Your Hero's Britain becomes a scary place:
Body found in search for weapons row official
By James Blitz and Matthew Jones
Published: July 18 2003 10:05
Last Updated: July 18 2003 13:52
Police searching for Dr David Kelly, the missing defence official named as the suspected source of allegations that Downing Street "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq, have found a body matching his description.
An official from Thames Valley police, which is conducting the investigation into Dr Kelly's disappearance, said the body had not been formally identified but it was found just a few miles from his home.
Earlier this week MPs on the foreign affairs committee accused ministers of "poorly treating" Dr Kelly, a Ministry of Defence expert on chemical and biological weapons, after he said he was not the main source of a hotly disputed BBC report.
Dr Kelly had come under intense pressure after admitting that he had met BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan several times, including in a London hotel on the same day as Mr Gilligan says he interviewed the main source for the report.
Thames Valley police said Dr Kelly had gone missing from his home near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, on Thursday afternoon after telling his wife he was going for a walk at 3.00pm. The body of a man had been found face down on Harrowdown Hill, five miles from Dr Kelly's home at 9.20am on Friday. There was no note left either near the body or at Dr Kelly's home.
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "We are aware that Dr David Kelly has gone missing and we are obviously concerned."
Mr Gilligan and senior BBC officials have maintained their silence over the identity of the source, though Mr Gilligan himself was accused of being an "unsatisfactory witness" by the foreign affairs committee on Thursday.
Tory MP Richard Ottaway, a member of the foreign affairs committee, said Dr Kelly had recently alluded to the level of pressure he was under.
"At the meeting last week he did hint at the sort of pressure he was under,’’ Mr 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 MP went on: "Let’s hope that nothing sinister has happened on this occasion and that he has simply taken a step to get away from the pressure.
Dr Kelly, a former weapons inspector, is seconded from the Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down to the MoD. The Foreign Office pays his salary.
Whitehall officials have said that someone of Dr Kelly's rank would have had access to secret intelligence, but would probably only have seen "sanitised" versions of reports that omitted the identity of sources.
news.ft.com |
