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Kelly voice heard at death inquiry

Susan Watts (right)
Watts (right) arrives at the inquiry in London Wednesday.

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Gilligan defends his BBC report Tuesday. CNN's Diana Muriel reports (August 13)
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- The inquiry into the death of British weapons expert David Kelly has heard an audio tape of a phone conversation he had with BBC journalist Susan Watts.

On the crackly tape, barely audible in parts, Watts and Kelly discuss a dossier released in September by Downing Street to justify war on Iraq.

Another BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan, who used Kelly as a source, said this dossier was "sexed up" by Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, against the wishes of intelligence experts. (Full story)

Watts resumed her evidence Wednesday on day three of the inquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton in London.

In the tape, Kelly dismissed comments on Iraq's weapons capabilities made by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and U.S. President George Bush as "spin."

But he did not back up claims that Campbell was responsible for "sexing up" a Government dossier on Iraqi arms by demanding the inclusion of a claim that biological and chemical weapons could be launched within 45 minutes, the inquiry heard.

On the tape, Watts asks Kelly: "Can you confirm that Campbell sexed up the dossier and that he was the source?"

Kelly replies: "No, all I can say is that it was the Number 10 press office."

The scientist had mentioned Tony Blair's chief "spin-doctor" in a separate conversation about the dossier earlier that month, but in a "gossipy, off-the-cuff, almost gratuitous" way which did not suggest he was offering an informed opinion, she said.

Watts also complained that she had been pressured by the BBC's director of news, Richard Sambrook, to reveal her source in order to back up Gilligan's reports.

"I felt under some considerable pressure to reveal my source. I also felt the purpose of that was to help corroborate the Andrew Gilligan allegations and not for any proper news purpose," she told the inquiry.

"I was most concerned that there was an attempt to mould them so that they were corroborative which I felt was misguided and false."

Giving evidence later Wednesday, Sambrook defended his decision to ask Watts the identity of her source.

He said that he had been struck by the similarities between what her source and Gilligan's source were saying and -- amid the bitter row between the BBC and the government -- he wanted to find out if they were the same person.

"I believed it would have been irresponsible for me not to find out whether that was the case and what else they said," he said.

Kelly was found dead on July 18, three days after giving evidence to a separate inquiry into how Tony Blair's government used intelligence to build its case against Saddam Hussein's regime. It is thought he killed himself.

The inquiry is expected to last several weeks. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Campbell and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon are due to appear at a late date.

The inquiry is not a court of law but is being seen as a severe test of the government's credibility and the integrity of the state-funded BBC.


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