Is Gilligan afraid of the truth?

By Rowena Thursby, Kelly Investigation Group

You would think a journalist whose BBC career was ruined by the death of Dr Kelly would be terrier-like in his determination to get at the truth. Not so Andrew Gilligan. Baker and the conspiracy theories are wrong' he states in his 24 July 'Evening Standard' article ‘Those who say Kelly was murdered are so wrong‘. But as no one has put up any 'theories', how can they be 'wrong?'

He's 'pretty sure' that David did commit suicide. But one man's 'pretty sure' is not good enough. Suicide, according to the law, must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. And this is one high-profile 'suicide' that leaves room for a disturbing amount of doubt.

A Motive for Murder

Gilligan maintains there was no real motive for anyone to murder Dr Kelly. MI5 and MI6, he says, don't 'pop off their citizens whenever they feel like it'. But maybe, when pushed, they do pop off the odd one or two. Given that the security services work on a highly compartmentalised, need-to-know basis, it is perfectly credible that cabals within MI5 or MI6 make 'rogue' decisions and then organise the dirty work. Kelly's death 'didn't do them much good' says Gilligan. Well actually, it did. The Hutton Inquiry provided a marvellous distraction from the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. After it was over and Kelly was out of the way, top spook John Scarlett could go on weaving his lies about WMD more or less unchallenged. Ten months after Kelly’s death he was promoted to head of MI6.

Privy to highly sensitive information as Head of Microbiology at Porton Down from 1984 to 1992, and as Senior Advisor on Biological Weapons to UNSCOM from 1994-99, Dr Kelly was subject to a rigorous vetting procedure. We know he was being vetted in the months prior to his death, so it is likely that his every move was being watched. In a whispering campaign, a spokesman for the Prime Minister dubbed him a ‘Walter Mitty' figure and a 'fantasist', while Sir Kevin Tebbit of the MoD called him 'eccentric and unreliable'. But in reality the most dangerous quality to figures in power was his fierce regard for the truth.

Two lies were pivotal to the invasion of Iraq: one was that the mobile laboratories found in Iraq were evidence of WMD, and the other was that WMD could be launched from Iraq at British bases in Cyprus within 45 minutes. Kelly demolished them both. It was he who had leaked to the Observer that the mobile laboratories were not for WMD, and it was he who had expressed deep unhappiness with the claim that WMD could be launched from Iraq in 45 minutes. Kelly was one of the most senior and highly-respected weapons inspectors. His return to Iraq on 26 July 2003, a date that was confirmed by the MoD the day before he disappeared, would have risked his being able to demonstrate conclusively that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Strong Medical Evidence

If he were genuinely interested in the true medical cause of Dr Kelly's death, Gilligan would have taken a close look at the objections raised to the official line.

Rather than interrogate the nine medical members of the Kelly Investigation Group (KIG), two of them vascular surgeons, he tries to counter the main arguments against suicide by selecting the dismissive blusterings of Professor Chris Milroy, a forensic pathologist with no access to the post mortem report, yet who asserted with confidence that Dr Kelly had taken 'a substantial overdose'.

True, there was considerably more than a therapeutic dose of co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's blood, but according to Richard Allan, the forensic toxicologist reporting to the Hutton Inquiry, nowhere near enough to kill him. According to the actual blood tests, Dr Allan declared the amount of co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's blood was a quarter to a third of what is normally a fatal amount.

It has largely been assumed, that because 29 tablets of the painkiller co-proxamol were missing from the three blister packs in Dr Kelly's pockets, that he took all 29. Even if that were so, he could not have assimilated them all, because he regurgitated a large part of his stomach contents.

Attempting to gauge how much of a particular drug a person took before their death is not an exact science. One of Milroy's colleagues at the University of Sheffield, forensic toxicologist Professor Robert Forrest, has helpfully pointed out that drug concentrations in the blood increase markedly over time. Since Dr Allan did not analyse Dr Kelly's blood for around 30 hours, the concentration of co-proxamol components may have increased up to tenfold. So while at the time of testing, Dr Allan judged the amount of co-proxamol in the blood to be only a third of what is normally a fatal amount, this could mean that the actual amount ingested by Dr Kelly 30 hours earlier, was far less than a third of a fatal amount - possibly as little as a thirtieth.

As well as increasing over time, the concentration of a drug is site-dependent, higher in some locations and lower in others. The forensic toxicologist has no way of knowing from which part of the cadaver the blood was taken; thus whatever the measurement, it will be of questionable value. In addition, because of biochemical individuality, the amount of a drug causing death in one person may not cause death in another.

Prompted by the KIG doctors' comments on the toxicology, and concerned about miscarriages of justice arising from misleading assessments on the amount of drug ingested, Professor Forrest set up the 'International Toxicology Advisory Group'.

In an article to the BMJ entitled 'Forensic Science in the Dock' the four authors assert:

‘Post-mortem measurements of drug concentration in blood have scant meaning.... The paucity of evidence-based science, coupled with the pretence that such science exists in regard to postmortem toxicology, leads to the abuse of process, almost certainly to miscarriages of justice, and possibly even to false perceptions of conspiracy and cover up.'

In the case of Dr Kelly, it may also have led to the false perception that forensic science confirmed suicide, when in fact, it is completely unable to do so.

Insufficient Blood?

The two paramedics attending Dr Kelly's body were so disturbed by the absence of blood at the scene that they called a press conference. Far from finding blood 'puddled around' as one of the policemen asserted, they saw little blood anywhere - a little dried blood on the wrist, a contact stain on one of the trouser knees, and not much else.

To have died of haemorrhage, Dr Kelly would have to have lost several pints of blood. Perhaps, writes Gilligan, the blood seeped into the ground. But where is the evidence that it seeped into the ground? Were soil samples taken? Did tests done on the soil show a large quantity of blood had seeped into the ground? Was it measured? We were never told. The Hutton barristers did not even put the question. Nor were we told the residual blood volume in Dr Kelly's body. If he had bled out, tests at autopsy would have made it apparent.

In any case, one of the fundamental points put by eminent surgeons - two of them specialists in vascular surgery - is that a single transected ulnar artery of matchstick size would have constricted and retracted almost immediately, and the blood would have clotted. In their view it would be unlikely that Dr Kelly would have lost more than around a pint of blood. Atherosclerosis, discovered at the post-mortem, would have made very little difference to blood flow. Haemorrhage then, is highly unlikely to have been - as stated on the death certificate and at the Hutton Inquiry - the primary cause of death.

What disturbed the paramedics was not so much the lack of blood per se, as the way the blood was distributed. A pint of blood spurting from an artery will still make a huge mess. As Vanessa Hunt explained:

'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.

There was ‘arterial rain’ on the nettles - so why virtually none on his clothing? Under the circumstances he is hardly likely to have worried about keeping his shirt clean. Could it be that a third party held out Dr Kelly's left arm and slashed his wrist - thus spraying blood on the nettles but not on his clothes? It is certainly conceivable.

In support of this possibility, let us focus on Dr Kelly's injury. We are told a deep incision was made into his left wrist, severing the ulnar artery. Those who choose to commit suicide by slashing their wrists, normally slash both and sit in a warm bath. To slash only one out in the open air seems odd. The most successful method is to cut longitudinally along the arm, but when transected, the most common artery slashed is the radial because it is close to the suface. The ulnar lies beneath tendons deep within the wrist on the little finger side; even with a very sharp blade it is difficult to reach. Now which is more likely: Dr Kelly picks up his blunt pruning knife, the one he normally uses to cut branches on his walks, and avoiding the radial artery completely, forces it down through tendons into a tiny artery and slices it right through -- or an assassin with military training, picks up his left arm, uses Kelly's knife, and brutally slices down and across one side of his wrist?

Photographs of Dr Kelly's body show it was moved

Gilligan writes of 'confusion' about body position and fallibility of eye-witnesses. But there is no doubt. Dr Kelly's body was moved. We know that, not from eye-witness accounts, but from photographs. Photographs show the body in at least two different positions. In Chapter 5 of his report, Lord Hutton refers to a photograph which shows Dr Kelly's body slumped against the tree, and yet PC Martyn Sawyer, charged with taking official police photographs, stated to the Hutton Inquiry that Dr Kelly's body was lying horizontally on its back, away from the tree. The two search volunteers who discovered the body, were quite sure it was against the tree, and yet six subsequent witnesses, including the forensic pathologist, were unanimous in stating that it was lying flat on its back.

So who moved it? Between the time Dr Kelly's body was reported as being against the tree and the time it was reported lying on its back, DC Graham Coe professed to be standing guarding the body for about half an hour. The left trouser leg was pulled up exposing an ankle, suggesting the body was pulled down and away from the tree to a lying position. Had D C Coe been cross-examined, a reasonable question might have been: did you move Dr Kelly's body? If he did move the body -- why? Was he trying to revive him? Or was he trying to make the position of the body fit the fact that the vomit dried onto his face ran from the corners of his mouth to his ears, and also that livor mortis (pooling of the blood after death)showed (according to the forensic pathologist) that Dr Kelly died on his back?

Why would Dr Kelly commit suicide?

David Kelly was, as Gilligan says, largely defined by his work. He may have felt lost without it. But all the indications are that in one form or another, his work would have continued. The e-mails on the morning of his final walk, repeated again and again that he was looking forward to getting back to his ‘real work’ in Iraq. A date had been set for his return. Even if one of his final phone calls had been to tell him that trip was off, he still had the option of giving speeches and writing books in retirement - and had been in discussions with an Oxford publisher. With a number of good friends, his Baha'i faith, and his daughter Rachel's wedding on the horizon later that year, his future life was far from bleak.

Doubts Remain

Did this tough-minded scientist, a man 'whose brain could boil water' really choose a blunt old pruning knife from several in his study drawer, cut deep into his wrist through the toughest of tendons, and sever one tiny artery, in the hope that this and a handful of pills would somehow take his life? Not being likely does not make it impossible, no - but likelihoods sometimes tell a story. It is not for Andrew Gilligan to waft away significant and well-reasoned doubts.

Now deprived of a voice, the facts must speak for him. Dr Kelly used a forensic and precise approach to keep the world safe from the horrors of bioweapons. The same rigorous approach must apply to the details of his death. It has to be known, once and for all, whether Dr Kelly took his own life - or had it taken from him. To remove all doubt, we need what the Hutton Inquiry did not supply: a full set of forensic results and a rigorous cross-examination of relevant witnesses. Like every other citizen whose death cannot be properly explained, Dr Kelly needs an inquest - and as yet, he has not received one.

RESPONSE TO ANDREW GILLIGAN

LETTER TO EVENING STANDARD
14 August 2006

Dear Sir

You would think a journalist who lost his BBC career over the death of Dr Kelly, would be fascinated by medical evidence suggesting the government scientist’s death was not suicide. Not so Andrew Gilligan. Rather than study the medical doubts in depth, he focuses on the dismissive comments of one forensic scientist with no involvement in the case. (‘Evening Standard’ 24/7)

While it is true there was a greater than therapeutic dose of co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's blood, the appointed toxicologist’s evaluation was that it was a third of what would have been needed to kill him.

Concentrations of a drug in the blood increase markedly post mortem (BMJ 2004;329:636-637). Analysis of Dr Kelly's blood took place around 30 hours after death. By this time the concentration of co-proxamol components could have increased as much as tenfold. Thus, at the time of death, the amount in the blood may have been not a third, but a thirtieth of a what is normally considered a fatal dose.

It has been assumed, that because 29 tablets of co-proxamol were missing from the blister packets in Dr Kelly's pockets, that he took all 29. But even if he did, he could not have assimilated all of them, because he threw up a significant part of his stomach contents.

The two key points about the blood are these: the amount lost would have been far too small to cause death, and the distribution was highly unusual.

Four surgeons have concurred that when a single ulnar artery is transected, it quickly constricts, retracts, clotting ensues, and blood-flow ceases - at most Dr Kelly would have lost about a pint of blood.

A transected artery initially pumps out blood under pressure as ‘arterial rain’. Paramedic Dave Bartlett, witness to hundreds of ‘arterial bleeds‘, asserted that in every case, 'there is a lot of blood. It's all over them.' He and fellow paramedic Vanessa Hunt were shocked to find no blood splashing of this type on Dr Kelly. As Bartlett remarked:

‘Whatever he died of he didn’t die of that’.

Rowena Thursby,
Kelly Investigation Group

RowenaThursby@onetel.com

BEWARE THIS MP'S 'DOSSIER'

by Stotty [Richard Stott, Editor of Sunday Mirror, early 90s]

Sunday Mirror
30 July 2006

IT is a sad fact of life that when a horrible and unexpected death occurs there are always those who will not accept anything except conspiracy and murder. It happened to Diana and it is happening now to Dr David Kelly, the scientist who killed himself after being revealed as the weapons expert contact of the BBC's Andrew Gilligan.

A "dossier" of half-baked detail has been produced by the self-important Lib Dem MP Norman Baker which actually doesn't add up to a row of beans. Except some people will believe anything if it suits their purpose.

For Baker to get off square one he has to show two things. One, that somebody or some organisation would have benefited from Kelly's death. Two, there was no reason for him to take his own life and little prospect of him doing so. Neither is the case.

The Government, security services, Prime Minister etc. were the last people to want Dr Kelly dead because he discredited much of what Gilligan said and was in no position to know detail of the rest. His death plunged Blair and his government into a major crisis.

There was, however, a reason why Dr Kelly was desperate following his appearance before a House of Commons select committee. He did not tell MPs the truth about his own dealings with journalists. They knew that because he had been betrayed by Gilligan. He realised his future was in serious jeopardy and with it much of his life's work compromised.

Kelly was an intensely private man and could see the whirlwind about to strike. He decided not to wait for it. It is a tragedy that the meanderings of a bit-part MP should bring the pain back to Dr Kelly's family. He was a good man who made one mistake and decided to pay for it his way. Norman Baker should let it go.

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=17472416&method=full&siteid=62484&headline=beware-this-mp-s--dossier---name_page.html

LETTER TO SUNDAY MIRROR:

Dear Sir

Even my mother - a life-long Mirror reader and until last week's article, 'Beware this MP's 'Dossier'", a keen fan of Stotty - was appalled. Enough discrepancies surround the case, before and after Dr Kelly's death, to fill a bestseller.

His corpse, according to the search volunteers who first discovered it, was propped against the foot of a tree. In his report, Lord Hutton admitted having seen a photograph of the body against the tree. But the official Thames Valley police search team told the Hutton Inquiry his body was lying horizontally, away from the tree.

In the horizontal position, one of his trouser legs was halfway up his shins, as if he had been pulled away from the tree by his feet. Why? The simple answer is gravity. Dr Kelly had dried vomit stains running from the corners of his mouth to his earlobe. This could only happen when laid horizontal.

His corpse was in all likelihood moved to cover the fact that the dumping of his body against the tree was a botched job. An unofficial Thames Valley police team - showed to the body by the searchers - had the opportunity to move it Given a proper inquest, with evidence taken under oath, a suicide verdict would be totally out of the question.

Pete Simpson
Newbury
Berkshire UK

Those who say David was murdered are so wrong

by Andrew Gilligan
The Evening Standard
24 July 2006

An MP has produced a dossier that claims to show the death of Dr David Kelly was not suicide. But the man at the heart of the story disagrees.

I STILL remember, of course, how I heard about David Kelly's death. It started with a phone call, fairly early in the morning, from my friend Mick Smith, then the defence correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. Kelly had gone missing, and the police were looking for a body.

Even then, as I sat worrying on the train into work, I couldn't really believe that he'd died. It must have been one of those muddles. Maybe he'd stayed over with a friend. Maybe he'd had an accident and hadn't been able to get help. Maybe he'd just decided to go off for a few days to relieve the pressure and would turn up in some hotel, a la Stephen Fry.

When I walked in to the office of Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of news, he got up, closed the door and told me to sit down. While I had been on the way in, he said, not sounding like he believed it himself, Kelly's body had been found, and it looked like suicide. He had taken painkilling tablets and slashed one of his wrists.

If Sambrook sounded shaken, it was nothing to how I sounded. He had to get me a glass of water to calm me down.

As well as being upset, I was very, very surprised. I hadn't known David all that well - I'd never met his family, for instance - but he didn't strike me as the suicidal type, if there is such a thing.

He was quite used to confrontation and pressure: he'd been a weapons inspector in Iraq, for goodness sake. I thought his famous grilling by the Foreign Affairs Committee had been distasteful, and symptomatic of the committee's stupidity, but it hadn't been that bad.

And anyway, the affair was basically over: Parliament was about to break for the summer recess, the BBC had refused to confirm or deny whether David was my source, and the battle between Downing Street and the BBC had reached stalemate. Politics was closing down for a month. The row between the Government and BBC was essentially a diversion. All those spin-doctors, toady New Labour journalists and compliant MPs who had helped to keep it bubbling for the previous few weeks were about to disperse to Tuscan poolsides.

All David had to do was keep his head down and it would go away. The Government, I thought, was unlikely to discipline him for the partial admissions he had made about his contacts with me. They needed him more than he needed them. If anyone was going to find Tony Blair some weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it was David Kelly.

Such were my thoughts on that morning of 18 July 2003, thoughts that made me, at first, question whether David did actually kill himself. Now, almost exactly three years later, the indefatigable Lib-Dem MP, Norman Baker, has added some political weight to those questions.

Baker has produced what the Mail on Sunday describes as a "dossier" - not a good choice of word - which is said to "raise new questions" about the accepted cause of death.

I like Baker. I think he is one of the very few MPs who gets his teeth into ministerial legs. If there are grounds for supposing that David Kelly was indeed killed by somebody else, I do not believe that considerations of taste or offence to his family should prevent it being investigated. But I say to the world what I said to Baker when he asked me about it last year: I am pretty sure that David did commit suicide.

Baker and the conspiracy theories are wrong.

Even if the motives for David to kill himself do not, on the face of it, seem quite strong enough, the motives for anyone else to kill him are far, far weaker. In whose interests can it possibly have been to murder David Kelly? The Government's? But his death plunged the Government and New Labour into the greatest crisis in its history, a crisis from which it has still not recovered, a crisis that has some claim to be the turning point in the Blair premiership.

The intelligence services? But even if you accept the (wildly false) premise that MI5 and MI6 are rogue states within a state, popping off their own citizens whenever they feel like it, why on earth would they want to kill Kelly? His death didn't do them much good, either.

The Iraqis? The Saddam regime had dissolved weeks before and its members were hiding in holes. The Americans? Not without British permission, surely - and, again, where's the motive?

Looking at Baker's dossier, I notice that most of the "new questions" it raises are actually quite old. The most important piece of evidence questioning the official explanation is a letter written by three (later five) doctors to The Guardian newspaper as long ago as January 2004, providing statistics which showed that it was unlikely for death to be caused by slashing a minor artery, as David had done, and questioning the toxicity of the co-proxamol painkillers in his blood.

Baker has gone a little further, revealing the important fact that only one person - David Kelly - died in this way in the UK during the whole of 2003.

However, Chris Milroy, professor of forensic pathology at the University of Sheffield, points out that "the problem with the use of statistics in any single case is that 'unlikely' does not make it impossible". Furthermore, he said, "the toxicology [on Kelly] showed a significant overdose of co-proxamol".

There is also the argument that there was very little blood around David when he was discovered. Two ambulance workers who attended him, Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, said they would expect to find several pints of blood around someone who had died through slashing a wrist. They believe it "incredibly unlikely" that David died from the wound they saw.

David Kelly's place of death was, however, a field. Professor Milroy and another forensic pathologist, Professor Guy Rutty, suggested that the blood could easily have seeped into the ground.

Another explanation, said Professor Milroy, might be that David's heart condition may have made it difficult for him to sustain any significant blood loss.

Baker also says that calls to David's mobile were not checked by the police.

If the evidence of the police to Hutton is to be believed, they were checked. There is also some confusion about the position of the body, with different accounts from different witnesses. But eyewitnesses, as we know from the Jean Charles de Menezes case, are seldom consistent and not always reliable.

Anyone who has been involved in a court case or criminal trial knows that minor anomalies and inconsistencies often arise, and are not necessarily suspicious. Given the fallibilities of human memory, a set of neat, perfectly consistent accounts may actually be more suspect.

Baker is right to criticise the Hutton Inquiry; I was not alone in feeling that the tragedy at the centre of the piece was the one thing on which Hutton never really shed direct light.

But there were indirect shafts. We learned far more of the Government's extraordinary and contemptible behaviour towards David Kelly; the promises to protect him, the name game played to expose him, the offering him up to parliamentary committees, neither of whom actually wanted to see him until prodded by Downing Street. And all this in the service of a complete lie - that my famous story was "100 per cent wrong".

After learning about everything Kelly went through - the pressure, the endless interviews, the coaching sessions in what to say, the demands for a complete accounting of his contacts with journalists - it is easier to understand the road which led him to that Oxfordshire hillside.

And I think the evidence to Hutton did show me, and the other journalists who dealt with David Kelly, that we really knew rather little of him. We had no idea about his worries about his employment status. We knew nothing (why should we?) of his relationship with his wife - who, we discovered during the inquiry, was not even told he had taken up the Baha'i faith until nearly two years afterwards.

I came to the view after the inquiry that David was somebody - a type not entirely unknown in journalism, either - who defined himself almost entirely by his work. The fear of losing that work must have been terrifying to him, even if it was not a well-founded fear.

We learned that he was much more vulnerable than we had supposed. With the support of the UN and the Government in his weapons inspector role, he was a man of major achievement, and the confident, authoritative contact we had all known. Stripped of that support, isolated, furious at his treatment by his superiors, he did not realise that a lot of the whirlpool swirling around him was essentially Westminster chest-beating, political rhetoric. That was why the words turned deadly.

Lord Hutton had many failings. But the verdict of suicide on David Kelly was almost certainly one of the few things he got right.


Letters to the Evening Standard:


GILLIGAN GONE SOFT?

‘Very very surprised’ as he was, that David Kelly had committed suicide, Andrew Gilligan will not explore evidence -- unearthed by MP Norman Baker and others -- which suggests Dr Kelly’s death could not have been suicide. Far from being a terrier gnawing away to get to the bone marrow, he has accepted what he has been told!

A presumption of suicide will not do. The Hutton Inquiry was a charade. No one was subpoenaed, not a single witness cross-examined. Set up by one of Tony’s cronies and a judge with safe establishment leanings, it failed completely to investigate the cause and method of death. Suicide must be proved beyond all reasonable doubt -- it is not for Gilligan to try to sway us with his opinion.

As a doctor, I cannot accept that Dr Kelly bled to death. Without a clotting defect one cannot bleed to death from one cut ulnar artery. Where was the blood? Paramedics attending the scene were astonished at the absence of blood-staining on his clothes. They had attended literally hundreds of suicides -- in every single one the clothing was soaked in blood.

If details such as these are ever to be properly examined, we must have a proper coroner’s inquest. Lord Falconer misjudged the tragedy and the public response to it when he set up his inquiry - the public is too savvy to accept a whitewash. Let us have the truth - and please would Andrew Gilligan sharpen his mind and try to find it?

Yours sincerely

Dr C J Burns-Cox MD FRCP
Consultant Physician
Wotton-under-Edge
Glos


Dear Sir,

Someone should tell Andrew Gilligan that suicide must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. His attempt to demolish the doubts and discrepancies outline by Norman Baker in his Mail on Sunday article was feeble.

Moving from a personal impression, ‘I am pretty sure the David did not commit suicide’; to a categorical assertion, ‘Baker and the conspiracy theorists are wrong’, Gilligan offers no concrete evidence for his views. He talks of a lack of motive as though it is evidence for suicide. It isn’t. He refers to some of the questions raised in Norman Baker’s Mail on Sunday article as ‘old’. Being old doesn’t make them less relevant.

Reference is made to Dr Kelly’s ‘overdose’ of co-proxamol. But, according to the forensic toxicologist the amount in his blood was insufficient to cause death. As for his ‘heart condition’, atherosclerosis is not something people die of, and the forensic pathologist presented no evidence of cardiac arrest.

Gilligan’s assumption that the blood would have seeped away is just that – an assumption; where is the evidence that it did?

Eyewitnesses, says Gilligan, are ‘seldom consistent’. But the two people who saw the body before the police took charge agreed the body was against the tree; and those who witnessed the body after the police took charge agreed it was lying on its back. No doubt about it.

Garrett Cooke
Sandhurst
Berkshire

Dr Kelly: The questions that just won't go away

by Simon Edge

31 July 2006
The Daily Express



Three years after the apparent suicide of the weapons expert who blew the whistle on the 'dodgy dossier' that took us into the Iraq War, we reveal how the Government still avoids answering crucial points about his death

IT WAS the late summer of 2003 and all eyes were on the Royal Courts of Justice in central London. Day after day, witnesses to the Hutton Inquiry revealed how Tony Blair's fixers had pressed the intelligence services to deliver the reports he wanted in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Lord Hutton was also set to piece together the final hours of Dr David Kelly,the internationally respected weapons expert whose shock death had triggeredthe inquiry.

Elsewhere, a less transparent process was under way. On August 11, 10 daysafter the Hutton Inquiry opened, Home Office officials were holding a secret meeting with Nicholas Gardiner, the Oxfordshire coroner. It was he who had begun the formal inquest into Dr Kelly's death following the discovery ofthe body on July 18. The inquest had then been adjourned on the orders ofthe Lord Chancellor - the Prime Minister's ex-flatmate Lord Falconer - because establishing what happened was now the remit of Hutton.

But Mr Gardiner, based in the village of Cumnor near Oxford, was continuing his work anyway. Contrary to normal practice for such matters, he was doing it in private. On August 14, he met the pathologist who performed the post mortem and the toxicologist who examined Dr Kelly's body for drug poisoning - weeks before either man was due to testify to Hutton. Then, on August 18, he issued a death certificate. A full month before the public inquiry was due to hear any of the evidence from the beauty spot where the 59-year-old father-of-three had apparently committed suicide, Gardiner registered aprecise cause of death. In other words, the case was effectively closed before it had been opened.

This revelation, apparently now conceded by Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman under pressure from Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, has given further weight to the concerns of a growing group of senior medical and legal professionals - previously aired in the Daily Express nearly two yearsago - that the suicide conclusion cannot be justified on the available evidence.

"I find it most peculiar that the Oxfordshire coroner felt able to issue a full certificate giving reasons for death without taking formal evidence from those who were able to help determine the causes of death, " says MrBaker, who last weekend became the highest-profile figure to challenge the conclusion of the Hutton Inquiry that Dr Kelly killed himself. "The coroner issued the certificate when the inquiry set up to find thecauses of death had barely started, and when his own inquest had been suspended. I also find it disturbing that the coroner should have met HomeOffice officials shortly before deciding to issue a certificate. That seemsto border on the improper."

Questions are also raised by Michael Powers QC, a leading expert oncoroner's law. "There is provision for a coroner to issue an interim death certificate confirming that the person has died, where the precise cause ofdeath will be established later. I would have thought that, given the circumstances, issuing a full death certificate giving the cause of death is a bit unusual, " he says.

Dr Kelly was the country's foremost expert on the dismantling of biological weapons and regarded as having safe-guarded the future of the planet with hispainstaking work decommissioning lethal stocks built up by the former Soviet Union. He had been honoured in 1996 for his services to the UN and the UK, and was being considered for a knighthood. He was unknown to the public until he was revealed as the whistleblower in the row about the Government's "dodgy dossier" on Iraq.

He admitted briefing BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who had accused the New Labour spin machine ofinserting false information into the dossier to boost the case for invasion. When Dr Kelly told his bosses at the Ministry of Defence that he had spoken to Gilligan, he was assured his anonymity would be preserved. Instead, he was thrown to the wolves. Two days after a humiliating appearance before a committee of MPs, he went for an afternoon walk near his Oxfordshire home, and never returned.

HE WAS found the next morning in circumstances which suggested he had committed suicide. There was no sign of struggle. His left wrist had been slashed with a gardening knife he had owned since boyhood and he had apparently taken an overdose of painkillers prescribed to his wife Janice. She testified that, on the morning of his death, she was physically sick when she saw how desperate and "shrunk" her husband looked.

After hearing the evidence and seeing only a fraction of the witness statements taken by the police, Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly had taken his own life. He said the principal cause of death was bleeding from the wound to his wrist, accelerated by an overdose of Co-proxamol tablets anda pre-existing case of coronary artery disease.

Mr Gardiner had the option to resume the inquest once Hutton had issued his report but chose not to do so - not least because Mrs Kelly and her three daughters have repeatedly said they are satisfied with the cause of death.

However, many objective observers are not. A number of medical professionals and others have said that the cut to Dr Kelly's wrist had severed the smallest artery in the wrist, which in their view could not cause death. The paramedics said there was much less blood than they would have expected to see from a spurting artery. The toxicologist admitted there was not enough Co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's system to kill him. While it might look as if DrKelly had been trying to kill himself, the method he had chosen, experts argued, would not have succeeded.

Another oddity was the position of the body, said by the searchers who found it to be leaning against a tree but which later ended up lying flat some distance away. Lord Hutton was satisfied the different witnesses were describing the same sight but dissenters complained that Hutton did not hear evidence under oath and had no power to subpoena witnesses or have them rigorously cross-examined.

Mr Baker says that a proper inquest would have more likely got to the bottom of such puzzles. "There are the basic questions that went unasked, or at least unanswered, "he says. "Whose fingerprints were on the knife? Was there any DNA other than Dr Kelly's 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 Huttondid not ask."

Michael Powers says part of the problem was that the overwhelming focus of interest was the political background to the affair, such as the alleged"sexing-up" of the dossier and the question of whether the Prime Minister had lied in taking the country to war. "I have a feeling that it was taken for granted that this was suicide and it was just re-affirmed by Hutton that it was, " he says. "But in law there is a presumption against suicide. You have to prove beyond reasonable doubt tha tis what happened. On the evidence I have seen there is reasonable doubt, so there should be an open verdict." He stresses this does not mean there was a conspiracy to kill Dr Kelly. "There is no doubt that he may have committed suicide. The question is, can we be sure that he did?"

The irregular behaviour of the Oxfordshire coroner merely adds to the sense that all is not as it should be - particularly since requests for clarification are stone-walled. The Daily Express asked Mr Gardiner for an assurance that the proper procedure was followed in all respects over the issuing of a full death certificate. He has yet to provide one.

Mr Baker has drawn a similar blank. When he asked Ms Harman why the coroner issued a full death certificate barely a week after Lord Hutton began taking evidence, she said: "The Hutton Report obviously ranged much more widely, which is one of the reasons why a further inquest by the Oxfordshire coroner was not necessary." When Mr Baker asked what was discussed when the Home Office officials met the coroner, Ms Harman confirmed the date of the meeting but avoided any mention of the content. The Government has also refused a number of applications under the Freedom of Information Act to see documents relating to the case.

This level of evasion increases speculation about the only British individual not to have an inquest into his unexplained death - despite thefact that the pathologist who carried out the post mortem now says he would be more comfortable if the inquest were re-opened.

Mr Baker says that a man of Dr Kelly's stature deserves to have his death fully investigated but the country also has a right to know precisely what happened in an incident central to one of the most important episodes of recent British history. "We owe it to him and to ourselves, " he says. "So far, I haven't speculated on what might have happened but I will carry on asking questions until we can be sure we know the truth."

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.