LONDON, 2 September 2003 — The widow of British weapons scientist David Kelly told an inquiry into his death yesterday that her husband felt betrayed when the Defense ministry revealed he was the source of allegations that the government had exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
“He said several times over coffee, over lunch, over afternoon tea, that he felt totally let down and betrayed,” Janice Kelly told the judicial inquiry into the former UN arms inspector’s apparent suicide in July. Kelly, 59, was the source of a BBC news report in May — strongly denied by Downing Street — that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair “sexed up” a September 2002 intelligence dossier on the threat posed by Iraq to bolster the case for war.
The discovery of Kelly’s body on July 18 with a slit wrist thrust Blair into his worst political crisis ever, which Friday saw the resignation of his long-serving and powerful communications adviser Alastair Campbell.
Giving evidence via a video link from a separate room inside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, Mrs. Kelly, 58, told judge Lord Brian Hutton that her husband of 36 years was a “workaholic” and dedicated to his job as an expert on weapons of mass destruction, particularly on Iraq.
“I think he would have done the whole job for nothing, had he not had to support a wife and family,” she said in a calm and collected voice that betrayed no distress or emotion. But of the Defense Ministry officials who leaked his name, Mrs Kelly said: “They were the ones that effectively let his name be known in the public domain. He was extremely upset.” sked by inquiry senior counsel James Dingemans about Kelly’s mood in January and February, as the US-led war on Iraq loomed, Mrs. Kelly said he was tired but “upbeat” ahead of their daughter’s wedding.
But she added: “There was some trepidation for the war. He believed in it, but was sad that we seemed to be moving toward that position.”
Earlier testimony has revealed that press officers at the Defense Ministry, for whom Kelly worked as a consultant, did not explicitly identify him by name as the source of the BBC report.
But they dropped enough clues for reporters to guess his name right, leading to an aggressive questioning session by a parliamentary committee three days before he was found dead in woodland near his Oxfordshire home.
Testifying on Thursday, Blair took ultimate responsibility for the revelation of Kelly’s name, but denied the September dossier was “sexed up” as the BBC alleged, saying he would have resigned if that were true.
Mrs. Kelly told the inquiry that her husband felt “deeply hurt” when, in the run-up to the war, he accompanied Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to a parliamentary hearing only to learn the minister was unsatisfied with the technical support he had been given.
Mrs. Kelly said her husband felt “he was being treated rather like a fly — I think was the phrase he used.” The inquiry is hearing this week from Kelly’s family and friends and from police who found his body. Hutton’s conclusions are not expected before late October.
