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Hoon liar; gov't to blame over Kelly — inquiry
Jordan Times, Saturday, September 27, 2003
LONDON (AFP) — Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon lied over a British weapons expert who was driven to suicide by the government's "cynical abuse of power," a lawyer for David Kelly's family told the inquiry into his death Thursday. Kelly's death was largely the fault of the British government who used the scientist as a "pawn" in its battle with the BBC over a report that it embellished intelligence to bolster the case for war in Iraq, said lawyer Jeremy Gompertz.
Kelly, 59, was found dead in July, days after the ministry of defence (MoD) confirmed he was the suspected source of the BBC report that said a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been "sexed-up."
In particular, the report called into question the dossier's most notable claim — that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes.
It has since emerged that the dossier failed to specify that the claim referred to battlefield weapons, like mortars or artillery guns, and not missiles that could reach other countries.
The Kelly family's "primary aims are, one, duplicity of the government in the handling of Doctor Kelly should be exposed and, two, that the systematic failings of the MoD should be identified," Gompertz said.
"Never again should there be such feeble support for an employee in a time of such crisis," Gompertz said.
He accused the government of employing a strategy to name Kelly, at a time when the former UN weapons inspector claimed he was misrepresented in the BBC report.
"This was a cynical abuse of power and deserves the strongest possible condemnation," Gompertz said on the last full day of the inquiry.
The government's inability to apologise or acknowledge they were at fault "should be contrasted with the approach of the BBC in being prepared to admit mistakes and accept criticism," the lawyer said.
Extracts from the diary of Prime Minister Tony Blair's former media adviser, Alastair Campbell, showed that Hoon had lied when he testified over his involvement in publicising Kelly's name, Gompertz said.
The diaries were only disclosed after Hoon, whose political future is seen as hanging on the outcome of the inquiry, left the witness box on Monday and he could not be cross-examined.
"They indicate with clarity that [Hoon's] denials of the government's strategy, put to him in cross-examination, were false," Gompertz said.
"Indeed they reveal he was an enthusiastic supporter of the proposal to put Doctor Kelly's name into the public domain," he said.
Government lawyer Jonathan Sumption said the Kelly family's position on the naming of the scientist was "completely unjustified."
"They take as their starting point the proposition that Doctor Kelly was entitled to have his name withheld — that is wrong.
"There is no constitutional principle that civil servants are entitled to anonymity," Sumption said.
After Gompertz and Sumption, lawyers for the BBC and the inquiry itself will put their views before senior judge, Lord Hutton.
He is not expected to complete his report before November.
Seventy-four witnesses have passed before Hutton at the Royal Courts of Justice in London since he began to take evidence on Aug. 11 into the circumstances of Kelly's death, which severely shook Blair six years after he became prime minister.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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