BRITAIN: The inquiry into the suicide of the weapons expert Dr David Kelly will go right to the top of British government, the senior judge leading the investigation has confirmed.
The Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will be called to give evidence on what he knew of the discussions and decisions that culminated in the government expert slitting his wrist at an Oxfordshire beauty spot.
The Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Blair's communications chief, Mr Alastair Campbell, and a BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, will also face questioning, Lord Hutton told a packed courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday.
Although Lord Hutton has not set down a full timetable, Mr Blair has made it clear he will interrupt his holiday in Barbados to attend if required.
Lord Hutton, who opened his inquiry with a minute's silence, also revealed fresh evidence from the huge amounts of documents already delivered to him by key players.
It included a letter from the scientist to his Ministry of Defence superiors throwing fresh doubt on whether he considered himself the main source of BBC allegations that the Government "sexed up" a dossier on Iraqi weapons to boost the case for war.
The law lord used his opening address to set out how he intended to meet his objectives to investigate the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death "urgently" but "with fairness".
He ran through the chronology of events so far established before announcing the witnesses he hoped would help "flesh out" the details of what happened and the questions he would put to them.
They will be called in order of their first appearance in the story and will also include Dr Kelly's widow, Janice, the BBC chairman, Mr Gavyn Davies, and fellow weapons experts as well as officials from a variety of government departments.
Lord Hutton emphasised his independence, insisting "this is an inquiry to be conducted by me" and he would not allow it to become a battleground for rival parties to prove their conflicting claims.
Cross-examination would only be allowed where it was "helpful to the forwarding of the inquiry but no further", he said.
One aim of the inquiry, which is due to resume on August 11th after a pause for Dr Kelly's funeral next Wednesday, was to find out how Dr Kelly's name had been made public, he said.
One of the few new pieces of evidence revealed yesterday was from a letter sent by Dr Kelly to his line manager at the Ministry of Defence three weeks before his death, detailing his unauthorised meeting with Mr Gilligan.
In it Dr Kelly said the overall character of the BBC report was "quite different" from the meeting he had had and it had either been "considerably embellished" or there had been other sources.
Lord Hutton said he wanted to hear detailed evidence about the discussions within government which followed Dr Kelly's letter.
Lord Hutton said a pathologist had reported signs on Dr Kelly's body that pointed to suicide and had said a "significant degree" of heart trouble may have hastened his death but not caused it.
The inquiry would also look at why Dr Kelly had electrocardiogram electrode pads on his chest, he said.
The thoroughness of Lord Hutton's inquiry received the backing of opposition parties, which said it would also throw light on wider questions of the case for war in Iraq.
The shadow home secretary, Mr Oliver Letwin, said: "It will clearly go deep and in going deep I hope it will also go wide enough to begin to give everybody a clearer idea of the way in which the government handled the presentation of intelligence material."
The press will be allowed into all the hearings unless national security would be at risk, and transcripts of all the evidence will be put on a website. - (PA)