Iraqi
scientists infiltrated British research centres, reveals File on
4
A
大象传媒 investigation has revealed that some of Britain's top laboratories
were infiltrated by Iraqi scientists researching germ warfare.
The
Iraqi scientists - financed by generous grants from the Iraqi government
- applied for research posts in academic and medical institutions
in Britain in the run up to the Gulf War.
Dr
Joseph Selkon, a leading Oxford microbiologist, has told Radio 4's
File on 4 that his suspicions about one Iraqi research applicant
sparked a security alert.
He
tells the programme, to be broadcast on Radio 4 at 8.00pm on Tuesday
19 November, that the alert revealed that leading British microbiology
laboratories had been targeted by Baghdad.
At
least ten top Iraqi micro-biologists had applied for and been granted
places in sensitive research establishments around Britain.
Dr
Selkon, retired director of the Oxford Laboratories Microbiology
Laboratory, received a job application from a medically-trained
Iraqi scientist in 1990.
"He
had a superb cv, he was going to work for us for free, and we would
receive 拢20,000 聟 from the Iraqi Government," Dr
Selkon tells File on 4.
His
research team was working on a project to prevent bacteria becoming
more resistant to antibiotics. But antibiotic resistance is not
a significant problem in Iraq.
Dr
Selkon's suspicions grew when he questioned colleagues in surgery
and other medical departments.
He
found it was only microbiology - the discipline most applicable
to germ warfare - which had attracted Iraqi interest. Dr Selkon
reported his worries to the security services.
"I
asked them to check whether this was just a one-off application
to Oxford or whether this was part of a more general plan; they
rather thought I was thinking science fiction," he said.
"But
nevertheless they went away and came back later to say they had
found nine or ten scientists of this nature - all from Iraq - who
had already been accepted by universities across the country to
work in the micro-biology field."
Dr
Selkon concludes that the Iraqis were working on plans to make bacteriological
weapons resistant to standard methods of treatment by anti-biotics.
The
Iraqi researchers, he says, were arrested at the outbreak of the
Gulf War and sent back to Iraq.
His
revelations come as MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
voice new concerns that the Government's system of vetting overseas
applicants for UK research posts in microbiology and genetic research
is not effective enough.
Currently
universities are asked to report applications for research posts
to the Foreign Office if the applicants come from countries of concern
and if they wish to work in potentially sensitive areas of scientific
research.
Some
MPs are calling for this voluntary reporting system to be made compulsory.
"I
think we are extremely vulnerable indeed," said Labour backbencher
and Select Committee member Andrew Mackinlay.
"We
have little or no idea where the vast majority of these overseas
students come from, what they've been doing hitherto, or what their
affiliations are.
"In
my view we need to have an inspectorate who can turn up at an academic
institution at any time, go into a laboratory and say who is this
person, what is he or she doing, where is their work?"
Notes
to Editors
File
On 4 on bio-terror will be broadcast on Tuesday 19 November at 8.00pm
on 大象传媒 Radio 4.
Any
use of this release must include a credit for "File on 4, Tuesday
November 19, 8.00pm on 大象传媒 Radio 4".
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