- Police have found a body matching the description the
Ministry of Defence adviser alleged to be the mole behind a BBC report
claiming Downing Street "sexed up" its Iraq dossier.
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- The body was found a few miles from Dr David Kelly's
home near Abingdon, Oxon, at around 9.20am in woods at Harrowdown Hill.
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- Thames Valley Police said the clothes on the body matched
those of Dr Kelly, who was questioned about his role in the dossier row
by MPs on Tuesday.
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- A spokesman said: "Although the body has not been
formally identified it matches the description given of Dr David Kelly."
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- No note was found either at the scene or at Dr Kelly's
three-storey 18th century farmhouse in the village of Southmoor.
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- It is understood Dr Kelly's family will not be taken
to identify the body until tomorrow. The cause of death will not revealed
until a post-mortem is carried out.
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- Dr Kelly's family reported him missing last night after
he failed to return from an afternoon walk. His disappearance was described
as "out of character".
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- Acting Supt David Purnell of Thames Valley Police said
50 police officers had been involved in the search, as well as a helicopter
and sniffer dogs.
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- Mr Purnell said Harrowdown Hill is a rural area popular
with walkers but is off the beaten track. He said there were no reports
of other missing persons in the area.
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- Dr Kelly, 59, appeared before the foreign affairs select
committee after the Ministry of Defence had named him as the source behind
the BBC story that accused Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's head of
communications, of exaggerating intelligence about Iraq's weapons.
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- The micro-biologist admitted meeting BBC reporter Andrew
Gilligan but the committee agreed with him that he was probably not the
mole.
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- Donald Anderson, the foreign affairs committee chairman,
rejected the idea that the committee's questioning of Dr Kelly had been
unduly aggressive.
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- He said: "Most of the members of the committee felt
on the side of Dr Kelly. There was no way, in my judgment, in which he
was put in the dock or in the corner at all."
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- However, some MPs on the committee said Dr Kelly had
been "set up" by the MoD. Richard Ottaway, a Tory member of the
committee, called the discovery of the body a "tragedy".
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- He said Dr Kelly had been under great pressure and his
disappearance called into question the "regime of spin and manipulation
by the Government and its advisers".
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- Tom Mangold, a television journalist and close friend
of Dr Kelly, said he had spoken to Dr Kelly's wife Janice this morning.
She had said her husband was deeply unhappy and furious about his questioning
by the committee.
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- He said: "She didn't use the word depressed, but
she said he was very very stressed and unhappy about what had happened
and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in."
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- The Ministry of Defence has said that Dr Kelly had at
no point been threatened with suspension or dismissal.
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- Tony Blair, who is flying to Tokyo on a seven-day diplomatic
tour, has been informed about Dr Kelly's disappearance.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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