Blair and other key players face Kelly death probe

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair will be called to give evidence on what he knew of the discussions and decisions that culminated in weapons expert Dr David Kelly slitting his wrist at an Oxfordshire beauty spot.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Mr Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell and BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan will also face questioning, Lord Hutton told a packed courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday.

Although Lord Hutton has not set down a full timetable, Mr Blair has made it clear he would break off from his holiday in Cliff Richard's Barbados villa to attend if required.

Lord Hutton, who opened his inquiry with a minute's silence, also revealed fresh evidence from the huge amounts of documents already delivered to him by key players.

It included a letter from the scientist to his Ministry of Defence bosses throwing fresh doubt on whether he considered himself the main source of BBC allegations that the Government "sexed up" a dossier on Iraqi weapons to boost the case for war.

The law lord used his opening address to set out how he intended to meet his objectives to investigate the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death "urgently" but "with fairness".

He ran through the chronology of events so far established before announcing the witnesses he hoped would help "flesh out" the details of what happened and the questions he would put to them.

They will be called in order of their first appearance in the story and will also include Dr Kelly's widow Janice, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and fellow weapons experts as well as officials from a variety of Government departments.

Further witnesses may be called as the inquiry goes on.

Lord Hutton emphasised his independence, insisting "this is an inquiry to be conducted by me" and said he would not allow it to become a battleground for rival parties to prove their conflicting claims.

Cross-examination would only be allowed where it was "helpful to the forwarding of the inquiry but no further", he said. One aim of the inquiry, which is due to resume on August 11 after a pause for Dr Kelly's funeral next Wednesday, was to find out how Dr Kelly's name had been made public, he said.

One of the few new pieces of evidence revealed yesterday was from a letter sent by Dr Kelly to his line manager at the MOD three weeks before his death, detailing his unauthorised meeting with Mr Gilligan cited by the BBC as the source of the controversial report about Number 10 interfering with the intelligence dossier.

In it Dr Kelly said the overall character of the BBC report was "quite different" to the meeting he had and said it had either been "considerably embellished" or there had been other sources.