spoken to Kelly's wife Janice earlier Friday.


"She told me he had been under considerable stress, that he was very very angry about what had happened at the committee, that he wasn't well, that he had been to a safe house, he hadn't liked that, he wanted to come home," Mangold said.


Kelly was first named as the possible mole in The Times newspaper on July 10. The defence ministry confirmed that he had come forward as a contact of Gilligan when the newspaper's first edition was published late on July 9.


Opposition Conservative MP Richard Ottaway who was on the committee said it would be a "tragedy of ghastly proportions" if "political machinations" had resulted in Kelly's death.


"The political ramifications, if the body is Dr Kelly ... are serious. People are beginning to get edgy about the government and losing their faith in it. People don't trust it any more," Ottaway said.


"And now that political machinations have actually, or could have, resulted in the death of a potentially important person in this whole thing, I don't think this will help the government one iota," he said.





In his report in May, Gilligan claimed Alastair Campbell had ordered that the claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes, be inserted into an official dossier released in September.

The report sparked a furious row with the government and prompted the official parliamentary inquiry into the intelligence that was presented by Downing Street as a justification for joining the US-led war on Iraq in March.

The furore over the arms expert's death came a day after Blair delivered a key address to the US Congress in Washington in which he asserted that "history will forgive" the United States and Britain for waging war on Iraq even if, in the end, it remains unproven whether Baghdad was developing weapons of mass destruction.

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British weapons expert confirmed dead

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/2003/07/19/kelly_suicide030719


OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND - The identity of a body found in a wooded area in central England has been confirmed as weapons expert David Kelly.


The late David Kelly at his appearance before Parliament.
He died from blood loss caused by a wound to his left wrist, British police announced at a press conference on Saturday.


FROM JULY 18, 2003: Body may be missing weapons expert

The wound appeared to have been caused by a sharp object. A knife and painkillers were found near the body, they said.

It seemed to be a suicide but the investigation is continuing, police said.

"Events over recent weeks have made David's life intolerable, and all of those involved should reflect long and hard on this fact," his family said in a statement read to reporters by police.

Kelly was a government advisor and a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq. He was suspected of being a source of a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) story accusing the British government of doctoring intelligence information to justify the war in Iraq.

According to the story, the British government ignored the advice of experts who doubted Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes.

Kelly questioned in Parliament

Kelly appeared before a parliamentary committee earlier this week. He admitted speaking to the reporter who broke the story, but denied being the source.

The BBC rejected the government's request to reveal the source's identity but has said the person didn't work for the ministry.

Kelly was reported missing by his wife on Thursday after he failed to return from an afternoon walk. She said he was very distressed by controversy into which he found himself.

The case has plunged the British government deeper into controversy over intelligence regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would welcome an independent inquiry into Kelly's death.

Speaking to reporters in Japan, Blair described Kelly as "a fine public servant who did an immense amount of good for his country in the past, and I'm sure would have done so again in the future."

He said nothing when a journalist asked: "Have you got blood on your hands, prime minister? Are you going to resign over this?"



Written by CBC News Online staff

[Argyll]

Wait and see what the ramifications of this are!!
Expect some senior Government Heads to roll,this may be the breaking of TB

[usa320]

i heard it was ruled suicide by scotland yard.