Dr Kelly tape ‘will exonerate BBC reporter’

The BBC has a tape of the scientist Dr David Kelly expressing concern about the way Iraq weapons intelligence was presented, the corporation said yesterday.

The tape of a conversation between Dr Kelly and the science editor of Newsnight, Susan Watts, was expected to be submitted as part of its evidence to the judicial inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death.

The Guardian reported newspaper yesterday that the BBC believed the tape was the ‘smoking gun’ that would exonerate Andrew Gilligan, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme correspondent who reported the suggestion that Number 10 ‘sexed up’ the September dossier on Iraq’s banned weapons.