Day eight: Key points

Here are the key points of the eighth day of the Hutton inquiry into the death of the government scientist Dr David Kelly.

David Broucher.

Mr Broucher, the UK's permanent representative on the conference for disarmament, told how he met with Dr Kelly during February 2003 in Geneva.

Dr Kelly said he would be 'found dead in the woods' just months before he died, it emerges

Mr Broucher told Dr Kelly that he couldn't understand why the Iraqis were not co-operating with inspectors and the weapons expert said he had broached that with Iraqi officials.

Dr Kelly said they told him that if too much was given away then the risk Iraq would be attacked might be increased.

Mr Broucher said that Dr Kelly was in "some personal difficulty or embarrassment ... because he believed that the invasion might go ahead anyway and that somehow this put him in a morally ambiguous position ... I drew the inference that he might be concerned that he would be thought to have lied to some of his contacts in Iraq".

Dr Kelly said that if Iraq was invaded "I will probably be found dead in the woods".

Mr Broucher said that he took that to be a throwaway remark possibly referring to his life being put in danger by the Iraqis.

Nick Rufford, of the Sunday Times

Mr Rufford spoke to or met with Dr Kelly about 40 or 50 times and he believed the scientist had felt he had a mission to spread information about his area of expertise.

When they spoke in June 2003, the weapons expert was not keen to talk about the row over the Gilligan story.

In July they also talked about the BBC/government row and Mr Rufford said he asked if Dr Kelly was the source for Mr Gilligan's story. Dr Kelly denied having met the defence correspondent.

Mr Rufford said he went to see Dr Kelly the day his name had been confirmed by the MoD and the weapons expert looked as though he had lost weight, was pale and tired.

He said that Dr Kelly had just received a call from the MoD and been told his name would be appearing in the papers the following day.

Dr Kelly said he had not been advised to find somewhere else to stay

Asked by Mr Rufford if what was being reported was true, Dr Kelly said: "I told [Gilligan] factual stuff - the rest is bullshit."

He said that Dr Kelly said off the record that he had been "through the wringer", but said on the record that the MoD had been "pretty good about it".

Donald Anderson

Labour MP Mr Anderson is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which grilled Dr David Kelly two days before he apparently committed suicide.

Anderson: Kelly not distressed

Mr Anderson said his committee reconvened on 10 July, three days after they had published their report, because they had heard that an MoD civil servant had admitted having a meeting with Mr Gilligan.

Mr Anderson said there was a good-tempered debate at that meeting as to whether the committee should call Dr David Kelly. A majority believed they should.

Mr Anderson said his own view on calling Dr Kelly was that if the committee re-opened its inquiry there was a danger it would find itself in a "cul-de-sac".

The committee warned Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon that they wanted to call Dr Kelly.

Mr Hoon said he was happy for the committee to interview the weapons expert provided the questioning did not cover "the wider issue of Iraqi WMD and the preparation of the dossier".

Mr Anderson wrote to Mr Hoon agreeing to the conditions attached to Dr Kelly's appearance, although a "substantial minority" on the committee were unhappy about the conditions.

Mr Anderson said he hoped he would have been aware if Dr Kelly had seemed distressed by the questioning and that he also hoped that he would have behaved in "a humane way" if he had become so.

Mr Anderson said that at points during his evidence Dr Kelly had laughed and he had seemed as though he could see the line of questioning coming.

He said that it had not occurred to him the weapons expert had been briefed ahead of his committee appearance "although I have subsequently learnt that there was ... a briefing that went well beyond the parameters which the secretary of state had provided for me in his letter".

Mr Anderson said David Chidgey MP had told him just before the committee saw Dr Kelly that Mr Gilligan had briefed him.

Mr Anderson said he had been "somewhat surprised" when the MoD agreed to let Dr Kelly go before the committee.

Mr Anderson said the committee had been concerned over how the way his name had come into the public domain.

James Blitz

The Financial Times political editor said he had gone to the Lobby briefing in which Number 10 spokesman gave out enough clues for Mr Blitz to start his search for the MoD official.

They put in a series of words into an internet search - "ministry, defence, consultant, chemicals and weapons" and an article came up which put Dr Kelly's name in the frame.

Mr Blitz said he established through his sources that the individual mentioned in the MoD statement was paid for by the Foreign Office as was Dr Kelly

A further call was put to the MoD press office they confirmed it was Dr Kelly. The MoD was then informed the information would be used in the next day's Financial Times.

Richard Norton Taylor

The security affairs correspondent at the Guardian said there was "widespread unease throughout the intelligence community" about the idea of publishing a dossier - in part because there was a feeling there was nothing new to release.

He said: "In the end I think they learned to live with it."

Mr Norton Taylor said he had heard there was a "debate" between John Scarlett (chair of the JIC) and Alastair Campbell over the dossier.

Peter Beaumont

The foreign affairs editor of the Observer said the intelligence community seemed to be saying the threat from Iraq was not imminent whereas the government seemed to be saying it was.

Mr Beaumont said that Dr Kelly was not one of the sources for his story on 9 March 2003 about mobile units found in Iraq

Mr Beaumont rang Dr Kelly and left a message for him after being told he was unhappy about the description of the trailers.

Dr Kelly then got in contact a few days later.

Mr Beaumont said he assumed that Mr Gilligan's source was in the intelligence community but it began to occur to him that it might be the weapons expert five days before Dr Kelly's name was actually released.

Tom Baldwin

The Times political correspondent said he set out to establish who Mr Gilligan's source in the wake of the Today programme broadcast.

He said he had met with BBC director of news Richard Sambrook at the Times' offices and he had expressed disquiet about Mr Gilligan writing stories for newspapers and agreed there had been a ban put in place.

Two BBC journalists told Mr Baldwin that the Today editor Kevin Marsh had confirmed Mr Gilligan's source was at that time in Iraq and so could not be contacted for details of the story to be further checked.

Mr Baldwin said that a colleague had eventually got hold of Dr Kelly's name and they wrote an article naming him on 9 July.

Times journalist Michael Evans

He compiled a list of about 20 names which he put to the MoD. "Dr Kelly wasn't actually on that list - Dr Kelly's name was number 21."

An MoD official then confirmed the official in question was the weapons expert.