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British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied Tuesday any involvement in leaking the name of late arms expert David Kelly to the media as the source of the disputed BBC report claiming Downing Street had exaggerated intelligence on Iraqi weapons to justify war.
"I did not authorize the leaking of the name of David Kelly," he told reporters during a flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Sky News reported.
"Once the name is out there, that's a completely different matter," he added. "My starting point is that I believe we've acted properly throughout."
Just three days after Kelly was grilled by the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee on July 15, he was found dead with slashed left wrist in woods near his home in Oxfordshire, central-southern England.
And in his final interview, Kelly said he felt betrayed after telling his Ministry of Defense bosses that he had met BBC's Andrew Gilligan, who broadcast the story that Downing Street might hype intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons to justify war.
Blair's popularity has went down over the death of Kelly as an opinion poll showed Tuesday that public trust he enjoys now has slumped by 12 points in the past month to 39 percent.
An ICM poll issued by the Guardian newspaper showed Blair's personal approval rating had dropped to minus 17, down from plus seven on the so-called "Baghdad Bounce" in the immediate aftermath of the war.
The poll was carried out immediately after the death of Kelly.
(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2003)
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