Cast your mind back to early 2003. Do you remember the
'Ricin Plot' in London? Do you remember how
Colin Powell conflated this with Iraq and used it to justify the invasion of that country. Well, the only problem is that there never was any ricin involved in the 'Ricin Plot'!
According to an
article in today's Independent,
No ricin was ever found in the Wood Green flat - just a small number of ingredients for the manufacture of ricin. The announcement from David Veness and Pat Troop that "a small amount of the material recovered from the Wood Green premises has tested positive for the presence of ricin poison" was misleading: the tests were only capable of indicating that ricin might be present. But they did not establish its presence.
On 7 January, chemical weapons experts at the government research facility at Porton Down carried out more accurate tests into the presence of ricin. These tests established that there was no ricin. Curiously, Porton Down apparently did not pass on this information to the British Government until late March. And apparently the Government never asked for the results of this definitive test. The existence of ricin continued to be proclaimed for over two years.
It makes you wonder about all the other ricin plots.