Friday, August 01, 2008

2001 Anthrax Attack Suspect Commits Suicide As FBI Closes In

2001 Anthrax Attack Suspect...
Commits Suicide As FBI Closes In
Friday
, August 01, 2008


* FoxNews.com brings us this AP report and it starts off like this... Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict 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...
Read the rest at link below...
Anthrax Scientist Commits Suicide as FBI Closes In

* DailyMail.co.uk reports it this way... A top germ warfare scientist has killed himself after learning the FBI was about to charge him with waging the anthrax terror campaign that paralysed America shortly after 9/11... Five people, including a British journalist, died, and 17 others became seriously ill from contaminated letters posted in the weeks after the 2001 plane attacks that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Centre...The scientist, Bruce Ivins, 62, worked at the US government’s elite biodefence research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland... A renowned anthrax expert, he was working with the FBI until June this year on efforts to track down the source of the anthrax that was mailed to members of Congress and TV and newspaper offices...
Read the full report at link below...
Germ warfare scientist commits suicide as FBI was poised to charge him with anthrax attacks

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Statement by the Department of Justice on the Anthrax Investigation
From the
FBI.gov website

The Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) today announced that there have been significant developments in the investigation into the 2001 anthrax mailings, which killed five individuals and injured 17 others. In particular, we are able to confirm that substantial progress has been made in the investigation by bringing to bear new and sophisticated scientific tools.

We are unable to provide additional information at this time. The Department, the FBI, and the USPIS have significant obligations to the victims of these attacks and their families that must be fulfilled before any additional information on the investigation can be made public. In addition, investigative documents remain under court seal. We anticipate being able to provide additional details in the near future.

Additional Information on the Investigation

The investigation known as "Amerithrax" is one of the most complex and comprehensive ever conducted by law enforcement. Over the past seven years, the Amerithrax Task Force, which is comprised of 17 FBI Special Agents and 10 U.S. Postal Inspectors, has executed approximately 75 searches and conducted more than 9,100 interviews in the relentless pursuit of the perpetrator of these attacks.

Taken from a U.S. Department of Justice, August 1st, Press Release

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