A federal judge decided to make public some records that were sealed as the government investigated a U.S. Army’s scientist’s possible involvement in the anthrax attacks of 2001. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said Monday that the government’s search warrants and other related documents involving Stephen Hatfill should be made public.

Steven Hatfill was one of the persons of interest in the anthrax attacks but was never criminally charged. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times asked the judge for the search warrants for Hatfill.

In 2003, Hatfill filed suit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department. He was submitted to 24-hour surveillance and was considered to be the main suspect in the 2001 bioterrorism attack. The former Army bioweapons researcher claimed that his privacy was violated because his name was involved in the anthrax attacks. Hatfill blamed the defendants of releasing his name to the media in connection with the biological attacks carried out in the eastern United States in which five people were killed and 17 other suffered severe illness.

Hatfill said the investigation and labeling him as “person of interest” in the case ruined his reputation. He lost his job, and was in the attention of the media, his home was searched and his conversations were tapped. Hatfill, who worked at the Army's biological-warfare research center at suburban Fort Detrick, Md., said the leaked information about his alleged involvement in the deadly attacks cost him his job as well as any chance of future employment.

Hatfill, who worked at the Army's biological-warfare research center at suburban Fort Detrick, Md., has constantly denied any involvement in the biological attacks which began in October 2001, when anthrax-laced letters were sent to the offices of Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Earlier this year, a District Court Judge said during a hearing that there is no evidence that would point to Hatfill's guilt. The Justice Department released a statement in late June in which they said Steven Hatfill will receive a one-time payment of $2.825 million and, beginning 2009, a $150,000 annuity for 20 years, according to court papers.

The judge ruled that documents involving the search of Hatfill’s girlfriend’s apartment and car should also be made public. Americans have the right to know how the investigations progressed in the way that it did and on what basis the court agreed to allow the searches.

In the anthrax attacks that occurred less than a month after the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks, five people died; two of them were postal workers. The anthrax mailings contaminated with anthrax spores were sent to media organizations and politicians.

Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and animals caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis which is highly lethal in some forms. Its spores can be grown in vitro and be used as a biological weapon. When spores are inhaled, or come into contact with a skin lesion on a host they reactivate and multiply rapidly. The infections are easily treated if they are caught early.