HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- FBI investigates anthrax
scientist
Duncan Campbell in Los
Angeles
Friday June 28, 2002 The Guardian FBI agents investigating the
anthrax attacks that killed five people have searched the Maryland home of a
former US military scientist who commissioned a study into similar attacks three
years ago.
The scientist, who claims that he is the victim of a witch-hunt, once studied
close to a school which bears the same name as the bogus address on the
envelopes containing the fatal doses of anthrax.
Dr Steven J Hatfill, 48, is a bio-defence researcher whose home in Fort
Detrick, Maryland, was searched by FBI agents earlier this week.
He has been the focus of media inquiries for several weeks and claims that
his career has been ruined as a result. He is one of a small group of scientists
who have complained that one week they are treated as experts and the next as
suspects.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Dr Hatfill commissioned a study in 1999 into
a hypothetical anthrax attack by mail while he was working in McLean, Virginia,
for the defence contractor Science Applications International.
In a further twist to the investigation, ABC News reported that Dr Hatfill
attended a medical school in Zimbabwe where he lived near a school called the
Greendale elementary school. The bogus return address used by the sender of the
fatal anthrax letters was also a Greendale school.
The FBI is thought to have been put under pressure by Barbara Hatch
Rosenberg, the head of a biological weapons working group at the Federation of
American Scientists. In a briefing to the US Senate staff last week she claimed
that the FBI had a "likely suspect" they should have pursued more aggressively.
Ms Rosenberg was not available for comment yesterday.
The FBI said that nothing was removed from Dr Hatfill's home and agents are
said to be annoyed that his name has surfaced. They are anxious to avoid a
repetition of the investigation into the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in
which the security guard initially identified as a suspect turned out to be
innocent.
Dr Hatfill, who worked in the virology division of the US army medical
institute of infectious disease at Fort Detrick, has strenuously denied any
involvement and volunteered to have his home searched to clear his name.
He had complained that his career has now been ruined by media inquiries into
his background which started earlier this year.
Dr Hatfill was quoted in the press after September 11 saying how easy a
bio-terrorism attack would be to carry out.
"I've been in this field for a number of years, working until three in the
morning, trying to counter this type of weapon of mass destruction, and, sir, my
career is over at this time," Dr Hatfill told the Baltimore Sun.
The study commissioned by Dr Hatfill describes placing 2.5 grams of bacillus
globigii, an anthrax simulant, in a standard business envelope, according to the
report.
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