U.S. questions 2001 anthrax accusation

WASHINGTON, July 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department is questioning the case against an Army scientist accused of sending anthrax in the mail in 2001, court papers show.

After Bruce Ivins committed suicide in 2008, the FBI said he was the killer who sent the poisoned letters to senators and media figures. Officials said he had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.

But now, in papers filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Justice Department lawyers say the sealed area in Ivins' lab lacked the equipment to turn liquid anthrax into the deadly refined powder. The documents were entered in a wrongful-death suit by Maureen Stevens, widow of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at The Sun tabloid, and uncovered by reporters for McClatchy Newspapers, ProPublica and PBS' "Frontline."

The government said it still believes Ivins was "more likely than not" the killer but did not explain where or how he could have made the powder.

Searches of Ivins' car and home in 2007 found no anthrax spores, and the FBI never gave direct evidence that he mailed the letters.