The
US Justice Department and the FBI are convinced that they know the man responsible
for sending the anthrax letters that killed five people. It is a former biological
warfare expert named Steven Hatfill, an eccentric 48-year-old American who worked
for two years at the army's main biological warfare laboratory in Maryland.
However, the FBI has not found the evidence required to incriminate him. In
2000 he applied for a job at the CIA, but he failed a lie detector test. As
a result, his security clearance was taken off him, and he was fired from his
private sector job. On August 11 he publicly denied having anything to do with
the anthrax attacks. He even added that he never worked with this product. However,
as a result of being investigated by the FBI, he lost any possibility of finding
a job and his life has been ruined. And all this without any proof whatsoever
that he did it. Life is difficult in the land of the free. And he is an American
citizen!
Finally in the first days of May 2003, the US authorities have found what
they describe as the tool that served to make the anthrax that killed 5 people
in the USA and made 13 others ill in 2001. They believe that it was prepared
under water in a glove box found in a pond near Washington DC.