Britain's The Sun newspaper says the Lord Hutton Commission of Inquiry -- investigating British arms inspector Dr David Kelly's suicide last July -- has cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair of 'dishonourable or underhand' conduct.
Last week, Blair vowed to quit if the Hutton Commission censured him in any way.
The Sun, which claims the Hutton Commission report 'was leaked to it by someone who has no financial or vested interest in its outcome,' says Lord Hutton also cleared Alastair Campbell, Blair's media adviser, who resigned from Downing Street weeks after Kelly's death.
The leak in The Sun has infuriated Conservative Party leader Michael Howard who has asked for a police investigation to find out how the tabloid got hold of the report.
The newspaper said 'the document -- top secret until it is published officially at noon (British time) today -- is a devastating indictment of the BBC and its defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.'
Gilligan, The Sun said, is allegedly accused of distorting the facts in a broadcast last May blaming Blair and Campbell for 'sexing up' the British government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Kelly -- Gilligan's source -- slashed his wrists a few miles away from his home after he was publicly identified by his employer, Britain's ministry of defence.
Blair asked Lord Hutton -- perhaps Britain's most respected judge -- to inquire into the circumstances leading to the suicide which deeply damaged the prime minister's credibility.
The Sun says it 'has learned from other sources that the judge will say it was right for Downing Street to suggest changes to a Joint Intelligence Committee dossier on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. He (Hutton) will insist suggestions the report was sexed up are "unfounded" - and that the BBC's editorial system was "defective".'
The newspaper -- which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is the largest selling tablod in the world with a circulation of over 4 million copies -- says 'Lord Hutton concludes there was no "dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous strategy" by Mr Blair's government to leak Dr Kelly's name.'
Hutton, The Sun reveals, cites a psychiatrist's evidence that Dr Kelly committed suicide after he had been 'publicly disgraced.'
The judge called Gilligan's allegations 'unfounded,' The Sun said, and 'casts doubt on Gilligan's recollection of his chat with Kelly after losing his notes and typing an account from memory into a computer.'
While he said 'I am satisfied Dr Kelly did not say the government probably knew or suspected the 45-minute claim was wrong before the claim was inserted in the dossier,' Lord Hutton nevertheless felt 'his (Dr Kelly's) meeting with Mr Gilligan was unauthorised and, in discussing intelligence matters with him, Dr Kelly was acting in breach of the civil service code of procedure.'
External Link: The Hutton Inquiry
