Scientist Was Source of Report, BBC Says

The British Broadcasting Corp. said that David Kelly, a Ministry of Defense scientist whose suicide intensified a fierce debate over whether the government inflated claims about Iraqi weapons, was its main source for the story that inflamed the dispute.

“Having now informed Dr. Kelly’s family, we can confirm that Dr. Kelly was the principal source” for a radio piece in which Andrew Gilligan reported that the government had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq, the network said.

Kelly had told a committee of Parliament that he spoke privately to Gilligan but did not recognize his claims in the piece and believed he was not its main source. The microbiologist took his own life Thursday, slitting his left wrist in the woods near his Oxfordshire home.