Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation

Chilcot should look at the ricin plot

This article is more than 13 years old

I wonder whether the Chilcot inquiry (Report, 29 January) will require Tony Blair to answer a question or two about the so-called ricin plot. On 5 January 2003, anti-terror police removed suspect items from a bedsit in Wood Green. On 7 January scientists at Porton Down ruled out the presence of ricin or any other deadly chemical in these items. Many of us would like to know, therefore, why it was that on that same day, the home secretary and the health secretary issued a statement on the discovery of ricin, and why the NHS issued advice that the public should not panic. We should also like to know why, on 8 January 2003, the media broke lurid stories about the discovery of ricin and a "deadly London terror plot". And why, on 5 February, Colin Powell held up a phial in the UN security council, while he gave the "UK ricin plot" as a reason to go to war with Iraq.

And more generally we should like to know why, if there had never been any ricin, four innocent men had to languish in jail for two years before a jury trial acquitted them to walk free as innocent men, even though the prosecution had spent £20m on trying to establish their guilt. And finally, why were these innocent men rearrested and subjected to the appalling practice of special bail conditions, which are the same as control orders, under which one of them suffers 20-hour curfew to this day. These draconian powers have not been altered one iota by this week's deceitful rebranding. The corrosive effect of lies at the top has blurred the distinction between right and wrong for far too long. Chilcot has the opportunity to restore a moral compass for the future; dare we hope it will rise to this challenge?

Maude Casey

Brighton, East Sussex

Most viewed

Most viewed