Judge Clears Blair of Wrongdoing in Scientist's Suicide
By TERENCE NEILAN
Published: January 28, 2004
A senior British judge today cleared the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair of any involvement in the suicide of a scientist who revealed information about Iraqi weapons to the BBC, saying no one could have foreseen he would take take his own life.
But the judge rebutted a report by the British news organization that the government "sexed up" an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons in order to bolster support for the Iraqi war, a claim that called Mr. Blair's integrity into question and presented him with a political crisis.
"I considered the allegation was unfounded," the senior appeals judge, Lord Hutton, said on national television, "as it would be understood by those who heard the broadcast to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which had not been the case."
Mr. Blair, who appointed Lord Hutton to investigate the suicide of the scientist, David Kelly, later said in Parliament that he accepted the report in full.
Referring to weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Blair said, "The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on W.M.D. is itself the real lie."
Dr. Kelly, an expert on Iraqi weapons, slit his wrists after being identified as the anonymous source of the information reported by a BBC correspondent, Andrew Gilligan.
Lord Hutton, reading from a 328-page decision in a hushed courtroom, said: "I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Dr. Kelly might take his own life. I'm further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Dr. Kelly might take his own life."
He added: "Whatever pressures and strains Dr. Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realized or should have realized that those pressures and strains might lead him to take his own life."
Lord Hutton also said Dr. Kelly had acted improperly by meeting with Mr. Gilligan, breaching rules regarding government employees' contracts and failing to get permission for the meeting from his superiors.
In criticizing the BBC report, the judge said it was "shown to be unreliable." He added that "the allegations reported by Mr. Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier was an allegation that was unfounded."
nytimes.com
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