A renowned scientist who led the condemnation of the Covid lab leak theory privately believed it was 'highly likely', leaked messages show.

Dr Kristian Andersen, a Danish evolutionary biologist, co-authored a now-notorious research paper published in March 2020 that denounced the origin scenario as a conspiracy theory and xenophobic.

Yet Slack messages obtained by DailyMail.com show how just weeks before the publication of that paper, Dr Andersen told colleagues the idea of a lab leak was 'not some fringe theory' and was, in fact, 'highly likely' the genesis of the pandemic.

Separate, publicly-available communications between the virologist and his co-authors show how the group backed the natural origin theory - the idea the virus jumped from an animal to a person in the wild - for 'political' reasons and feared pinning the blame on the Chinese lab would cause a ‘s***show’ and threaten future funding of virus manipulation research.

Critics say the messages show how the scientific community conspired to censor debate about the origins of the pandemic, but the scientists involved claim they changed their minds between sending the messages and writing the paper.