“Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against a top Army microbiologist in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. The scientist, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide this week.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md. For more than a decade, he worked to develop an anthrax vaccine that was effective even in cases where different strains of anthrax were mixed, which made vaccines ineffective, according to federal documents reviewed by the AP.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing grand jury investigation, said prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks….”

More at FOX on a tragic twist in a bizarre case.

Comment:

For those of you who didn’t follow it, here’s the gist.

In 2001 Anthrax-laced mailings killed 5 people and led investigators to the government’s bio-defense labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Originally, the mailings looked like they were written by a Middle Eastern or Pakistani person. Relying on a novel technique of literary analysis created by an English professor and written up in Vanity Fair, the FBI shifted suspicion to a bio-terrorism expert, Stephen Hatfill, who was placed under 24-hour surveillance.

Hatfill later sued Vanity Fair and the English professor for the allegations. He also sued the government for leaking the charges that led to his hounding in the media. This June, the government settled (without admitting guilt) for a multi-million dollar figure. Now, another scientist, Bruce Ivins, who has been under investigation for the same attacks, has killed himself.

Hmmm.

So many killer scientists and so little anthrax….

What should we make of this?

Here’s my novel investigative technique. Leaning back in my chair and putting my finger tips together in my best Sherlock style ( I haven’t got a Stradivarius around to saw on…….let alone cocaine), let me pronounce judgment.

Could it be that our dear (almost departed) government was busy concocting “evidence” (with your tax dollars) to bolster their global-crazed-Islamicist-preemptive-porky-military-boondoggling case for going to war in Iraq? And that it didn’t quite fly….

That is to say, the suspicious-Paki-letter-writer part..er… bombed (overlook that imagery, please..).

And could it be that they then tried to distract attention by publicly fingering assorted scapegoats, leading to one of said scapegoats accidentally turning into sacrificial kebab?

And could it also be, dear reader, that I have a future as an FBI consultant….or at least, a Vanity Fair theorist?

For more on this, see Glenn Greenwald’s blog. Greenwald’s raised questions about the anthrax scares earlier.