Anthrax I:  Former U.S. Army Biologist Asserts Innocence

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Steven Hatfill, the former U.S. Army biologist who has become the public focus of the FBI’s investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks, said yesterday he is innocent of any involvement with the attacks (see GSN, Aug. 8).

“I am a loyal American and I love my country.  I had nothing to do with the anthrax letters, and it is terribly wrong for anyone to contend or think otherwise,” Hatfill said in his first public statement on the subject.  He spoke outside the office of his civil attorney Victor Glasberg.

Hatfill said he has never worked with anthrax and that his research expertise has centered on viral diseases such as Ebola.  Saying that he understands that his background at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., makes him a “person of interest” to the FBI, Hatfill reiterated that he is cooperating with the bureau’s “Amerithrax” investigation.

Hatfill even voluntarily agreed to an initial FBI search of his Frederick, Md., apartment to detect the presence of anthrax, he said (see GSN, June 26).  The request had “surprised” him because the last time that he had received a booster shot of anthrax vaccine was in 1999, he added.

“Since December 2000 I was — and have remained — as susceptible to anthrax infection as any of you,” Hatfill said.  “So I was surprised at the notion that I might have brought anthrax to my home, and would even have been amused were it not for the fact that the matter was so serious.”

Hatfill and Glasberg criticized the FBI for going too far in its investigation.  They accused the bureau of allowing its searches to become “media events” and of leaking information to reporters (see GSN, Aug. 2).

“I ... object to an investigation characterized, as this one has been, by outrageous official statements and calculated leaks to the media leading to a feeding frenzy operating to my great prejudice,” Hatfill said.

One example of such leaks, according to Glasberg, was a recent announcement by ABC News that it had obtained a copy of a bioterrorism-related manuscript on which Hatfill had been working.  ABC News could not have obtained the manuscript from any source other than the FBI, which had seized Hatfill’s computer where it had been stored, Glasberg said.

Glasberg is preparing to file a formal complaint with the U.S. Justice Department concerning the leaks, he said.

“I think ‘no comment’ is better than innuendo, and I don’t think they should speculate,” Glasberg said.

For their part, media writers have chosen to focus too much on events from Hatfill’s past, which are irrelevant to the FBI’s investigation, Hatfill said.

“I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is,” he said.

Recent media analyses have examined Hatfill’s activities in southern Africa in the late 1970s and 1980s and have questioned claims he made on a resume concerning his education and military background.  Glasberg refused to answer any questions concerning Hatfill’s past.

“No more than any of you, I do not claim to have lived a perfect life.  Like yourselves, there are things I would do or say differently than I did 10, 20 or more years ago,” Hatfill said.  “Anyone’s life and work [can be] picked apart for every wrinkle, failed memory or inconsistency.  Mine can.  So can yours.  Does any of that get us the anthrax killer?”

During his statement, Hatfill singled out Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biologist at State University of New York who has often publicized her views on the anthrax investigation.  Although Rosenberg has never specifically named Hatfill, she has developed a profile of the person who she believes is responsible for the attacks, and the profile is similar to Hatfill’s.  It has also been reported that she discussed Hatfill’s potential involvement in the attacks with FBI agents and Senate staff members in June.

“I don’t know Dr. Rosenberg.  I have never met her ... To my knowledge she is ignorant of my work and background except in the broadest of terms,” Hatfill said.  “I am at a loss to explain her reported hostility and accusations.  I don’t know this woman at all.”

Hatfill said that while he understands the need to make sure he had no involvement in the anthrax attacks, that does not give the FBI and the media the right to ruin his reputation.  Since coming under investigation, Hatfill has been dismissed from a position at Science Applications International Corp. and has been put on paid administrative leave from a position at Louisiana State University, where he had planned to teach bioterrorism response classes to emergency personnel (see GSN, Aug. 5).

“If I am a ‘subject of interest,’ I also am a human being.  I have a life,” Hatfill said.  “I acknowledge the right of the authorities and the press to satisfy themselves whether I am the anthrax mailer.  This does not, however, give them the right to smear me and gratuitously to make a wasteland of my life in the process.”

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Anthrax II:  Investigators Seize Possible Spore-Tainted Mailbox

Investigators believe that some of the letters used in last year’s anthrax attacks might have been mailed from a Princeton, N.J., mailbox that has been taken for further testing, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see related GSN story, today).

The mailbox, located in Princeton’s commercial district, tested positive for anthrax spores last week, the Journal reported.  The positive result was the first time that initial tests from “hundreds” of mailboxes indicated that anthrax might be present, officials said.

“We know there can be false positives, so we are being very careful about this,” an FBI investigator said.

Officials have known that four of the anthrax-tainted letters were sent from central New Jersey and processed by the Hamilton Township postal facility (see GSN, Feb. 8).  The location of the mailbox used to send the letters is important because it gives investigators a place that they can use to link potential suspects, according to the Journal.

The investigation has been complicated, however, because there are several research facilities in central New Jersey whose employees might have produced something such as anthrax, FBI agents said yesterday (Gary Fields, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 12).

For further information, see:

CDC Frequently Asked Questions on Anthrax

FBI Amerithrax Investigation

GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)

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