A "limited hangout" is used by Intelligence Organizations when a clandestine operation goes bad; or, a phoney cover story blows up. When discovered the Intelligence Organization volunteers some of the truth while still managing to withhold key and damaging facts in the case. The public is so intrigued by the new information it doesn't pursue the matter further. The new disclosures are sensational, but superficially so...
The public remains in the dark, and the guilty escape punishment.

[In this case Melanie Phillips uses the Kelly investigation, where an inquest is unlikely due to the lack of what is called a 'properly interested person' (which would need to be Mrs Kelly), to draw attention away from the Diana investigation, which, with its inquest pending, is potentially more damaging to key figures in the establishement. Her article comes at a time when it is obvious that a new coroner in the Diana case is to be specially selected for a cover-up. -- RT]

A Prime Example of the 'Limited Hangout'

by Rixon Stewart

July 24, 2006

[Melanie Phillips']....article [below] is what is known as a “limited hangout”. It admits that Dr Kelly’s death may not have been suicide but this is largely because Norman Baker’s dogged persistence has unearthed facts that simply cannot be refuted.

As a result to deny that Dr Kelly took his own life might soon be to invite accusations of wilful blindness. However, the objective of the “limited hangout” is to establish credibility and then use it to conceal even bigger crimes.

The articles writer's attempt to establish some semblance of credibility is undermined from the start, however. As Melanie Phillips quickly reveals herself to be the sort of journalist regularly used by Britain’s security establishment to do their dirty work.

Doing nothing more than regurgitating Norman Baker’s original revelations, which were already in the public domain anyway, she simply calls for a “full inquest” into this “disturbing mystery.” She reveals nothing new other than to say Dr Kelly’s “suicide” was “suspicious”.

Nonetheless, the give away comes in the opening sentences where she describes anyone who believes “Princess Diana was murdered by MI6” as a “conspiracy “theorist” and obviously not to be taken seriously. This, despite the fact that an ongoing inquiry into Princess Diana’s death, headed by the former head of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Stevens, has amassed a solid body of evidence that suggests Princess Diana was indeed murdered. While Lord Steven’s inquiry has been ongoing for months now, the rest of Britain’s press and the likes of Melanie Phillips have been conspicuously silent on an investigation of momentous import. With the notable exception of the Daily Express, the rest of Britain’s media has virtually ignored the £4 million inquiry.

Of course, that is not to say the David Kelly’s “suicide” is not significant. But even if it is revealed as murder it could still be blamed on the CIA or Mossad or even, as Melanie Phillips suggests, the “Iraqi secret service”.

Whoever might be named the fallout would be far less than if Britain’s Establishment were revealed as being behind Diana’s death. All of which may explain why Britain’s so-called “free press” and the likes of Melanie Phillips have ignored former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson, his damming affidavit and attempts by the British Establishment to muzzle him.

So, breathing not a word about an investigation that could have historic ramifications, the likes of Melanie Phillips are essentially involved in a damage control exercise. Naturally Melanie Phillips may simply be doing the bidding of an editor or she may simply be unaware of the facts and ignorant. Either way the end result is the same.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=4860

THE FORENSIC TESTIMONY: HIDDEN MESSAGES?

E-mail from a highly qualified UK pathologist (bold/coloured type from the author for emphasis):

I would like to point out three responses by forensic pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt to questions from Lord Hutton, (Hutton Report, pp 91-92)

Hunt's first response is quoted thus - "There is no positive pathological evidence that this man had been subjected to a sustained violent assault prior to his death".

The second response is thus - "There was no positive pathological evidence to indicate that he has been subjected to compression of the neck, such as by manual strangulation, ligature strangulation or the use of an arm hold."

Hutton could have asked, "Am I to understand from your answer that if you included slightly less than positive pathological evidence, and violent assault had not been sustained, but still quite prolonged, then your conclusion could have been different?"

The third response is thus - "No, there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly's death. Rather the features are quite typical, I would say, of self inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of this case."

What on earth did Hunt mean by that?

We should also note that Hunt refers to self inflicted injury, not death.

We have to conclude that Hutton did not pursue these curious statements because he did not want the real answer.

Please draw these points in the Hutton Report to others who may be interested.

-------------------------------

To these points one might also add, the remarks of the forensic toxicologist, Mr Allan:

Q. Mr Allan, is there anything else which you know of which might have contributed to the circumstances ofDr Kelly's death?

A. From the toxicological point of view, no. [Why was he not asked what other, non-toxicological, observations he had?]

LORD HUTTON: Mr Allan, if a third party had wanted paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene to be found in Dr Kelly's blood is there any way that the third party could have brought that about by either persuading or forcing Dr Kelly to take tablets containing those two substances?

A. It is possible, but I think it would be.... [why was he not allowed to finish?]

LORD HUTTON: That is the only way that those substances could be found in the blood, by taking tablets containing them?

A. Yes, he has to ingest those tablets.

[Actually that is not true, he did not have to ingest the tablets - the two components of co-proxamol, dextropropoxyphene and paracetamol, are available in liquid form and can be administered by injection].

Any comments?

Rowena Thursby RowenaThursby@onetel.com
Kelly Investigation Group
Tel: 01425 638409

Will we ever be told the truth about the death of Dr David Kelly?

by MELANIE PHILLIPS
Daily Mail

Everyone knows, don't they, that most untoward events generally have banal explanations such as muddle, incompetence or sheer blind chance.

To believe otherwise is to run the risk of being branded a 'conspiracy theorist', a small step away from being lumped together with the kind of people who think that crop circles are designed by visitors from Mars or that Princess Diana was murdered by MI6.

The death of the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly in 2003 triggered a political firestorm of the highest order. His apparent suicide put the Government under enormous pressure following his unmasking as the source of the BBC's claim that the Government had 'sexed up' the case for war in Iraq.

All attention focused on the epic battle between Alastair Campbell and the BBC over this claim, and the treatment the Government meted out to Dr Kelly.

Even though the inquiry into the affair by Lord Hutton exonerated ministers and officials of virtually all charges, merely rebuking them for not having warned Dr Kelly that his name was about to be made public, the Government was still widely blamed for driving him to his death.

Suspicions

Right from the start, however, there were many who were not convinced Dr Kelly had taken his own life at all. Many aspects of the story just didn't seem to add up. First was the character of the man and his demeanour on the day he died.

Although he was under intense pressure, he was known to be a strong character and belonged to the Baha'i faith, which prohibits suicide.

Those closest to him (such as his sister), and even neighbours he met on his last walk, said that on the day he died he had shown no signs of depression.

The Hutton inquiry, and the experts it called, dismissed out of hand any idea that Dr Kelly had not killed himself. But the suspicions wouldn't go away, and developed a life of their own on the internet.

Claims were made that Dr Kelly's body had been moved from its original prone position on the ground, and propped up against a tree. Items said to have been found near his body had not been seen by the paramedics who first found him. And so on.

Such claims were given considerably more authority in 2004 when three medical specialists wrote in a letter to the Press that they did not believe the official finding that Dr Kelly died either from haemorrhaging from a severed ulnar artery in his wrist, or from an overdose of coproxamol tablets, or a combination of the two.

Such an artery, they said, was of matchstick thickness and severing it would not lead to the kind of blood loss that would kill someone. They also pointed out that, according to the ambulance team at the scene, the quantity of blood around the body was minimal - hardly what one would expect if someone has just haemorrhaged to death.

Even stranger, although Dr Kelly was said to have swallowed 29 coproxamol tablets, only one-fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach, and the level found in his blood was far less than a fatal dose.

Despite the expertise of these sceptics, their claims went largely unnoticed. The implications seemed too far-fetched to be taken seriously. After all, if Dr Kelly did not commit suicide, and clearly didn't just drop dead of natural causes, he must have been killed.

Who could have done such a deed? The Iraqi secret service? Our own? Shadowy terrorists lying in wait in the Oxfordshire woods armed with undetectable poisons and an array of evidence to lay a false trail and bamboozle everyone?

No, this kind of thinking properly belonged in the pages of John Le Carre's fiction.

But now, it has not only been taken up within Parliament, but the original charges of inconsistency have been embellished with much more evidence which can no longer be ignored.

Discrepancies

The tenacious Lib Dem MP Norman Baker gave up his front-bench job to investigate these claims. What he has uncovered is remarkable and poses questions which demand to be answered.

Mr Baker has not only found experts who confirm the analysis of the three doctors about the discrepancies and scientific improbabilities in the official account.

He has also discovered that only one person in the UK was said to have killed himself by slitting his ulnar artery that year - and that was Dr Kelly.

This is hardly surprising since this is just about the most improbable way to commit suicide, made even more difficult by the inappropriate knife that Dr Kelly is said to have used.
More explosively still, however, are Mr Baker's discoveries (published in yesterday's Mail on Sunday) about the behaviour of the police and the coroner.

The normal practice in such circumstances would be for the coroner to issue a temporary death certificate pending the official inquiry into such a death.
But in this case, the coroner issued an unprecedented full death certificate, just one week after the inquiry started into the circumstances of Dr Kelly's demise ? and after the coroner had held a meeting with Home Office officials.
What on earth could have been the point of such a meeting at such a sensitive time, except for the Government to direct the coroner in some unspecified and possibly improper way?
As for the police, their behaviour appears to have been even more bizarre.
According to Mr Baker, their operation to investigate Dr Kelly's death started around nine hours before the weapons expert was reported missing. What astounding prescience! With such psychic powers among the police, one wonders there is any crime at all.

Many of these curiosities surfaced in evidence to the Hutton inquiry, only to be batted away. Lord Hutton's brief was simply to inquire into 'the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly'. Clearly, he could have investigated the manner of his death, but he chose not to do so.

Inexperienced

Instead, he took it as a given that Dr Kelly had taken his own life - and stated that he was satisfied by claims which we are now told were scientifically impossible, that Dr Kelly killed himself by slitting his left wrist and that his death was hastened by the number of coproxamol tablets he had taken.

Mr Baker claims that Lord Hutton was chosen at speed by a cabal around the Prime Minister because he was inexperienced and could be relied upon to toe the line.

When his report exonerated the Government, he was rounded upon as a patsy by those who were certain that it had Dr Kelly's blood on its hands. But maybe, just like Lord Hutton himself, such critics missed the fact that he had asked the wrong questions altogether.

Now, it has taken just one terrier-like MP to unearth all this information.
Why has no official body asked the same questions about all these obvious peculiarities? Why has no one given a straight answer to those who have raised them?

What is the point of going to the expense and public performance of a high-profile official inquiry, only to find that the most basic of questions about evidence that is either contradictory or doesn't stand up to scrutiny haven't even been asked?

In the light of all this, the coroner's decision not to resume the inquest into Dr Kelly's death because there were 'no exceptional circumstances' appears totally unsustainable. A full inquest is now imperative to get to the bottom of this disturbing mystery once and for all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=397340&in_page_id=1787&in_a_source

Rowena Thursby
Kelly Investigation Group
Tel: 01425 638409

COMMENTS:

I tend to agree, I was never happy with the story of suicide, it did not add up.

- John, Exeter, England


When Tony Blair meets his maker, he has a lot to as forgiveness for - I hope he is not forgiven.

- Karen, Ex Pat


This whole affair stinks from start to finish. A lot of reasonably intelligent people in the UK probably feel the same way.

- Darren Marsh, Chessington, Surrey


I never believed in the Hutton report. Dr Kelly was viewed as the culprit by the government and yet they are the ones appointing an investigator. Fox guarding the hen house.

- Nathan, Milwaukee,Wisconsin


Norman Baker's points are all very good but one thing has been left out. In a special report published by the Daily Mail on Saturday 6th March 2004 by Sue Reid it stated in the third paragraph: 'Even before Lord Hutton's historic judgment, Mai Pederson, an American army intelligence officer and confidante of Dr. Kelly, said the scientist would never have taken his own life. More intriguingly, she explained that he hated all types of pill. He even had trouble swallowing a headache tablet.'

- Louise Mclean, London


Norman Baker MP gives a series of compelling reasons for doubting that Dr David Kelly committed suicide. But who murdered him? Who stood to profit from his death? The government certainly did not. The immediate result was an acute political crisis for Tony Blair. Even with the appointment of the "safe" Lord Hutton in charge, Blair had no guarantee that the Hutton inquiry would clear him and as it happened the evidence given to the inquiry did lasting damage to his reputation. Moreover, if a professional killer had murdered Dr Kelly would he not have made a more convincing appearance of suicide?

- Richard, London, England


With plausable deniability and spin I wouldn't put anything past this Blair Government.

- Mike, Denia, Spain


The truth will never be known. - Peter, London


How obvious was it that Dr Kelly's death was not suicide.

- Helen, UK


The whole episode is indeed a bit 'smelly' and should be independently investigated.

- Freddie, Northants


Considering how much blood this government has on its hands through incompetence and design, a lot of people might figure this was murder.

- Ryk, London


One poster asks what would the Government have to gain. Dr Kelly was not a 'middle' ranking civil servant he was depicted as in the 'spin'. He was the worlds expert on WMD, who had sat alongside Tony Blair in briefings. He was privy to vasts amounts of information on The Russians, the Iranians, as well as Iraq. When someone is cornered and has integrity they will come out fighting. Whilst the Inquiry did some damage, further disclosures by Dr Kelly would probably have destroyed Blair's Government. I have no doubts he was murdered, at the behest of who? Make your own minds up.

- Robert Feal-Martinez, Swindon, England


I totally agree with the above as I considered from the first sighting of the Hutton report that it was complete whitewash. I was also appalled at the manner of questioning when Dr Kelly was before the original committee. Those who questioned him ought to hang their heads in shame.

- J.Fleming, St.Neot, Cambs.


I agree with Mr Baker too many things dont add up. Sadly I doubt if the truth will ever come out and we have lost a very clever man to help keep this trash running the country in office. It is my opinion that they where afraid of what may come out through Dr Kelly so he was killed like many of our troops on Blairs orders in a unjust war.

- K Harrop, Herts


Yes, let's have an independent enquiry, Mr Baker should press for this. If the Government have nothing to hide then they have everything to gain.

- Brian, England


This case just stinks from top to bottom.

- Gordon Myatt, Swansea UK


If it was not suicide, then it can only have been a murder! If it was murder, who would have the motive and opportunity?Doesn't bear thinking about does it.

- Thomas, Dubai


Dr Kelly had the 'guts' to speak out. That alone makes nonsense of his so called suicide. I feel so sad for his family.

- Molly, Oxford


We will never know what actually happened but one thing is for sure, with such a corrupt Goverment in place, anything is possible.

- B.Baker, Spalding, England


I've always believed this scientist was murdered by the establishment. Tony Blair was proved a liar when he denied he had anything to do with the naming of this man and then admitted it under pressure from a journalist. Like this lying incompetent government the whole thing is a charade!

- Brian James, Alhaurin El Grande, Spain


I agree that the Inquest into David Kelly's death should be re-opened. The Hutton Inquiry was a total whitewash. The two people who discovered David Kelly's body stated it was slumped against a tree. Shortly after the discovery three policemen appeared who were not part of the official search team. The three policemen stayed with the body until more police arrived. From then on everyone who saw the body stated it to be in a supine position with the head at the base of the tree. Why had the body been moved? At the Hutton Inquiry one of the three policemen stated there was only one other person with him. Who was the third person? The two paramedics who attended the site were concerned about the lack of blood at the scene. There are too many inconsitencies concerning this case, so keep on pushing Mr Baker.

- Stuart Jessop, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England


Just another cover up by the 'mafia' of a government. How much longer are we going to put up with lies and deciet?

- Jacqueline Butterworth, England


Only a haemophiliac would bleed to death from a severed artery in the wrist. The body has wonderful mechanisms in place to deal with that type of injury and would have stopped the bleeding very quickly indeed. To my mind the crucial, yet unanswered question is, 'How much blood did Dr Kelly actually lose'? The painkillers certainly didn't kill him therefore the area around him would have had to be positively swimming in blood.

- Midge Curry, Bakewell, England


There is definitely more than reasonable doubt that Doctor Kelly's death was suspicious.

- Frank Sweeney, Chalgrove Oxfordshire


It's very doubtful if the general public will ever find out the true facts surrounding David Kelly's death.The whole thing stinks of a cover up from on high. Blair and his cronies picked Hutton to lead the investigation into the death was because they knew he would reach the "right" conclusion.

- Stratford, Hants.


This is most likely another example of what I know as "the time value of the truth".Most enquiries of this nature are now aimed at simply putting off the time when the truth might out. That is why semi-competent procrastinators are usually chosen to lead them (with as little knowledge of the issues as possible), difficulties are thrown in the way about access to witnesses etc. The theory is that a holding exercise will satisfy the great British public and it usually does. By the time a report is produced, many people have forgotten the issues. Lots of rumblings take place, but a form of investigation has been followed.Then several years later the truth starts to seep out. But it is usually too late for a real investigation to take place and the guilty get away with it. That is our cynical shadowy democracy in action and how many times have we seen it recently? Until we manage to recover our democracy we are probably all at risk.

- Tom, Bedfordshire

If there is any doubt whatsoever with how this poor man died it should be investigated and whoever was responsible charged and brought before a court. If a mans life has become so unimportant in this country we have allowed ourselves to be lead to a sorry place. It's time that the truth surrounding Dr Kelly's death together with the connection to the war in Iraq was made clear.

- Mike, Coventry

As was said sometime ago about a certain other matter, there are dark forces about of which we have no knowledge.

- Sandra, Grimsby

The death of David Kelly is a tragedy - for his family, for his country and for the world. As much as I understand the interest in his death for those of you that never had the honour of knowing him, I would like to remind you that above all, David was a human being and not just a great dinner conversation topic.

- Anonymous, Durham

Having watched Dr Kelly being 'grilled' by the Select Committee before his death, I was extremely distressed and disturbed at the appalling way he was being questioned. His name should never have become public; Andrew Gilligan was right in what he said and the BBC gave in to the Government bullies. Yes, there is something deeply suspicious about Dr Kelly's demise and the 'smoking gun' points straight at the Government.

- Anne Smith, France

This has a ring of "Who will rid me of this troublesome scientist?" about it.

- Steve H, London

The past 4 years would be enough to make any thinking person give up on the political processs. But then people like Norman Baker come along and restore your faith in the human race a little more. David Kelly was also one of those people. The day I heard of his death will go down as one of those days you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing. I don't think the leaders of this government know the meaning of the word shame but fortunately some of us still do. I wish with all my heart that the truth of this matter is exposed - together with the real reasons we went to war in Iraq!

- C Duval, Windsor

How long now before Norman Baker has a mysterious 'accident'?

- Jan, London

I remember quite a few months ago, on a Sunday, two ambulance personnel appeared on the evening news stating that they did not belive Dr Kellys death was suicide. They were the two personnel who attended the scene. I never saw any follow up news reports on this matter, neither did I see follow up newspaper reports. They stated that the amount of drugs taken by Doctor Kelly was not enough to kill him, even with the wrist wounds. I remember thinking how admirable it was for them to come out fighting and how sad it was that it would not come to anything.It is an absolute travesty to say that this man committed suicide.

- Alex, Reading

The enquiry skated over any reconciliation between the number of Coproximol tablets missing from Mrs Kelly's bathroom and such residue remaining in Dr Kelly's system, not withstanding that this was brought to their attention. The enquiry should be reopened.

- Paul Irby, London, United Kingdom

Anonymous I am sure I am not alone in being surprised at your post. You are correct we did not have the privilege of knowing Dr Kelly, but there is not a post on this article, that in anyway makes him any less than a hero to stand up to Government. We are all calling for justice for him and his family. This is not dinner party gossip this is real concern for a man who we all believe was murdered for knowing too much.

- Robert Feal-Martinez, Swindon, England

In "The Gathering Storm" a film about Churchill between the wars, a Civil Servant giving him information to use in Parliament against the Government is given the ultimatum by a superior. Commit suicide and your widow will receive a pension. If we prosecute she will not. When I saw the film a few months ago the apparent parallel to Dr Kelly was unmistakable.

- Stephen Argles, Bromborough, Wirral

I watched with disgust the harassment of Dr. Kelly by some bullies on the Select Committee and I saw how superior he was, both in intellect and integrity, to his tormentors. After that display, I didn't expect any report emanating from an inquiry set up by the government to be impartial, so I did not believe it - neither did anyone else I spoke to at the time. I really hope Mr. Norman Baker will receive the support from MPs necessary to establish another, independent, inquiry into the matter. Only greater transparencyconcerning the activities of our government will restore confidence in the democratic system, dented by the presidential style of the prime minister at No.10.

- Eric, Swansea

What the pro-war lobby hoped for from Kelly was that his appearance in front of the committee would establish that (a) he was the Gilligan source and that (b) Gilligan had misrepresented his views. When Kelly denied that he was the source he became instantly nothing but a liabilty to those who wanted us to go to war. Ironically Kelly was pro-war, and furthermore in a BBC interview which pre-dates Gilligan's he was recording using the phrase 'made sexier'.The suspicious circumstances of his death demand a proper inquest.

- David Cox, London, England

I believe David Kelly did not commit suicide - and I will prove it

By Norman Baker MP

The Mail on Sunday
23 July 2006

The weapons inspector’s death, three years ago this month, caused a firestorm of controversy. Now this MP – using parliamentary questions, privileged access and forensic analysis – has mounted his own investigation, and it casts a devastating new light on what really happened.

Three years ago, one of those events occurred that suddenly and dramatically change the political landscape. Dr David Kelly, the UK's leading weapons inspector, was found dead under a tree on Harrowdown Hill, Oxfordshire. An inquiry set up under Lord Hutton duly found that Dr Kelly committed suicide.

Today I challenge that conclusion. I do so on the basis that the medical evidence available simply cannot support it, that Dr Kelly's own behaviour and character argues strongly against it, and that there were serious shortcomings in the way the legal and investigative processes set up to consider his death were followed.

After months of intensive enquiry, I reveal new evidence which:

· Shows that the alleged method of suicide chosen, far from being common, was in fact unique. Dr Kelly was the only person in the whole of the UK in 2003 deemed to have died in this way

· Reveals irregularities in the actions of the coroner, relating to the issuing death certificate.

· Proves that the pathologist chosen by the coroner to investigate the death had been on the Home Office approved list for just two years, less than almost all the other 43 approved pathologists.

· Raises questions about the actions taken by the police who attended Dr Kelly's house when he was reported missing, actions which a very senior police officer told me were bizarre.

· Uncovers the cosy cabal of friends of Tony Blair who hand-picked Lord Hutton, and why, and who fixed the rules for his inquiry

The weeks leading up to Dr Kelly's death in 2003 had been charged and eventful. In mid-March, British and American forces had invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein was deposed and on May 1, US President George Bush declared 'mission accomplished', a claim that rings rather hollow now. Then, on May 29, came the allegations, broadcast by the BBC, that the intelligence information about Iraq, which in an unprecedented move the Government had decided to release, had been 'sexed up' to make the case for war stronger, particularly with the assertion that Saddam could have chemical or biological ready to fire within 45 minutes.

No 10's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, went ballistic and launched a blistering attack on the BBC, determined in particular to wreck the career of Today programme reporter Andrew Gilligan. David Kelly had provided Mr Gilligan and others in the BBC with much of the ammunition for the claim that the dossier released by the Government to justify war had been presented in a way that stretched the available intelligence to breaking point. He, along with others in the know, was deeply unhappy about the added spin.

In the end, to further the Government's vendetta with the BBC, the Ministry of Defence and No 10 acted to ensure Dr Kelly's name became public. He was thrust into the unwelcome glare of publicity and made to appear in a Soviet-style televised appearance before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

The standard explanation then was that Dr Kelly, a very private man, felt humiliated by this process and let down by the MoD, and he recognised that his actions in speaking to journalists would bring his career to an effective end. They would certainly prevent him from returning to Iraq to do what he did best and enjoyed most uncovering hidden weapons and weapons programmes, so making the world a safer place. And so, according to this view, he left his cottage in Southmoor, walked into the woods and took his own life through a combination of wrist injuries and an overdose of the painkiller co-proxamol. A personal tragedy but nothing more. Case closed.

Except I never subscribed to this conclusion. There were too many unanswered questions, none of which was resolved by the Hutton Inquiry As time has gone by, those questions have gnawed away at me. And I am not alone. In January 2004, three doctors - David Halpin, a specialist in trauma and orthopaedic surgery, Stephen Frost, a specialist in diagnostic radiology, and Searle Sennett, a specialist in anaesthesiology - voiced their doubts about the suicide verdict in a letter to The Guardian. They said Dr Kelly could not have killed himself in the way described to the Hutton Inquiry. Now, having resigned my frontbench role for the Lib Dems earlier this year, I have found the time to conduct my own investigation.

The first problematic area concerns the severed artery in Dr Kelly's wrist. Those who are familiar with the human body will, if they choose to die this way, make an incision the length of the inside forearm because this leads to a very large loss of blood. Those unfamiliar with the body may cut across the wrist, thereby severing the radial artery. Instead, we are asked to believe that Dr Kelly managed to completely sever the ulnar artery, a minor artery of matchstick thickness to be found deep in the wrist on the little finger side of the hand, and protected by nerves and tendons.

It is difficult to believe Dr Kelly would have made this cut. It would have requlred unusual force to cut through the nerves and tendons, particularly with the gardening knife he had, and the process would have been painlul. Even if he did somehow cut this artery himself; it is quite clear that this would not have killed him. I spoke to David Halpin, the former senior orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at Torbay Hospital and The Princess Elizabeth, Exeter. He told me that even the deepest cut here would not have caused death. He also told me that 'a completely transected [severed] artery retracts immediately I and thus stops bleeding, even at a relatively high blood pressure'.

Then there is the evidence of the ambulance team who attended the scene where Dr Kelly was found. They told the Hutton Inquiry that the amount of blood found at the site and on Dr Kelly's clothing was minimal and surprisingly small.

I contacted Dave Bartlett, the ambulance technician who, with paramedic Vanessa Hunt, formed the team that attended the scene. He told me last month that the two of them 'stand by what we have already said 100 per cent'. Vanessa Hunt has said that, in her view 'it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw'.

Could Dr Kelly nevertheless have died from the blood he lost? I tracked down Dr Sennett and his response was clear:

'For a man the size of Dr Kelly to die from haemorrhage, he would have to lose at least three litres of blood. I suggest that it would be impossible to lose a lethal amount of blood from an ulnar artery which had been cut in the manner described for Dr Kelly.'

Were these doctors right? I wanted to know how many people in the UK died in 2003 from injury to the ulnar artery. I eventually received a formal reply from the National Statistician, Karen Dunnell. The answer? One. Presumably Dr Kelly.

There is also the knife allegedly used for the purpose. This was a blunt gardening knife with a concave blade, a singularly inappropriate weapon to use. To cut through nerves and tendons with such a knife must have been difficult. Dr Kelly, with his scientific background and knowledge of the human body, could without doubt have found an easier way to commit suicide had he wished to do so.

It might be argued that this was a spontaneous suicide and that all he had with him was this particular knife, which he often carried. But that is contradicted by the presence of the coproxamol tablets, which, according to the official explanation, demonstrate premeditation.
This circle simply cannot be squared.

Evidence presented at the Hutton Inquiry invites us to conclude that Dr Kelly removed three blister packs of these tablets, each containing ten tablets, from his house. The police say that they found 29 out of 30 tablets gone, implying therefore that Dr Kelly had consumed these.
It strikes me as odd that Dr Kelly should apparently leave one of the 30 tablets in its place. Surely someone set on suicide will take the maximum dose avallable, not leave one? Of course this remaining tablet did present the police with a rather obvious clue.

Furthermore, Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the inquiry, considered that the amount of each drug component found in the blood was only a third of that which would normally be considered fatal. All that was found in Dr Kelly's stomach was the equivalent of the fifth of one tablet. His stomach was virtually empty, which suggests that even if he did swallow 29 tablets, much would have been regurgitated, making it even less likely that these contributed in any significant way to his death.

Interestingly, those who knew Dr Kelly well maintain that he had an aversion to swallowing tablets.

What about the motive? Wasn't Dr Kelly terribly depressed, potentially even suicidal? Those who knew him find that very difficult to accept.

Sarah Pape, his sister, is a consultant plastic surgeon. Referring to conversations with her brother before his death, she told the Hutton Inquiry:

'In my line of work I deal with people who may have suicidal thoughts, and ought to be able to spot those, even in a telephone conversation. But I have gone over and over in my mind the two conversations we had and he certainly did not betray to me any impression that he was anything other than tired. He certainly did not convey to me that he was feeling depressed, and absolutely nothing that would have alerted me to the fact he might have been considering suicide.'

Of course, these were difficult times for Dr Kelly. He was under enormous pressure, had been thrust into the glare of the public spotlight, and had had a torrid time in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee on July 15, just two days before he went for his last walk. That much is known. Less well known is that his good humour and confidence had at least partly returned on July 16, when he gave evidence in private to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I have read the transcript of that meeting and it shows Dr Kelly laughing and even making jokes.

Then there are the e-malls he sent on the morning of July 17, the day' of his disappearance. These were generally upbeat and talked enthusiastically about returning to Iraq.

So apparently were his phone calls, for after one to the Ministry of Defence, a flight to lraq was booked for him for the following week. One e-mail, however, did refer to 'dark actors playing games'. Who they were, and what games they were playing, has yet to be established. Another factor that mitigates against the suicide theory is that one of Dr Kelly's daughters was due to be married shortly and he was obviously looking forward to that.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten that Dr Kelly was a practicing member of the Baha'i faith, which strongly condemns the act of suicide.

Yet within 24 hours of the e-mails being sent, David Kelly was dead. We had lost the man who had probably done more than anyone else to reduce the threat to the world from biological and chemical weapons.

But with a cruel asymmetry; while Dr Kelly lay dead under a tree, Tony Blair, the mouthpiece of the now discredited 45-minute claim, was being feted by President Bush and being offered the rare honour of a Congressional Medal. The Prime Minister was on a plane from Washington to Tokyo when he was told of Dr Kelly's death. His response was immediate. Before the journey was over, Lord Brian Hutton had been appointed to head an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly'.

How was this breakneck-speed appointment made? Parliament had no say in this. With perfect political timing for the Prime Minister, the Commons had adjourned for its long summer recess at 4.55pm on July 17, just hours before Dr Kelly's body was found. The decision to hold an inquiry; the remit given to it and the choice of the judge to chair it were all decisions for the Government. I have now had it officially confirmed that it was Blair's old friend Charlie Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, who handpicked Lord Hutton, having discussed the matter first with the Prime Minister and formally consulted the Senior Law Lord.

Why choose Lord Hutton? In a parliamentary answer to me, Harriet Harman, the Minister at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, confirmed that he had not chaired any public inquiry before he was asked to undertake this most sensitive of tasks.

There is no suggestion that Lord Hutton is anything other than an independent person of integrity; but his record may have suggested to those choosing him that he would be likely to produce the right result.

In Northern Ireland, where he sat as a judge, he sentenced ten men to a total of 1,001 years' imprisonment in 1984 on the word of a paid informer who was granted immunity from prosecution. As a senior barrister, he had also defended the Government of the day against allegations that internees in Northern Ireland had been tortured. More recently, he led the campaign against the extradition of General Pinochet back to Chile on the grounds that one of the five Law Lords involved in the case had links with the human-rights group Amnesty International.

As Sir Humphrey observed in an episode of [the BBC's] 'Yes, Minister', you don't choose a judge who can be leaned on. You choose one who doesn't have to be.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that what should have been a rigorous investigation into the death of Dr Kelly turned out to be nothing of the sort.

First, the Lord Chancellor decided the inquiry should not, as expected, be held under the rules established by the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. The significance of this is that witnesses could not be subpoenaed. Nor did they have to give evidence under oath. The inquiry was therefore less rigorous and formal than a standard coroner's inquest.

Then there are the actions of the Oxfordshire coroner himself, Nicholas Gardiner. His inquest was adjourned on the instruction of Lord Falconer. But I have unearthed the fact that a full death certificate was issued by the local registrar (following the instructions of the coroner) on August 18 - a week after the Hutton Inquiry started hearing evidence - giving explicit reasons for death.

I have a copy of that certificate. It cites haemorrhage and incised wounds to the left wrist, conclusions that are far from certain for the reasons given above.

When I asked Harriet Harman how it was that the coroner was able to establish cause of death when the Hutton Inquiry had barely started, she replied that he 'was able to ascertain reasons for ... death from the post-mortem report from the Home Office pathologist, Dr Hunt, and the toxicology report from Dr Allen[sicl'. The death certificate, we now learn, was issued as a result of a meeting on August 14 between Dr Hunt, Dr Allan (or their representatives) and the coroner. A parliamentary question I asked has now revealed that this meeting followed an unusual, even irregular, meeting between Home Office officials and the coroner on August 11. Doubtless the officials were able to help guide the coroner on the way forward.

So what was the point of setting up an inquiry to look into the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death when the facts had, it appears, already been decided? And where did that leave the normal inquest procedure, as even that wasn't followed?

More pertinently still, the Coroners Rules required that 'where an inquest has been adjourned for any reason', an interim certificate of death shall be issued if needed. In effect, this is a certificate only to confirm death and allow the body to be buried. Clearly, the rule was not followed in this case.

I discussed the matter with Michael Powers QC, a leading expert on coroners' law, who professed himself astonished that a full death certificate could have been issued in this way. So with the Hutton Inquiry barely started, the Oxfordshire coroner determines the cause of death without the normal inquest procedure, bases this on the severing of the ulnar artery, the only such cause of death in the whole of2003, and relies exclusively, it seems, on Dr Allan, who later would tell the inquiry that the level of coproxamol present was insufficient to cause death, and on the findings of pathologist Nicholas Hunt.

What of Dr Hunt? Who selected him for this task? The Oxfordshire coroner, it turns out. He chose him from a list of pathologists approved from the Home Office as being suitably qualified to be competent to investigate suspicious or violent deaths. I have secured a list of those so approved in 2003. It contains the names of 43 such pathologists, many with great experience, having been added to the list as far back as 1978. Dr Hunt was added to the list only in 2001. Just seven ofthe43 pathologists were added after him.

Now it may be that Dr Hunt has much to recommend him, but in a case as sensitive as this, wouldn't it have been more normal to have selected someone with more experience, or indeed, as Michael Powers suggested to me, to have chosen two pathologists to work together?

The police operation was also a rather curious one. The files are all off-limits, locked up at Thames Valley Police headquarters, but an interesting nugget is to be found deep in the inquiry website. 'Operation Mason', as it was termed, was begun at 2.30pm on July 17, around nine hours before David Kelly was reported missing, and at least half an hour before he left his home to go on that last walk. No satisfactory explanation has ever been given for this astonishing foresight on the part of police.

Then there is the response after the call to the police was made. First there was the erection of a 45ft antenna in Dr Kelly's garden. I have spoken to one of the most senior police officers in the UK who could offer no possible explanation for a structure this size and doubted if many police forces actually had such a piece of equipment.

He was also at a loss to explain why Dr Kelly's wife Janice was turfed out of her house in the middle of the night to stand on the lawn for an extended period while a dog was put through the house. He called it 'bizarre'.

At the Hutton Inquiry itself, conflicting evidence was piled on top of conflicting evidence with seemingly no attempt to get to the truth. Crucially, the position of the body seems in doubt, with those who found it - search-party volunteers Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman
- insisting the body was sitting up or slumped against a tree, while DC Graham Coe later states it was flat on its back away from the tree.

Moreover, three items the volunteers swear were not present - the blunt knife, a watch and an opened bottle of Evian water - had mysteriously appeared by the body by the time DC Coe left the scene.

Then there are the basic questions that would occur to even a rookie police officer but which here went unasked, or at least unanswered.

Whose fingerprints were on the knife? Was there any DNA other than Dr Kelly's to be found in the blood samples taken? Was Dr Kelly's watch, which lay beside him, broken or intact? What time did it show? What were the last calls made to the mobile phone he had on him? We do not know and Lord Hutton does not ask.

But then Lord Hutton, tasked to examine the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death, seemed peculiarly uninterested in these, giving every appearance of simply going through the motions. In this he was not alone. For the media too, the focus was firmly on the battle between the BBC and the Government. That focus may have taken the light off a much more important story.

After Hutton formally reported, the coroner would have been within his rights to reopen the inquest, but he chose not to do so, despite being made aware of the considerable doubts about the medical evidence. Many people find it hard to accept that Dr Kelly's death was suicide, and the passage of time has only firmed up that doubt. lam conscious that some, particularly those who were close to him, will want to put all this behind them, to move on.

The reality, however, is that this episode is not going to go away. Perhaps Dr Kelly, renowned for his persistence, dedication and aptitude for systematic and logical questioning, would have understood that some of us cannot rest until the many important unanswered questions have finally been resolved.

WHAT IS THE 'KELLY INVESTIGATION GROUP'?

On 15th July 2003 British government scientist Dr David Kelly defended himself before a televised Foreign Affairs Committee against the charge that he had accused the British government of using false intelligence to justify invading Iraq. Three days later the world was stunned when he was found dead on Harrowdown Hill. A judgement of 'suicide', planted early on by police to reporters, was reinforced by a hastily-convened 'Hutton Inquiry' which adeptly shifted emphasis away from Dr Kelly's death and onto reprehensibility of key players in government and at the BBC.

Peel off the expensive Hutton gloss, and it becomes apparent that a number of things about Dr Kelly's death do not add up. Oddities and holes in witness statements to the inquiry, glaringly apparent to a careful reader, were missed, or ignored, by trained barristers. A top journalist on a national paper later told me they were ordered not to ask too many difficult questions. Was there a cover up? I joined an internet forum, discussed discrepancies in a flurry of e-mails, and was alerted to a letter in a newspaper from David Halpin, a surgeon in Devon, who had written to say (15 December 2003):

'We have been told that he died from a cut wrist and that he had non-lethal levels of an analgesic in his blood.

As a past trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, I cannot easily accept that even the deepest cut into one wrist would cause such exsanguination that death resulted. The two arteries are of matchstick size and would have quickly shut down and clotted.'

Other medical professionals, six of them surgeons, wrote to papers independently, voicing strong doubts that it was medically possible for Dr Kelly to have died of haemorrhage after cutting a single transected ulnar artery. I contacted each of them. The 'Kelly Investigation Group' was starting to evolve.

The official account of Dr Kelly's death was looking more and more implausible. Differences between witness accounts may not be unusual, but the anomalies uncovered from analysing transcripts, looking at medical evidence, and exchanging insights, painted the disturbing picture of a body that was twice moved; blood patterning which did not fit a self-inflicted 'arterial bleed'; a totally inappropriate choice of knife; a single transected artery which would have released no more than a pint of blood; insufficient co-proxamol to have caused death; a disingenuous policeman who lied about the number of colleagues he was with; three men in black at the scene who could not have been policemen; and dental records which were found to be missing on the day of death only to reappear two days later.

Read about these here: http://www.deadscientists.blogspot.com/

Five members of the Kelly Investigation Group, three medical, wrote an 11-page letter to the Coroner expplaining the anomalies in detail. The letter was ignored. I phoned. He said he had read the letter but the points we raised fell on deaf ears -- he wouldn't budge from the official line. The Hutton Inquiry was a sham - it had no power to subpoena witnesses or have them testify on oath. Nor were they cross-examined. Had Dr Kelly received an inquest these powers could have been implemented. In the event, there was no inquest and no verdict, only a 'conclusion'.

When the authorities stone-wall us, we must fall back on our own resources. Dr Kelly was a highly intelligent, honourable man who wanted the world to know about the terrible dangers of chemical and biological weapons. Judging from the hundreds of e-mails I've received from across the world, many suspect his death, coming at this pivotal time for governments on both sides of the Atlantic, was not suicide -- and they care about what happened to him. Thom Yorke of 'Radiohead' sings:

'I feel me slipping in and out of consciousness....You will be dispensed with, when you've become inconvenient, up on Harrowdown Hill. That's where I'm lying down. Did I fall or was I pushed? And where's the blood?'

Join the Kelly Investigation Group and stay informed. Doctors in the group include David Halpin, Searle Sennett, Stephen Frost, Bill McQuillan, John Scurr, Martin Birnstingl, Chris Burns-Cox and Peter Fletcher. QC Michael Powers acts as consultant. We are now working in parallel with Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker -- and an important media event is in the pipeline.

Keep abreast of developments and share your views; send me an e-mail: RowenaThursby@onetel.com Regular bulletins will be mailed to you.

If you have important information please phone me on 01425 638409.

Rowena Thursby
Kelly Investigation Group

Thursday 13th July 2006

WHY WAS THERE NO ARTERIAL RAIN ON DR KELLY'S CLOTHING?

Consider the following and send me your comments.
If you have medical training/experience all to the good but logic also welcome.

Above is a 3"- 4 " Sandvik pruning knife like the one Dr Kelly is alleged to have used. To understand the scenario on Harrowdown Hill better one has to imagine how, if the official account of his death is correct, Dr Kelly's wrist was slashed and what effect it had.

Dr David Halpin considers how it might have been had Dr Kelly's wrist been slashed by an assailant:

'If that person was standing/kneeling at the head end of the victim and on its left, and if he was right handed, the forearm would have been grasped with the left hand. The deeper cut that divided the ulnar artery would have started on the outside ie radial side and finished with the knife (of uncertain sharpness) being arrested by the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon just as it divided the artery. Tendons are very difficult to cut without a very sharp scalpel or tenotome. The 'hooked' nature of this pruning knife would explain then how the artery was cut. This tendon would have 'guarded' the artery to an extent. Perhaps the other party wanted to replicate the sort of cuts Dr K would have made.'

This draws us into the picture. Tough tendons make the ulnar artery hard to reach, but because the blade on this particular knife had a hooked end, this would have gouged down into the wrist, cut through the tendons and transected the artery.

David Halpin again:

My main point is it preposterous to propose that this punctilious man would have chosen such methods with which to kill himself,..... I reiterate that he knew all about the 'biology of death' as I have coined it. To have picked an 'unsharp' pruning knife would have been ridiculous (such blades are difficult to sharpen anyway ...

But let's say Dr Kelly did this to himself, how might it have happened? According to two of his daughters Dr Kelly habitually took this knife with him on his regular walks to cut back undergrowth. It is not surprising that this knife was blunt -- as indicated by the crushed and notched edges on the wounds. Mr Halpin tells us it is VERY DIFFICULT to cut through tendons, even with a very sharp scalpel. Consider then how much FORCE would have been required to make that kind of cut with a blunt knife. That's one point.

But say Dr Kelly did that. If you replay the action of cutting your left wrist on yourself with the knife in your right hand (and yes, Dr Kelly WAS right handed) by miming it, no matter how you do it, there would be a SHARP JERKING ACTION where the left arm would jerk BACK and UP TOWARDS THE BODY. Since the knife was blunt, and the tendons were very tough, that jerking action would have been even more pronounced. How then was there no BLOOD SPLATTERING (note it's the spray effect, not blood per se, that is important here) on Dr Kelly's clothing?

Note the arterial rain was said to have been found ON THE NETTLES and mostly ABOUT A FOOT FROM THE GROUND. The forensic biologist (see below) does not report ANY spray effect on Dr Kelly's clothing.

Does anyone with medical or forensic training have any idea what would happen to the blood when an ulnar artery is cut with this kind of knife in this way? If Dr Kelly did this to himself can you conceive of a reason why it would NOT have sprayed onto his clothing ?

Consider the alternative: Dr Kelly is lying on the ground, unconscious or semi-conscious. An assailant picks up his left arm, holds it up and towards the nettles, about a foot from the ground. With the knife in his right hand he slashes Dr Kelly's left wrist, putting in the hesitation marks as an assassin would have been trained to do, and makes one final cut. Blood sprays out, but because the left arm is held up and away from the body it does not reach Dr Kelly's clothes -- it sprays only the nettles.

Was arterial rain on the nettles the key piece of 'evidence' that would supposedly convince the public Dr Kelly had died from his own hand? In fact it does the opposite: the fact that the arterial rain was found on the nettles and not on the body may be one of the strongest indications we have that Dr Kelly did not die by his own hand.

In 2004 Vanessa Hunt and Dave Bartlett, the paramedics attending Dr Kelly's body on Harrowdown Hill, the scene of his deatg, attended a press conference to voice their doubts about the official cause of death. See their account in an article in the Observer below. Crucially, they report no blood on Dr Kelly's right hand -- the hand that is supposed, in the official account to have held the knife, -- and no arterial spray on his clothing.

How do you see it? Please comment below or privately, in an e-mail.

Rowena Thursby
Kelly Investigation Group (KIG)
RowenaThursby@onetel.com
Tel: 01425 638409 -- please leave a message on the answerphone.

Roy Green, the forensic biologist testifies to the Hutton Inquiry:http://www.hutton.softblade.com/transcripts.php?action=transcript&session=29&witness=59#wit59

MR DINGEMANS: Did you find anything around the body area of interest?
MR GREEN: Yes. There was blood distribution.
MR DINGEMANS: Where had the blood come from?
MR GREEN: It appeared that the blood had originated from Dr Kelly's injured left wrist.
MR DINGEMANS: Right. I think we have heard from an extract that Mr Page has read out to us that the ulnar artery was severed. Did you understand that to be the case at the time?
MR GREEN: Obviously injuries are a pathologist's domain. However, the blood distribution was what I would expect to see if an artery had been severed. There was bloodstaining typical of that sort of injury.
MR DINGEMANS: What do you expect to see in such circumstances?
MR GREEN: Well, when veins are severed the blood comes out under a low pressure, but when arteries are severed it comes out on a much higher pressure and you get spurting of blood, you get a phenomenon known as arterial rain, where you have a great deal of smallish stains all of about the same size over the area.
MR DINGEMANS: Did you find that arterial rain?
MR GREEN: Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: On what?
MR GREEN: On the nettles -- there were nettles alongside the body of Dr Kelly.
MR DINGEMANS: And did you look for the distribution of blood?
MR GREEN: Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: We have heard from some ambulance personnel, and they said they were not specifically looking, for obvious reasons, at the distribution of blood but they noted, just on their brief glance, not very much blood. What were your detailed findings?
MR GREEN: Well, there was a fair bit of blood.
LORD HUTTON: There was -- I beg your pardon?
MR GREEN: A fair bit of blood, my Lord. The body was on leaf litter, the sort of detritus you might find on the floor of a wood, which is -- and that is very absorbent, so although it may not have appeared to them there was that much blood, it would obviously soak in.
MR DINGEMANS: A bit like blotting paper in some respects?
MR GREEN: Yes.MR DINGEMANS: What else did you see around the body?
MR GREEN: There was a bloodstained watch and a knife to --
MR DINGEMANS: Was the knife bloodstained?
MR GREEN: Yes, it was, yes. There was a Barbour hat/cap near Dr Kelly's left shoulder and then out from that there was an Evian water bottle, the cap of which was just a bit further along. These were -- the bottle was about 25 centimetres from the shoulder.
MR DINGEMANS: Did you examine the vegetation around the body?
MR GREEN: Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: Did you form any conclusions from that examination?
MR GREEN: Well, the blood staining that was highest from the ground was approximately 50 centimetres above the ground. This was above the position where Dr Kelly's left wrist was, but most of the stainings were 33 centimetres, which is approximately a foot above the ground. It was all fairly low level stuff.

Kelly death paramedics query verdict
Special report from The Observer, by Antony Barnett
Sunday December 12, 2004

In the cramped office of an Oxford law firm, Dave Bartlett's solicitor turns to him and asks if he is happy to stand by the dramatic comment he has just made about the death of Dr David Kelly.

Bartlett's eyes do not waver. 'Yes. I have always said that had it been a member of my family I wouldn't have accepted what they came out with.'

Sitting next to Bartlett is his colleague, Vanessa Hunt. Like him, she has been a paramedic for more than 15 years. She does not hesitate either.

'There just wasn't a lot of blood... When somebody cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere. I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw.'

On 18 July last year Bartlett and Hunt received an emergency call to attend a suspected suicide. Over the years they have raced to the scenes of dozens of attempted suicides in which somebody has cut their wrists. In only one case has the victim been successful.

'That was like a slaughterhouse,' recalls Hunt. 'Just think what it would be like with five or six pints of milk splashed everywhere.' If you slit your wrists, that is the equivalent amount of blood you would have to lose.......

But this was not the scene which greeted the two paramedics when their ambulance arrived at Harrowdown Hill woods in Oxfordshire, where the body of Dr Kelly, the weapons expert, had been found.....

......The paramedics parked their ambulance. Carrying their resuscitation equipment, they followed two armed-response police for about a mile until they reached a wooded area. In a clearing, they first saw Kelly's body.

Both saw that the left sleeves of his jacket and shirt had been pulled up to just below the elbow and there was dried blood around his left wrist.

'There was no gaping wound... there wasn't a puddle of blood around,' said Hunt. 'There was a little bit of blood on the nettles to the left of his left arm. But there was no real blood on the body of the shirt. The only other bit of blood I saw was on his clothing. It was the size of a 50p piece above the right knee on his trousers.'

Hunt found this very strange. 'If you manage to cut a wrist and catch an artery you would get a spraying of blood, regardless of whether it's an accident... Because of the nature of an arterial cut, you get a pumping action. I would certainly expect a lot more blood on his clothing, on his shirt. If you choose to cut your wrists, you don't worry about getting blood on your clothes.
'I didn't see any blood on his right hand... If he used his right hand to cut his wrist, from an arterial wound you would expect some spray.'

.....Bartlett recalls being called to one attempted suicide where the blood had spurted so high it hit the ceiling. 'Even in this incident, the victim survived. It was like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the guy walked out alive. We have been to a vast amount of incidents where people who have slashed their wrists, intentionally or not. Most of them are taken down the hospital and given a few stitches then sent straight back home. But there is a lot of blood. It's all over them.'

COMING UP:

A major new article on Norman Baker's concerns and findings to date will be in the 'Mail on Sunday' to coincide with the anniversary of Dr Kelly's death.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

VIDEO:

NEW PRIVATE INVESTIGATION INTO DR DAVID KELLY'S DEATH

NORMAN BAKER MP on GMTV'S 'THE SUNDAY PROGRAMME'
2 JULY 2006

Liberal Democrat MP, Norman Baker has given up his seat on the front bench in a personal crusade to uncover the truth about Dr David Kelly's death. Two months into his investigation, he is beginning to piece together disturbing facts. On Sunday he gave his debut TV interview on the subject to GMTV's 'The Sunday Programme'. Watch the video -- links below.

The Kelly Investigation Group (KIG) is back. We and Norman Baker will work in parallel to get to the bottom of discrepancies between witness statements. The Hutton Inqury didn't do it, the Coroner didn't do it -- someone must. Ten doctors - the ones who elected to speak out - have stated categorically that this death does not make medical sense. Here are just a few of the troubling aspects to this case:

The body was photographed in two different positions; in Chapter 5 of his Report Lord Hutton stated he'd seen a photograph of the body against the tree, yet PC Sawyer, who took the photos, states the body was flat on its back; a complete set of photos would reveal then, that the body had been moved. Who moved it and why?

The transected (ulnar) artery would have retracted and sealed itself off; Dr Kelly could not have lost more than a pint of blood.

The knife - one he habitually carried on his walks to cut away undergrowth - was blunt. It had a concave blade with a hook on the end. Why would someone intent on suicide select a blunt knife with such an awkward shape?

Despite the 29 tablets missing from the blister packs in his pocket, only a fifth of a co-proxamol tablet was found in his stomach; whatever he ingested, a large proportion of it was regurgitated onto the ground. The toxicologist to the Hutton Inquiry said the amount of co-proxamol in his bloodstream was less than a third of what is normally a fatal amount.

So if he didn't die of haemorrhage and he didn't die of co-proxamol poisoning, what did he die of?
The Hutton Inquiry had no 'teeth' - witnesses were not subpoenaed and did not give evidence on oath. Even the pathologist who examined Dr Kelly told the Channel 4 News team he would have preferred a formal inquest. In a case as important as this, why WAS there no inquest, why WAS there no verdict? Did Dr Kelly kill himself? Three years after the event legal and medical experts - three of them vascular surgeons - are not convinced that he did.

Tom Mangold crops up yet again in this programme as Dr Kelly's 'friend', yet in his own words to the Hutton Inquiry he described it as 'not a frequent' relationship. It transpired they exchanged few e-mails, seldom met, and when they did, it was on a professional basis. When offered a 'dry shoulder' by Mangold during a time of crisis Kelly told him in an e-mail it was a 'not a good time to be in communication' -- not a particularly friendly response. Mangold persists (as he did in Radio 4's 'Today Programme') in deliberately misleading the viewer by implying the Kelly Investigation Group's thesis is that Dr Kelly was physically lifted out of his house under the nose of his wife. The KIG has made no such assertion. It is on record that just before he disappeared, Kelly walked out of the house on his own and met a neighbour. Why does this supposed 'investigative journalist' ignore the facts and try to turn the assassination scenario into a joke?

He talks of seven agencies rgiorously examining the facts; but they didn't -- they ignored those they deemed inconvenient. Two 'dodgy dossiers' have shown the government worked hard to distort the facts over intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, so why should its agencies be trusted?

Find video on following sites:

THE TRUTH SEEKER http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4780290451650428491

THE DOSSIER http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/video_iraqwar.htm

SCOOP http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00021.htm

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED Investigation Into The Death Of David Kelly

PRISON PLANET http://prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/050706davidkelly.htm

JEFF RENSE http://www.rense.com/general72/drk.htm


NORMAN BAKER ASKS PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060503/text/60503w29.htmIf

If you wish to be on the KIG mailing list send me an e-mail - entitled 'Join KIG'. If you want to be removed send me an e-mail entitled -- 'KIG - please remove'.

If you have IMPORTANT information please leave a message on my answerphone.

Rowena Thursby
Kelly Investigation Group

RowenaThursby@onetel.com

Tel: 01425 638409