AND LAURA PEEK

MORE than 4,000 miles from Lord Hutton’s courtroom, behind the locked door and tightly drawn blinds of a small, red-brick house in America’s Deep South, lives a woman who could shed intriguing new light on the darkest episode of the Blair era.

Mai Pederson has rarely been seen in public since Dr Kelly’s apparent suicide seven weeks ago, when she phoned friends to give warning, cryptically: “Don’t believe what you read in the papers.”

A diminutive, energetic and, by all accounts, highly intelligent Arab-American, who speaks four languages and serves as a senior master sergeant in the US Air Force, Ms Pederson was such an enormous influence over Dr Kelly that she was able to convert him to the Baha’i faith.

They met during two UN arms inspection missions to Iraq five years ago, when Dr Kelly was rooting out details of Saddam’s illicit biological weapons programmes, and Ms Pederson, a 43-year-old divorcée, was his translator. The following year she was instrumental in his religious conversion, and became his close friend and spiritual mentor during his many trips to the US. Among his journeys was one to Monterey, California, where Ms Pederson was then living.

Many of those most concerned with the tragedy of Dr Kelly’s death are well aware that this woman played an important role in his life: they appear, however, unable to fathom exactly what that role was.

For the past three weeks at Courtroom 73 at the High Court in London, the most microscopic details of Dr Kelly’s academic background, work and family life have been painstakingly examined by the Hutton inquiry.

While the body politic lies anaesthetised on the operating table, to be slowly dissected by James Dingemans, QC, counsel to the inquiry, so, too, is the life of Dr Kelly.

Forensic scientists have even been able to tell Lord Hutton that Dr Kelly skipped a meal a day or two before his death, but had time to sip some coffee before his final walk into the woods.

Yet the more we discover about Dr Kelly, the more new questions spring up, begging for answers.

The scientist’s widow, Janice, 58, acknowledged when giving evidence to the inquiry that Ms Pederson had indeed been “quite influential” over her husband, but added that she did not know when he had changed his religion; Lord Hutton is also said by his aides to be aware that Ms Pederson may be able to assist him in his attempts to delve into Dr Kelly’s state of mind before his apparent suicide, and is considering whether to call her as a witness. There were no answers to be found yesterday at the red-brick house, which stands at the end of a winding suburban street on the east side of Montgomery, Alabama.

Ms Pederson’s neighbours said she had not been seen there for days. Her brother Reda al-Sadat, 46, said from his home in Arlington, Texas: “She is not interested in talking to the press.” Their father Moheb, 68, added at his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: “I am not interested. We have no comment.” Ms Pederson’s colleagues at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama said she was away from her office, although a spokesman there said: “This is a very private matter. She is co-operating with the authorities in Britain. She will not be speaking to the press; we would not have her do that.”

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