No advance report for Blair on death (of Bahai Dr Kelly)

No advance report for Blair on death
>From correspondents in London
December 2, 2003- 2 hours ago

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair will have no advance warning of a
report, expected early next year, into the death of British weapons
expert David Kelly, London's Financial Times said today. Senior judge
Brian Hutton has refused to send drafts of his report to ministers,
officials, and others, including the BBC – expected to be the subject
of his criticism – the newspaper reported.

"It's going to come as a bolt out of the blue," a government official
quoted in the newspaper said.

"We're being given no advance warning at all," the official said.

Hutton is expected to submit his report to Charles Falconer,
constitutional affairs secretary, early next year.

The Financial Times said that January 12 had been touted as a possible
publication date and that the Government would be unlikely to delay it
for risk of being accused of a cover-up.

The report will come months after Hutton and several lawyers quizzed
Blair and other key government and BBC figures about the events that
led to Kelly's presumedly suicidal death in July.

Kelly, 59, a defence ministry expert on Iraq's pursuit of weapons of
mass destruction, and a former UN inspector in Iraq, was the anonymous
source of the BBC report which alleged that Downing Street had "sexed
up" intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

In particular, the report challenged the most sensational claim in a
September 2002 dossier on Iraq that Blair put before parliament – that
Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45
minutes.

Downing Street insisted the BBC retract the story. It refused. In the
row that ensued, Kelly was exposed as its source and forced to face
aggressive questioning before a parliamentary committee.

Within days, a despondent Kelly left his home in Oxfordshire for a
walk, slit his wrist and bled to death, leaving no suicide note.

The discovery of his body on July 18 hurled Blair, then embarking on a
tour of East Asia, into the most serious crisis of his six years in
office.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8042742%255E1702,00.html