MI6 Chief Backs Wuhan Lab Theory, Blasts China’s Co-Opting of Scientific Community.

A former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service insisted it was “far more likely” COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab as opposed to originating in nature, calling out “significant Chinese influence” from preventing an open debate on virus origins. 

Sir Richard Dearlove, who headed the agency between 1999 and 2004, added that aspects of the virus “point in the direction of it being somewhat tailored.” Dearlove also slammed the Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up of relevant data and the recent World Health Organization investigation as “farcical.”

“I think there’s a balance of probability. Obviously, if it cannot be proven, and I don’t think it can, because the evidence that could have proved it one way or another has been destroyed, because of the extent of the Chinese clean up,” Dearlove asserted.

While he conceded “it’s possible” the virus jumped to humans from nature, the former intelligence chief reasoned “it’s far more likely, if you’re a scientist, that it was put together.”

“I think the onus is on the Chinese to prove that it’s zoonotic because the evidence strongly suggests to me and a number of eminent scientists that the greater probability is is that it’s a lab escapee,” he adds while asking for an “open debate” on the origins of COVID-19. “I think that there is a significant Chinese influence active in this specific area, and China has worked very, very hard in terms of influence in finance to make sure their narrative is dominant,” he emphasizes.