Analysis: Kelly's shock remark

By Andy Tighe BBC home affairs correspondent

Beneath the grand, Victorian-gothic arches of the Royal Courts of Justice there can be few places as drab or utilitarian as Court 73, currently home to the Hutton Inquiry.

But the last eight days have shown that the most startling insights into this tragic saga can come from the most unexpected of sources.

Towards the end of a long and not especially enlightening day, most of the journalists had slipped out to file their stories or were listening with just half an ear as a stocky, middle-aged civil servant was ushered into the witness box.

After days of unprecedented exposure to the inner workings of the Whitehall machine, it was difficult to work up much enthusiasm for David Broucher, who introduced himself as a former ambassador to Prague.

Mr Broucher had people's attention. And it soon became clear that he had something very interesting to say

That was especially true when the earlier part of the day had brought a stout defence of the behaviour of the Foreign Affairs Committee from its amiable and loquacious chairman, Donald Anderson.

It was a stenographer's error that suddenly caught everyone's attention. "Ben Bradshaw" she wrote, sending a gasp around the press benches.

Ben Bradshaw is, of course, a well-known government minister and former BBC journalist who spoke out forcefully against his previous employer as the Gilligan-Kelly affair unravelled.

The stenographer had made an inexplicable error. But no matter. Mr Broucher had their attention. And it soon became clear that he had something very interesting to say.

Reassurance effort

As a senior diplomat working on disarmament issues he had met Dr Kelly in February in Geneva.

Dr Kelly was a senior member of the UNSCOM team inspecting the Iraqi arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

The quietly-spoken scientist had told Mr Broucher how he tried to gain the trust of the Iraqis by assuring them that if they complied with the weapons inspectors' demands they would not be attacked.

The implication was that if there was an invasion he would have betrayed his contacts, some of whom might be killed as a result.

"I asked what would happen then," said Mr Broucher in an e-mail to a colleague that was submitted to the Inquiry. "He replied in a throwaway line that he 'would probably be found dead in the woods'."

It was a grim and shocking remark. At the time Mr Broucher thought Dr Kelly might be hinting that the Iraqis might try to take revenge against him.

But now, six months later, he believed the weapons expert might have been thinking on rather different lines.

Refocus

It was a chilling end to two weeks of evidence that have not been short of headline-making revelations.

Was Dr Kelly really prophesising his own apparent suicide in the Oxfordshire countryside in June this year? Did he seriously believe that his life was in danger if there was a war against Iraq? Or was it simply another indication of the immense pressure that he felt he was under?

It brought this complex and dramatic story back to its roots.

For months the newspapers have been packed with allegations of Whitehall chicanery and Fleet Street intrigue. But once again the focus was on the human being at the centre of this media maelstrom - David Kelly and the chain of events that led to his death.