A US judge has unsealed US anthrax suspect kills himself ...
Newspaper says US anthrax suspect kills himself ... FBI documents on its investigation into the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001 and the role of a scientist who has killed himself.
The papers will be made public soon with politicians and relatives of the victims hoping they will shed light on the actions of Dr Bruce Ivins.
Dr Ivins killed himself last week after being told he would face charges over the murder of the five victims.
Anthrax was posted in letters shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The letters to media offices and politicians further unsettled a nation already traumatised by 9/11.
The sole deadly biological attack on US soil also left 17 people ill.
Key questions
US District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington ordered the release of hundreds of pages of FBI papers.
FBI director Robert Mueller is scheduled to brief the victims and their families about the findings behind closed doors.
A number of sources close to the investigation have said the FBI is now likely to close the case.
Also on Wednesday a memorial service was being held for Dr Ivins at his work place - the army biological weapons laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Dr Ivins oversaw anthrax, and vaccines for it, and took part in the investigation into the attacks.
The key questions for which answers will be sought in the papers include:
- When and why did Dr Ivins become a suspect?
- Was DNA matched from the anthrax letters to a batch of anthrax controlled by Dr Ivins? If so how?
- Was Dr Ivins trying to test out a new vaccine by releasing the anthrax? Would he have benefited financially from vaccine production?
- Why would Dr Ivins have travelled so far to post the anthrax letters?
Dr Ivins, 62, died in hospital on Tuesday last week apparently after an overdose.
A lawyer for Dr Ivins said after his death that he had suffered "relentless accusation and innuendo", and that his innocence would have been proven in court.
But a social worker said in filed court documents that Dr Ivins had "a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists".
(BBC)
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