A U.S. government scientist who contributed to the
investigation of a series of fatal anthrax attacks in 2001 has died from an
apparent suicide, just as he was about to be charged by the Justice Department
with conducting the attacks, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.
The newspaper informed that Bruce Ivins, a 62-year-old
scientist who had worked for the past 18 years at government biodefense
research laboratories in Maryland,
was found dead after an overdose of painkillers soon after he was notified of
his impending prosecution. However, the U.S. Justice Department has not made
any comment regarding the newspaper report.
Five people died after anthrax was mailed to media
organizations and politicians in the U.S. not long after the September
11 attacks in 2001. Mr. Ivins had helped the FBI examine the
anthrax-contaminated envelopes as a microbiologist for a government laboratory.
Security measures which were taken following the 2001
anthrax attacks crippled the national mail service and provisionally shut down
a Senate building. In addition to the five deaths, more than 20 other people
were sickened.
One of Bruce Ivins’ two brothers, Thomas, told the Los
Angeles Times he was not at all shocked by the suicide. “He buckled under the
pressure from the federal government,” Thomas Ivins said, as quoted by the
newspaper, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year in order to interrogate him
about his brother. “He had in his mind that he was omnipotent.”
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