Hoon admits giving green light for outing of Kelly

23 September 2003, 18:00 PM

AFP, London

Grilled by a judicial inquiry, Britain's embattled Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon Monday admitted he gave the green light for the outing of David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of a BBC report that London exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq. But in highly-charged exchanges, Hoon insisted at the probe into Kelly's death that the defence ministry had acted correctly. Hoon had previously distanced himself from the controversial naming of Kelly, who killed himself after he was revealed to be the source of a disputed BBC radio report aired in May. This alleged that Prime Minister Tony Blair's office had "sexed up" an intelligence report last year to boost its case for going to war against Iraq. The suicide of Kelly, 59, a respected expert on Iraq's alleged quest for weapons of mass destruction and a former United Nations weapons inspector, hurled Blair into the biggest crisis of his six years in office. Kelly's widow has told the inquiry that the decision to release his name had left the mild-mannered scientist under huge stress and feeling betrayed by his employer -- the defence ministry.