Anthrax suicide

A TOP government scientist who helped the FBI analyse samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks.

Bruce Ivins, 62 — who for the past 18 years worked at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases — had been informed of his impending prosecution, people familiar with the FBI investigation said.

The anthrax mailings, which began 24 days after the September 11 attacks, killed five people, infected 17 others, crippled the national mail service, shut down a Senate office building and spread fear of terrorism.

President George Bush said the letters might have been sent by accomplices of Osama bin Laden.

Over time, the FBI concluded that the anthrax poisoner was probably a US Government scientist, not a foreign terrorist as the President had guessed.