Kelly 'felt betrayed' during Iraq row

The widow of the weapons expert whose suicide plunged Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration into crisis says her husband felt betrayed by the government in the weeks before his death.

Janice Kelly, widow of David Kelly, said he had been dismayed by the way officials apparently sought to undermine his credibility after he had been exposed as the source of an explosive BBC report.

"He said he felt totally let down and betrayed," Janice Kelly told an inquiry into her husband's death.

Asked by whom he had felt betrayed, she said: "I believed he meant the MoD (Ministry of Defence) because they were the ones who had effectively let his name be known in the public domain."

David Kelly killed himself after being exposed as the source for a BBC report which claimed the government exaggerated the case for war against Iraq.

The government was furious about the report and demanded the BBC reveal its source. The public broadcaster refused but Kelly told his MoD employers he believed he might have provided the information for the report.

As a result, he was dragged into the public eye and grilled by a committee of politicians about his relationship with journalists. Two days later, Kelly, 59, slit his wrist in a wood near his home.

Janice Kelly told the inquiry that her husband had received assurances from senior MoD officials that when he came forward, his name would not be made public.

Days later, however, the MoD press office confirmed his name to journalists.

Janice Kelly, 58, said her husband, a former United Nations weapons inspector who had made dozens of trips to Iraq, was also dismayed that the MoD described him as a middle ranking official or a junior.

"He was deeply, deeply hurt. He was being treated rather like a fly, I think that was the phrase he used," she said.

She said he was in torment in the days before and after his televised grilling at the hands of the parliamentary committee.

"I'd never known him to be as unhappy as he was then", Kelly, speaking via videolink, told the inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Speaking about the morning of the day on which Kelly killed himself, she said: "I was physically sick several times at this stage because he looked so desperate. He looked distracted and dejected. I just thought he had a broken heart.

"He looked as though he had shrunk, but I had no idea at that stage of what he might do later.

The inquiry under judge Lord Hutton is a key test for Blair, whose public trust ratings have plunged over the handling of Kelly's death and the failure to find banned weapons in Iraq.

The inquiry has heard no evidence to suggest the BBC's allegation of exaggeration was correct, but it has raised serious questions about the way the government dealt with the furore which followed.

- REUTERS

Hutton inquiry website

British Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee transcript:

Evidence of Dr David Kelly

Key players in the 'sexed-up dossier' affair

Herald Feature: Iraq