[NYTr] EU Biowarfare Expert Fears Murder by US, UK

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[The headline says "feared" but the text clearly indicates that Jill 
Dekker still fears (present tense) assassination. But she is also
said to have some weird ideas about how Iraq supposedly did possess
WMD, and so does Syria (specifically a smallpox weapon that the US-UK is
deliberately not developing a vaccine against), and the "Daily Mail"
hints that the organization she works for is merely a front-group for
French intelligence.  The Daily Mail is either trying to discredit her
or she and her friends are delusional and paranoid. Yet the Belgian
government did organize a protection campaign for this US-born
scientist. Or maybe it's all to help publicize the new book about Dr.
Kelly's mysterious death. Who knows? -NY Transfer]


sent by Rich Winkel - activ-l

Daily Mail (UK) - Nov 11, 2007
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=492907&in_page_id=1770

'I feared I'd end up dead in the woods like Dr Kelly,' 
says biological warfare expert who criticised Britain and U.S.

By GLEN OWEN and OLIVER WADESON

An EU expert on biological warfare has told how she fears ending
up 'dead in the woods' like scientist Dr David Kelly after an alleged
campaign of intimidation by members of MI6 and the CIA.

Jill Dekker, a bio-defence expert based in Brussels, has reported
a string of sinister incidents  including the parking of a hearse
outside her house  after making a speech critical of British and
American policy in the Middle East.

Her claims are included in a new book by Liberal Democrat MP Norman
Baker which argues that Dr Kelly was murdered to silence his criticism
of the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

American-born Dr Dekker has been billed at security conferences as
the director of the 'public health preparedness programme' at the
European Homeland Security Association (EHSA), a security think
tank.

She was placed under the protection of the Belgian government after
reporting a series of sinister incidents earlier this year.

The Belgians confirm that they mounted a three-month protection
operation earlier this year for Dr Dekker, who has advised the
European Commission on bio-terrorism issues, but refuse to be drawn
on the extent to which her fears were well-founded or why the
protection was eventually lifted.

The EHSA bears many of the hallmarks of a 'front' organisation for
espionage activities, although Dr Dekker refuses to say anything
about it except that it answers to the French government.

Established in 2004, it holds workshops and conferences, and claims
partnerships with a number of security-based thinktanks around the
world.

It appears to exist only in cyberspace, with its staff, including
its president, French career diplomat Richard Narich, only contactable
by email. Dr Dekker is not listed on the EHSA website and the
organisation was yesterday not responding to any calls.

Dr Dekker says the 'intimidation' against her started in March, as
she was flying to Florida to give a speech on Syria's weapons
programme to an intelligence summit. She says she was subjected to
a 'heavy-handed' interrogation by a man she suspects of being a
British intelligence operative.

She believes the speech made her powerful enemies because she argued
that billions of dollars spent by the US government to develop a
smallpox vaccine has been wasted because scientists  including
British experts  have used a different viral strain to the one she
believes is being developed in Damascus.

If this is true, it means governments would have no way of protecting
the public against the use of the virus by terrorists or rogue
states.

She also believes that Iraq did have a biological weapons capacity
which was all shipped to Syria before the outbreak of war.

She argues this was known, but was concealed from the public because
the real purpose of the war was not to target weapons of mass
destruction but to topple Saddam Hussein and gain a strategic
foothold in the region.

When she returned to her home in Belgium after the speech she said
she was subjected to an overt campaign of surveillance and harassment,
including being continuously followed on foot and having cars parked
outside her house with the headlights on.

On one occasion, she says she found a hearse parked outside her
house with the drivers 'staring straight ahead.' When she approached,
it sped off and she pursued it, taking photographs as evidence.

After being told that Mr Baker was writing a book about the
circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death, she sent him an email
on March 23 designed, she says, to highlight the risk she felt she
was under.

'I've informed all my diplomatic friends that not only am I not
suicidal, I am looking forward to my children growing up and...
also my great career,' she wrote. 'Much like other people who
suddenly were found dead in woods.'

A week later, she wrote: 'The US State Department and their
surrogates... continue to intimidate me and my family -- every day
they are outside my home, they tail me 24/7 -- I believe they could
try to kill me so I don't reveal any more of my research on Syrian
biological weapons.'

In a third email in April, she wrote: 'I refuse to be intimidated
by anyone who uses the tactics they used -- so unprofessional even
people inside can't believe how they have acted here -- it's like
Johnny English [the 2003 spoof spy film starring Rowan Atkinson as
an incompetent British agent], really so amateurish. Our services
just aren't what they used to be.'

It is difficult to establish whether there is any truth to Dr
Dekker's claims of harassment, as she refuses to disclose the precise
location of her home 90 minutes drive from Brussels for 'security
reasons'.

She says the Belgian government extended its protection to her three
months ago by making her a Belgian citizen, and is investigating
her claims through its public prosecutor's office. The Government
confirms that she is now a Belgian national.

Dr Dekker has given a detailed account to The Mail on Sunday of the
alleged campaign of intimidation, which she believes was led by
American and British intelligence.

She tells how she was subjected to an 'amateurish' interrogation
by the British man on the plane to Florida.

'The plane was absolutely packed, and there was just one seat next
to me that was empty. The plane was held up to let the final passenger
on board,' she said.

'He then started asking me questions regarding my occupation, quite
sensitive things about Nato and the like, to the point that I turned
and said to him, 'OK, go down the list'.

'He then backed off but continued throughout the flight to be
intrusive. He had this whole cover story about why he lived in
Holland, right down to financial documents he showed me.

He asked me right out of the blue about Isotopes  now there's a
word you don't hear everyday on a transatlantic flight.'

When she returned to Belgium after the conference she says was
followed relentlessly on foot and by car, and had vehicles parked
outside her house  often with darkened windows and their headlights
fullon in broad daylight.

Of her encounter with the mystery 'hearse', she said: 'No one in
our neighbourhood had died and the agents sitting in the front
wouldn't make any eye contact, just stared straight ahead.

'I was pretty ticked off so I decided to pull my car out and follow
them. They took off so fast -- they must have been driving at around
100 kph through the countryside. Then they followed me the next day
with this hearse with Belgian plates all the way home.'

She says that after 'making a few calls', she was placed under the
protection of the local police. The 'campaign' then stopped, having
lasted just over a month.

'It was unbelievable to me that I had to ask another government for
protection against my own,' she said. She kept a daily 'harassment'
diary, which she has handed to the Belgian authorities.

Dr Dekker, who says she met David Kelly before the Iraq war at
Wilton Park, a countryside conference centre used by the Foreign
Office, agrees with Mr Baker's conclusion that he was murdered.

Dr Kelly, the UK's leading weapons inspector in Iraq, was found
dead in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, after apparently
committing suicide.

He had been highly critical of the intelligence used to justify the
invasion of Iraq, and in particular the infamous assertion that
Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which he could deploy at 45
minutes notice.

Speculation about potential culprits who might have had a motive
to silence him has ranged from 'special ops' units of the intelligence
services to expatriate Iraqi opponents of Saddam.

Mr Baker writes in his book "The Strange Death of David Kelly," which
is published tomorrow: 'I have met Dr Dekker on two occasions and
had a number of long exchanges with her. She does not strike me as
the sort either who would frighten easily, or who would ginger up
her story for effect.

'Rather, she is a somewhat hardnosed, intelligent and knowledgeable
woman who has succeeded well in a profession where men predominate.
I therefore took it seriously when she emailed me.'

Dr Dekker emerged from the shadows of what she says has been a
20-year career as a scientist in 2005, when internet records show
that she was a 'bio-defence consultant' for the Brussels-based
thinktank New Defence Agenda.

The organisation, which bills itself as 'platform for discussing
Nato and EU defence and security issues', names former Hong Kong
Governor Chris Patten and former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson
among its patrons.

But critics have called it the arms industry's 'weapon of mass
disinformation' because of the partnerships it has established with
companies such as BAe Systems, Lockheed Martin and Thales.

The International Intelligence Summit, which she addressed in
Florida, described itself as 'a nonpartisan, non-profit, neutral
forum that uses private charitable funds to bring together intelligence
agencies of the free world and the emerging democracies ... the
purpose of The Summit is to provide an opportunity for the international
intelligence community to listen to and learn from each other, and
to share ideas in the common war against terrorism.'

The publicity for the conference said: 'The list of presenters will
include many of the top leaders of the intelligence, espionage,
counterterrorism and counter-intelligence agencies from around the
free world. The Summit is intended to be the most prestigious world
conference on international studies, intelligence policy, terrorism,
and homeland security.'

The Summit flagged up Dr Dekker by saying she 'regularly consults
with Ministries of Public Health, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
Ministries of Defence on issues related to Mid-East state bio-warfare
programmes'.

It added that she 'has advised the European Commission on
bio-terterrorism and stockpiling for Category A bio-warfare agent
countermeasures; resulting in (COM (2004) 701 Communication from
the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament Preparedness
and consequence management in the fight against terrorism'.

Asked if she knew anyone who could back up her claims of intimidation,
she referred us to one of her friends, who spent 20 years as a CIA
officer and now works as a consultant.

He said: "She told me what happened, and I believe it. What she
described is known as heavy harassing surveillance, with the purpose
of intimidating."

Dave Thomas, the local police inspector who was entrusted with Dr
Dekker's protection, said he had done so on the orders of the Belgian
ministry of the interior.

Speaking in accented English almost as good as his distinctly un-
Belgian name would suggest, he said: "It is true that we were told
to look after her. They said she was an important person who felt
under threat."

But he did not go into details into what action his force had taken.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the order had come from
the country's Crisis Centre, Belgium's emergency planning department.

He said: "Jill Dekker specialises in bioterrorism. She reported to
us that she felt she was being threatened by foreign intelligence
services, and we received an instruction from the Crisis Centre on
March 21 that she should be protected. The protection was withdrawn
on July 7."

Last night, Mr Baker said he believed Dr Dekker could have made
enemies by exposing a fallacy at the heart of military action against
Iraq.

"If the war was really about WMD, then to be consistent we should
also invade Syria," he said.

"Otherwise, it suggests that it was more about giving Saddam a
bloody nose."

2007 Associated New Media