Kelly outed by Gilligan’s email
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan sent an e-mail to an MP implying weapons expert Dr David Kelly was his source in the story that Downing Street “sexed up” an key intelligence dossier on Iraq’s capacity to launch lethal weapons in a bid to boost the case for war, Lord Hutton’s judicial inquiry was told Tuesday.
The BBC would seem to have egg on its face. It would appear the finger pointing at the Ministry of Defence and the PM’s director of communications Alastair Campbell have proved over hasty.
Counsel to the inquiry James Dingemans QC said Mr Gilligan appeared to have manipulated Dr Kelly’s appearance before the influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee in order to take a swipe at the government.
The BBC’s Newsnight reported that Mr Gilligan “outed” Dr Kelly to Liberal Democrat MP David Chidgey, who is the Lib Dem’s whip on the Committee, when the Corp was refusing to confirm that the former UIN weapons inspector was the MoD’s “mole.”
Mr Gilligan’s e-mail suggests the BBC defence correspondent was looking to influence Dr Kelly’s questioning by the committee.
Mr Gilligan advised Mr Chidgey to ask Dr Kelly the nature of threat posed by Iraq in September 2002.
Dr Kelly’s answer “should be devastating,” he wrote.
The e-mail is expected to be posted on the Hutton inquiry website at 08:00 GMT today at the earliest. Technical hitches delayed its uploading.
The Corp has declined to comment directly but said it would hold its own investigation as to why the evidence only came to light yesterday.
In a statement the BBC said: “We’re looking at this e-mail and will deal with it in the context of the Hutton Inquiry.”
