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Kelly death not suicide, says MP Sunday 25 February 9pm on BBC Two Programme preview An MP investigating the death of Dr David Kelly says he is convinced the weapons scientist did not kill himself. Norman Baker tells BBC Two's The Conspiracy Files he has reached the conclusion Dr Kelly's life was "deliberately taken by others". Mr Baker has also obtained letters suggesting the coroner had doubts about the 2003 Hutton inquiry's ability to establish the cause of death. Hutton reached a verdict of suicide but a public inquest was never completed. Dr Kelly, whose body was found in July...

Greg Dyke, former director general of the BBC, has claimed that the British Government "tried to kill" Andrew Gilligan. Reporter Gilligan broke the story that British intelligence had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq that sought to justify Britain's support for US-led invasion of the country. "The Government tried to kill him," claimed Dyke about Gilligan, who was forced out of his job at the BBC in January in the wake of the Hutton report that inquired into the death of scientist David Kelly. Kelly was the main source for Gilligan. Dyke was speaking at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature...

Chemring settles dispute with BBC over Gilligan landmine claims David Gow Wednesday July 7, 2004 The Guardian Chemring, the niche defence firm, yesterday settled a two-year dispute with the BBC over allegations by Andrew Gilligan that it had breached international law by selling landmines. The company withdrew the threat of legal action against the corporation. "We are not in litigation mode," chief executive David Evans said. Gilligan quit the BBC six months ago after the Hutton report savaged his claim on BBC Radio 4's Today that the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He...

Fox News censured over 'lying BBC' story Claire Cozens Monday June 14, 2004 Fox News has been strongly criticised by the media watchdog over a programme about the Hutton report in which it accused the BBC of lying and of adopting a "frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism". Ofcom today upheld more than 20 complaints about the programme, in which Fox news anchor John Gibson said the BBC had "felt entitled to lie and, when caught lying, felt entitled to defend its lying reporters and executives". The programme, broadcast on January 28 - the day the Hutton report was published - sparked 24 complaints...

BBC 'TO BE BROKEN UP' The BBC could be broken up and its independence removed under plans being considered by the Government, it is reported. Documents leaked to The Sunday Times suggest the corporation would be divided up into sections for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The job of ensuring the organisation's impartiality would be taken away from the board of governors and given to a Government watchdog. Other plans being considered include closing BBC outlets which are not considered "public service" and even forcing the corporation to share some of its licence fee revenue with other broadcasters. The...

Hutton is our Jayson Blair, says BBC news chief Click here to read Sambrook's email to BBC news staff Claire Cozens Thursday February 12, 2004 The BBC director of news, Richard Sambrook, has compared the Hutton crisis to the fallout at the New York Times over rogue reporter Jayson Blair and the Times' Hitler diaries as the corporation works to repair its reputation in the wake of the scandal. Mr Sambrook, who is himself under investigation over his handling of former BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan's hugely controversial Today programme story, admitted the BBC had made a "big and high profile...

FOR THE LAST WEEK, much of Britain has borne witness to an outpouring of grief the like of which has not been seen since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. When Baron Hutton of Bresagh, knight of the realm, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, a hitherto rather inconspicuous retired member of the British supreme court, delivered his much anticipated report at the end of January on the death of Dr. David Kelly, a British government weapons expert, a collective howl of anguish went up from the well-upholstered parts of the media establishment. Lord Hutton concluded that Tony Blair, the...

The post-Hutton report row between the BBC and Downing Street reignited yesterday when it was revealed the corporation's lawyers had found the controversial inquiry flawed and open to legal challenge. But the BBC's governors ignored legal advice that accused Downing Street's former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, of making false statements to parliament about the Iraq dossier and Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, of misleading MPs, and issued an apology. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, yesterday admitted he was unaware the dossier's claims about Saddam Hussein's capacity to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes referred only to battlefield weapons and...

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff suggested to Dennis Miller on Monday night that it’s “a little odd” that the finding that a BBC reporter “got something wrong,” in claiming British Prime Minister Tony Blair knew statements about WMD in Iraq were inaccurate, led to a situation in which “the head of the BBC has to resign as a consequence,” yet neither Blair or George Bush has resigned despite the consensus that they “were wrong” on WMD in Iraq. Karen Tumulty, Isikoff’s news magazine colleague at the competing Time magazine was equally eager to divert attention from the BBC’s biased reporting. Lord Hutton...

January 31, 2004, 1:34 p.m. Blair and Bush Squeak Through A trying week. Britons and Americans wept copiously in mid-week. It appeared almost as if there had been collusion to save the reputations of Tony Blair and George Bush. Pressure has been building for months, to the effect that the British and American governments knew all along, during the heavy debates in the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, that Saddam Hussein had no inventory of weapons that might conceivably be held to be of mass destruction. Everyone was waiting for confirmation by two august sources. The first is...

Having read the Hutton report and most of what has been written about it, I have reached the following, strictly non-judicial, conclusions: first, that the episode illuminates a wider crisis in British journalism than the turmoil at the BBC; second, that too many journalists are in denial about this wider crisis; third, that journalists need to be at the forefront of trying to rectify it; and, fourth, that this will almost certainly not happen. The reporting of Lord Hutton's conclusions and of the reactions to them has been meticulous. The same cannot be said of large tracts of the commentary...

Dr Kay is not the useful idiot the anti-war party claims - By Melanie Phillips (Filed: 01/02/2004) Hardly had Lord Hutton finished summarising his report than the goalposts were promptly moved. Among those who were apoplectic that he had exonerated the Government and eviscerated the BBC, the cry arose that he hadn't addressed the "wider" issue. This was that the Iraq war was based on false intelligence that Saddam posed a threat with his weapons of mass destruction. This myth has been reinforced by widespread media reports that Dr David Kay, who recently resigned as head of the Iraq Survey...

Comment -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A messy draw The verdict of Hutton may have cleared Tony Blair but the court of public opinion is more divided Andrew Rawnsley, political journalist of the year Sunday February 1, 2004 The Observer Gavyn Davies: gone. Greg Dyke: gone. Andrew Gilligan: gone. Michael Howard's honeymoon: over. The plots of backbench malcontents to topple him: scotched. Brownite hopes that their hero might be in Number 10 before the next election: dashed. Tony Blair: still there. You may foggily recall from the headlines of a few days ago that this was going to be the week that could finish...

Those who love the Near East are fond of repeating the legendary anecdotes of one Nasreddin Hodja, a sort of Ottoman Muslim Aesop of the region with a big following among Greeks and Greek Cypriots as well as among Turks, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and others. On one occasion, this folkloric wise man went to the hammam, or Turkish steam bath. His undistinguished and modest demeanor did not recommend him to the attendants, who gave him brief and perfunctory attention before hustling him out to make room for more prosperous customers. They were duly astonished when he produced an enormous tip...

THE BBC plunged deeper into its worst crisis yesterday as thousands of staff around the country walked out in support of their deposed leaders and opinion polls showed many Britons thought the Hutton report into the death of weapons scientist David Kelly had been "a whitewash". Some 56 per cent of voters told a Daily Telegraph poll that law lord Brian Hutton was wrong to lay all the blame on the BBC, while 49 per cent agreed in another poll that the findings were "a whitewash". The BBC, the world's largest public broadcaster, was reeling yesterday from the report's scathing...

TESTING TWO LEADERS: Tony Blair, Vindicated Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has given an impressive demonstration of how good governance can also be smart politics. Yesterday, an independent judicial inquiry fully exonerated his administration, refuting charges that it knowingly manipulated intelligence about Iraqi weapons and that it compounded the pressures that led a government scientist, Dr. David Kelly, to kill himself. The independent inquiry, led by a senior judge, Lord Hutton, was commissioned promptly after Mr. Kelly's suicide and Mr. Blair gave it full cooperation. Its report leaves him substantially vindicated, even though the reporting of British intelligence agencies...

Last Updated: Thursday, 29 January, 2004, 20:19 GMT BBC apologises as Dyke quits Profile of Greg Dyke Greg Dyke's statement Director General Greg Dyke has quit as the BBC's crisis deepens in the wake of Lord Hutton's damning verdict. The BBC's new Acting Chairman Lord Ryder also apologised "unreservedly" for errors during the Dr Kelly affair. Mr Dyke's departure came 20 hours after BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies resigned following the Hutton Report and after the governors spent Thursday morning in crisis talks in London. An emotional Mr Dyke told BBC staff at their central London headquarters: "I don't want to...

<p>January 29, 2004 -- LONDON - The chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation resigned yesterday and the broadcaster apologized for some of its reporting on the buildup to the war in Iraq after it was lambasted in an inquiry by a senior judge. The inquiry by Lord Hutton criticized journalist Andrew Gilligan, the BBC's management and its supervisory board of governors, for a radio report saying the government "sexed up" intelligence in a dossier on Iraqi weapons. Hutton said the BBC report was unfounded.</p>

If it went to the West End they'd call it Whitewash Jonathan Freedland Thursday January 29, 2004 The Guardian A soft snowfall was swirling outside the high court just before Lord Hutton took his place on the bench. It's a pity it did not last, because a blanket of fresh, white snow would have made the perfect backdrop to what followed: an extraordinary one-man show, a performance which had its audience snorting and occasionally gasping in disbelief. Transferred to the West End, the show could only have one name: Whitewash. For six months the government had been accused of the...

BBC in crisis, Blair in clear By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 29/01/2004) The BBC was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history last night when Gavyn Davies quit as the chairman of governors after the corporation was heavily criticised and the Government cleared unequivocally by the Hutton report. Lord Hutton said the BBC's central allegations that the Government inserted intelligence into its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction probably knowing it to be wrong and had ordered the dossier to be "sexed up" were "unfounded". The political world was astonished by the way in which Tony Blair...

The BBC must reform itself or it could end up sold off (Filed: 29/01/2004) The loser from the Hutton report is undoubtedly the BBC. For it was the fateful broadcast by Today's defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, which set off the tragic chain of events leading to the death of Dr Kelly. That broadcast - and the subsequent mishandling of a complaint by Alastair Campbell - were both a breach of the BBC's public service duties and also an explosive meeting of two alien cultures with which it has become infected: excessive commercialism and a persistent soft-Left bias. So, when the...

Opponents of the war waged by America and Britain to bring down Saddam Hussein will be disappointed by the Hutton report. They had hoped that Lord Hutton would endorse the allegation made in Andrew Gilligan's now notorious broadcast that the Government had tampered with the contents of an intelligence report in order to enhance the case for war. Lord Hutton yesterday denied that he had found proof to justify the allegation. With distaste evident in the fastidiousness of his tone, he examined the case for the "sexing up" of the facts. The term, he said, might mean that the Government...

The BBC — best known in military circles for horrifically biased coverage of the Iraq campaign — took a mighty punch today when British senior judge Lord Hutton said that Tony Blair wasn't David Kelly's murderer. The Beeb's Andrew Gilligan created a firestorm in Britain by reporting that Blair's government had "sexed up" the intelligence information on Iraq's WMD programs, to justify joining what the BBC clearly saw as America's unjustified attack on poor old Saddam. David Kelly — a WMD expert who had talked to Gilligan — was hauled in front of a parliamentary committee and grilled over the...

Hutton gets Tony's gloat The publication of Lord Hutton's report spelled delight for the PM but a hopeless case for the Tory leader, writes Simon Hoggart Wednesday January 28, 2004 We have just come back from a memorable session in the Commons - Tony Blair doesn't "do" gloating, on the whole - I've seen him announcing the results of very successful military operations, and he does it with all the pizzazz and flair of a vicar announcing that the bring and buy sale has been postponed for a week. This time, however, he was gloating - he was jumping up...

Mr Phoenix lives to fight another day With the Hutton report's exoneration, Tony Blair has sailed through yet another potential political crisis, writes Kamal Ahmed Wednesday January 28, 2004 "It was so good for them, maybe Alastair Campbell gave Lord Hutton advice on how to write it," muttered one disgruntled journalist as he left court 76 of the royal courts of justice. Anyone expecting "a plague on all your houses" report from Lord Hutton on the death of Dr David Kelly or even a smoking gun that would go the heart of the government machine would have been sorely disappointed...

Lord Justice Hutton has delivered his report on the death of Dr. David Kelly, the British scientist who had devoted many years to investigating Saddam Hussein's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been thoroughly exonerated. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which regards itself as the world's greatest broadcaster, has been exposed as second rate, sloppy and dishonest. The terms of Lord Hutton's inquiry were "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly," not the case for the war against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Yet it was the justification for the war that sparked the row that ended with...

Gilligan comes out fighting after Hutton drubbing Claire Cozens Wednesday January 28, 2004 Andrew Gilligan today came out fighting with a statement issued on his behalf describing Lord Hutton's report as "grossly one-sided". He is struggling to hold on to his BBC career after Lord Hutton issued a damning criticism of his Today programme report, describing the central claim that the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as "unfounded". In what amounted to a complete demolition of Gilligan's controversial report. Lord Hutton cast doubt on the "sexing up" claim and rejected as "unfounded" the...

Hutton: Fleet Street's reaction Journalists from Britain's national press give their initial responses to the Hutton Inquiry report.Michael White, political editor, Guardian: Lord Hutton has been very severe on the BBC, rightly so in many respects in my view. But he has been overly generous to the government machine and some individuals within it. Any 72-year-old who pronounces the word "hotel" without an "h" is a very establishment figure. Hamish McDonnell, political editor, Scotsman: It's not quite what we expected. It's surprised a lot of people in the way the government got off the hook while the BBC has taken...

Blair demands apology over claims The prime minister feels he is cleared by the inquiry report Tony Blair has called on those who accused him of lying about Iraq's weapons to withdraw their allegations in the wake of Lord Hutton's report. Mr Blair said the "real lie" was the claim he had misled the country by falsifying intelligence on weapons of mass destruction or lied to MPs. Despite the claims being "completely untrue" the BBC had never "clearly and visibly withdrawn this allegation". "I simply ask... now withdraw it fully, openly and clearly," he said. The prime minister said...

BBC chairman Gavyn Davies is to resign in the wake of Lord Hutton's criticisms of the corporation's reports. BBC political editor Andrew Marr said Mr Davies would tell the corporation's governors of his decision when they met at 1700 GMT. It comes after Lord Hutton said the claim in BBC reports that the government "sexed up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons was "unfounded". And he criticised "defective" BBC editorial processes over defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan's broadcasts of the claims on the Today programme. Lord Hutton also said he was satisfied Dr Kelly had killed himself after being named as the...

January 28, 2004 BBC Management "Almost in Meltdown" Lord Hutton's report into the death of Dr. David Kelly, released this afternoon, has almost completely vindicated Tony Blair and the government, at the same time severely criticising the BBC's reporting and governance. This is a huge story. Most observers were expecting blame to be apportioned evenly, and the one-sided castigation of the Corporation has come as a big surprise. The Guardian reports that: "BBC chairman Gavyn Davies is said to be considering his position after Lord Hutton criticised the BBC in his long awaited report into the death of weapons expert...

2.45pm update -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angry Blair claims vindication Matthew Tempest, political correspondent Wednesday January 28, 2004 Tony Blair pictured during question time on the day of the publication of Lord Hutton's report. Photograph: PA A furious Tony Blair today declared himself totally vindicated by Lord Hutton's report and turned on his attackers, demanding apologies from both the BBC and the Conservatives. Accepting in the report in full, Mr Blair demanded that calls for both his and Geoff Hoon's "scalp" now cease, and declared allegations that he misled the country as "the real lie". Speaking to a packed, tense and tribal House...

Hutton delivers damning verdict on BBC Owen Gibson and Ciar Byrne Wednesday January 28, 2004 Hutton report: worst possible verdict for BBC Lord Hutton today delivered the worst possible verdict for the BBC, describing its editorial systems as "defective" and declaring that the board of governors led by chairman Gavyn Davies had failed in its duty to act as an independent regulator. The judge lambasted BBC management for allowing the Radio 4 Today reporter Andrew Gilligan to broadcast "unfounded", "grave" and "false allegations of fact impugning the integrity of others". In a wide-ranging and unequivocal attack on the corporation that...

Live Video of Lord Hutton delivering his report on http://news.bbc.co.uk/ now

BBC chairman 'considering his position' Dominic Timms Wednesday January 28, 2004 BBC chairman Gavyn Davies is said to be considering his position after Lord Hutton criticised the BBC in his long awaited report into the death of weapons expert David Kelly. The corporation has flatly denied rumours sweeping Westminster that he has resigned, but one senior insider said the mood at the BBC was "very grim". ITV News today cut into its normal programming to preface its planned live broadcast of Lord Hutton's statement to say Mr Davies was "considering his position" after the board of governors was heavily criticised...

The Hutton report could decide the future shape of the BBC after the public broadcaster made a high-stakes gamble by backing its reporter, Andrew Gilligan, on the British Government's handling of intelligence on Iraq. The resulting feud with with Prime Minister Tony Blair's Government came as the broadcaster was about to undergo a parliamentary review of its charter, and as the licence fee that provides most of its funding is under fire from the private sector. One senior UK television executive, who declined to be named, said: "The whole environment of charter review will inevitably be affected by the Hutton...