Caught out at the start of an East Asia tour by the worst crisis in his six years in power, a visibly exhausted Blair said nothing when asked, point-blank, at a press conference if he had "blood on his hands" and might resign.

Instead, he stared silently out across the room full of journalists and television cameras for several tense seconds and then with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at his side, left the room.

Minutes before, Blair reiterated the stance he took earlier Saturday on the startling death of David Kelly, 59, a Ministry of Defense consultant on biological weapons and former UN arms inspector in Iraq -- that an independent judicial inquiry must be allowed to run its course and find out the truth.

"I totally understand why you would like me to go back into what I said earlier," said Blair, who was meeting Koizumi and spending the night in the Japanese mountain spa resort of Hakone.

"But I think what is important is that there is some due process, and the reason for having an inquiry -- and I think people would have expected us to have one because of the tragedy that has occurred -- is so that the facts can be established," he said.

"I don't think it's right for anyone, ourselves or anybody else, to make a judgement until we have the facts."

Kelly's body was found in a wooded area near his home in Oxfordshire, west of London, on Friday, a day after he was reported missing by his family -- and three days after he denied being the source of a hotly disputed BBC news report in late May alleging that a February dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been "sexed up" by Downing Street.

Hours after Blair's press conference, police in London revealed that Kelly had died after apparently slashing his own wrist.

"A post-mortem has revealed that the cause of death was haemhoragging from a wound to his left wrist," said Acting Superintendent David Purnell said, adding that there was no evidence anyone else was involved.

Blair vigorously denies that any intelligence data -- including a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in just 45 minutes -- was abused to shore up the case for war.

Kelly acknowledged both contributing to the February dossier and knowing Andrew Gilligan, a BBC defence specialist who aired the original report.

But he denied to the House of Commons foreign affairs committee Tuesday that he had been the story's main source -- prompting speculation that he had been set up by Blair's government as the fall guy.

Kelly's wife was quoted Saturday as telling the New York Times newspaper that, according to police, it appeared that he took his own life.

His death shattered the glory in which Blair basked in Washington on Thursday, where he got a hero's welcome on Capitol Hill for a speech to the joint houses of Congress on the threat of terrorists and rogue states.

But his marathon tour of East Asia, which takes him Sunday to Seoul and Beijing, and ends Thursday in Hong Kong, was still on track, despite calls by opposition Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith for him to return home.

"It's an important trip... We carry on," a Downing Street spokesman said.

In Britain, major newspapers Saturday rounded on Blair, accusing his government of using Kelly as a scapegoat and a diversion from the real question of why Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had yet to be found.

"Death of the dossier fall guy" was the page-one headline of the Daily Telegraph, while the Daily Mail attacked the government's treatment of Kelly under the headline "Proud of yourselves?"

The Financial Times termed the death "an immense blow" to the government.

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