Commento: la TPS (Triest Prefect Syndrome, o anche GPS, "Grimaldi Prefect Syndrome") è una malattia in base alla quale, persone apparentemente normali, compiono azioni assurde assumendo a giustificazione: "Stavo solo ubbidendo agli ordini". Si tratta di un grave disturbo della personalità che nei secoli ha prodotto enormi danni al genere umano. Eppure in Inghilterra, nonostante i noti casi "ante litteram" delle SS nei campi di concentramento della Germania nazista, si rifiutano di riconoscere i sintomi di questa grave patologia.

[Medline record in process]

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Richiesta di revoca della nomina a Prefetto del Dott. Grimaldi
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HUNDREDS of former servicemen will today learn just how they were used as illegal human guinea pigs by defence scientists at the top secret Porton Down research base.

They will receive an unprecedented letter from police investigating allegations that servicemen were duped into horrifying experiments with nerve agents, mustard gas and LSD. Each individual will learn, many for the first time, exactly what was done to them in the experiments at the base on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.

Det Supt Gerry Luckett has sent more than 400 personal letters to veterans telling each of them what agent they were given at Porton, adding: "The inquiry will continue along the same rigorous and searching lines." The letter from Det Supt Luckett, head of Wiltshire Police's Operation Antler, also reveals that his team have been to the US to make inquiries at the Pentagon and other top secret military establishments to "locate and secure independent evidence".

It also confirms that individual scientists could be arrested and questioned on charges of assault, wounding and the administration of poisons, a fact first revealed in the Daily Express exclusively last month. The 400 men and women will get the information about their cases from Porton Down records seized in Operation Antler. They had volunteered for common cold research and instead were given Sarin or Tabun nerve gas, mustard gas or mind-bending drugs, as well as biological agents, without their knowledge.

In some cases the victims have waited decades for information withheld by the Ministry of Defence that could have been vital to doctors treating them for a host of serious illnesses.

In the letter Det Supt Luckett makes it clear he is not going to countenance the excuse "I was only obeying orders". He says he is only targeting cases where "the individuals responsible for the studies must still be alive in order to provide evidence as witnesses or be formally interviewed as potential offenders".

He adds: "The final decision for prosecution is one for the Crown Prosecution Service. The Ministry of Defence itself cannot be prosecuted because of what is known as Crown Immunity. That immunity, however, does not apply to individuals, either currently or formerly employed by the MoD, who have committed criminal offences." The letter says he is satisfied with progress so far and that additional staff have been taken on with an extra budget of £870,000 from the Home Office for the investigation.

He tells the volunteers that he has not yet produced conclusive evidence about long-term health effects or premature deaths as a result of the experiments carried out on a total of some 26,000 servicemen taken to Porton Down from the Fifties right up until 1989.

But he says he is concerned enough to "feel compelled to inform you that participation in the experiments involving exposure to chemical agents may have produced adverse health effects in some individuals". The MoD has not volunteered any information on individual cases but servicemen who have inquired about their cases in the last year have been told what happened to them.

However, Det Supt Luckett tells the volunteers: "It is clear from examination of Porton Down records that those records in many cases are neither totally accurate nor complete.

"This may assist in explaining any discrepancies between your recollection of your time at Porton Down and the contents of the letters you have received [from the Ministry]."

He also advises the ex-servicemen who stayed loyal to the Official Secrets Act to ignore it and says: "The MoD has advised that the OSA should not prevent you from discussing your experiences with either your GP or the police."

Ken Earl, of the Porton Down Veterans Support Group, said: "This will be a very distressing time for many people who will learn for the first time what is at the roots of the many serious illnesses they have suffered.

"But, distressing as it is, it is a welcome and refreshing move. It is sad that this information which should have been offered to us years ago by the ministry that abused us has had to come from the police.

"In my own case it took me six months after I asked Porton for the information last year to be told that I had been given Sarin nerve gas in 1954. I think we see the Wiltshire police as our saviours."