Euro press sees crisis over scientist's death

The death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly is reported prominently in the European papers, which predict a new political crisis for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Details of Dr Kelly's disappearance feature on the foreign pages of most of the French, German, Spanish and Italian papers, with France's Le Monde speaking of "a controversy shaping up to become a scandal".

Dr Kelly had been "hounded by the press", the paper says. The parliamentary foreign affairs committee was "apparently convinced by his explanations and judged that the scientist was the government scapegoat".

Le Figaro agrees.

"If, as appears to be the case, it was, indeed, Doctor Kelly lying face down on Harrowdown Hill," the paper says, "his ghost may well haunt the corridors of power, the Defence Ministry and Downing Street in particular for a long time to come."

Dr Kelly's disappearance is front-page news in Germany's Die Tageszeitung in an article headlined "Death of an arms expert shakes Blair government".

"The development could lead to a serious government crisis in Britain," the paper predicts. "Trust in the Blair government has fallen to a low point as the British public believes less and less the prime minister's declaration that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing a WMD programme."

Sueddeutsche Zeitung says that if the body is found to be that of Dr Kelly, the death "increases pressure on Blair".

'Witch hunt'

Six main Spanish dailies give front-page prominence to the story.

"Blair can no longer avoid a thorough inquiry, whose outcome will be decisive for his political future" says El Mundo's editorial.

According to El Pais, Blair is "losing his footing", and La Vanguardia sees Blair "on the brink of the abyss".

The Blair government will have to come up with answers to some very unsettling questions La Razon - Spain

ABC says Dr Kelly's death "ratchets up the political pressure on Blair", whose government, it says, "will be accused of looking for a scapegoat".

La Razon picks up the theme, with an editorial saying that in the face of BBC accusations that it exaggerated intelligence about Iraq's weapons in order to justify the war, the Blair government "launched a witch-hunt".

After the death of "the BBC's mole", the paper says, the Blair government "will have to come up with answers to some very unsettling questions".

In Italy, Dr Kelly's apparent death is reported prominently in Turin's La Stampa, Milan's Il Sole 24 Ore, and Rome's Il Messaggero.

Also in Rome, Il Giorno, which carries the report on its front page under a picture of Dr Kelly, says it is clear that circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death "threaten to unleash a political storm with unpredictable consequences".

Pandora's box?

In Belgium, La Libre Belgiquesaysthe discovery of Dr Kelly's body "has overshadowed the Prime Minister's six-day tour of Asia" and "has provoked what could turn out to be the most serious crisis Mr Blair has faced in his six years in power" .

In Switzerland, the Tribune de Geneve says the Kelly affair "has totally eclipsed the success of Tony Blair's visit to Washington" and will "undoubtedly aggravate the bust-up between the government and the BBC".

"The scientist's suicide has only added to a series of scandals and revelations which are literally poisoning the political climate," the paper says, "bumping up the sales of a gutter press with a daily readership of 10 million."

Dr Kelly appears to have known too much Vremya MN - Russia

Also in Geneva, Le Temps asks: "Did David Kelly take his secrets with him to his death, or has he opened a Pandora's box? For the moment, Westminster trembles between shock, emotion and worry."

Reaction in the Russian press has been less noticeable, largely because reports of Dr Kelly's death arrived too late for the deadlines of most of the Saturday nationals.

But the Kommersant business daily speaks of "an enormous scandal brewing in the UK", noting commentators in London saying that Dr Kelly's death "could spark a profound crisis in government and even lead to a prime ministerial resignation."

Another Russian daily which featured the story was Vremya MN, which made Dr Kelly its "Man of the Day", featuring the story on its front page.

The paper chose to view the death in decidedly sinister terms.

Dr Kelly, it says "appears to have known too much, and turned out to be very inconvenient for many of those who now urgently need to wash themselves clean of accusations of political adventurism."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.