UK minister met Kelly before his suicide

British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had spoken with arms expert David Kelly sometime before his apparent suicide following a row between the government and the BBC over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the defence ministry confirmed Sunday.

"Some time ago, Hoon bumped into Dr Kelly in the staff canteen and they had a chat," a defence ministry spokesman said.

The spokesman refused to say whether the conversation came before or after the Iraq war or what subjects were discussed.

The Sunday Mirror tabloid, the strongest voice of opposition to the Iraq war in Britain, said Kelly had told Hoon of his concern that their was not enough evidence to justify military action.

Kelly's corpse was discovered on July 18 in a woods close to London, several days after he was grilled by a parliamentary committee investigating the government's intelligence claims.

His death has left Prime Minister Tony Blair faced with the worst political crisis of his career and plummeting in the opinion polls.

Kelly was the principal source of BBC reports that Blair's communications director, Alastair Campbell, spiced up the intelligence on Iraq in a government dossier published last September.

The parliamentary probe cleared Campbell of exerting "improper influence" in the drafting of the file.

BBC chairman Gavyn Davies reignited the row Sunday, accusing the government of threatening the state broadcaster's independence in revenge for its reports on the Iraq weapons dossier.

"Our integrity is under attack and we are chastised for taking a different view on editorial matters from that of the government and its supporters," Davies told the right-wing Sunday Telegraph newspaper.