London: In a major relief to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a judge inquiring into the death of David Kelly today (Jan 28, 2004) cleared his Government of any direct involvement in the suicide of the weapons inspector to Iraq and instead castigated BBC for its report that the intelligence on Iraq was "sexed up".

BBC management was "defective" and its governors should have made "more detailed investigations" into its May 29 report alleging that intelligence on Iraq was "sexed up", the judge said.

Hutton headed an inquiry into the suicide of Kelly, who killed himself after being named as the source of the report by BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.

Gilligan reported that the Government had "sexed up" its Iraq dossier by claiming that Baghdad could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes.

"I consider that the editorial system which the BBC permitted was defective in that Mr Gilligan was allowed to broadcast his report ...without editors having seen a script of what he's going to say and having considered whether it should be approved," Hutton said.

The judge also found that the BBC radio report was "unfounded".

"The allegation reported by Andrew Gilligan on May 29, 2003 that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong before the Government decided to put it in the dossier was an allegation which was unfounded," Hutton said.