The Assassination of David Kelly

by **Pants Elk** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 12:56 pm

After a maybe too-brief search through the RI archives, I couldn't find anything recorded about this "forgotten" murder, that could in itself have brought down the British Government. And maybe still could ... Please post further documents you find on this subject. ..................................................... Tuesday January 27, 2004 The Guardian As specialist medical professionals, we do not consider the evidence given at the Hutton inquiry has demonstrated that Dr David Kelly committed suicide. Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist at the Hutton inquiry, concluded that Dr Kelly bled to death from a self-inflicted wound to his left wrist. We view this as highly improbable. Arteries in the wrist are of matchstick thickness and severing them does not lead to life-threatening blood loss. Dr Hunt stated that the only artery that had been cut - the ulnar artery - had been completely transected. Complete transection causes the artery to quickly retract and close down, and this promotes clotting of the blood. The ambulance team reported that the quantity of blood at the scene was minimal and surprisingly small. It is extremely difficult to lose significant amounts of blood at a pressure below 50-60 systolic in a subject who is compensating by vasoconstricting. To have died from haemorrhage, Dr Kelly would have had to lose about five pints of blood - it is unlikely that he would have lost more than a pint. Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist at the inquiry, considered the amount ingested of Co-Proxamol insufficient to have caused death. Allan could not show that Dr Kelly had ingested the 29 tablets said to be missing from the packets found. Only a fifth of one tablet was found in his stomach. Although levels of Co-Proxamol in the blood were higher than therapeutic levels, Allan conceded that the blood level of each of the drug's two components was less than a third of what would normally be found in a fatal overdose. We dispute that Dr Kelly could have died from haemorrhage or from Co-Proxamol ingestion or from both. The coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, has spoken recently of resuming the inquest into his death. If it re-opens, as in our opinion it should, a clear need exists to scrutinise more closely Dr Hunt's conclusions as to the cause of death. David Halpin Specialist in trauma and orthopaedic surgery C Stephen Frost Specialist in diagnostic radiology Searle Sennett Specialist in anaesthesiology June 17, 2005 The Observer Kelly death - paramedics query verdict The Hutton inquiry found that the scientist caught in the storm over the 'sexed up' Iraq dossier committed suicide. Now, for the first time, the experienced ambulance crew who were among the first on the scene tell of their doubts about the decision. Special report by Antony Barnett 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 death would become one of the biggest news stories of the year, a tale of intrigue and confusion which would threaten the future of Tony Blair. Kelly was a government scientist who had been revealed as the source of a broadcast by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan which questioned the veracity of the government's report on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. It is remembered for the allegation that Downing Street 'sexed up' the report to make the case for going to war against Iraq. With Kelly's body lying in the woods and Blair facing political meltdown, the government announced the Hutton inquiry to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death. Its report said Kelly had died by 'bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist'. No shadow of a doubt. Now the paramedics, two of the first people to see Kelly, want to question that judgment. In their first interviews about the death, they are not trying to spin conspiracy theories. They offer no alternative explanation for Kelly's death. They have decided to speak out so that information which they believe Hutton failed to emphasise is put into the public domain. They have no answers to the questions they have been asking themselves over the past 12 months, but they seem certain of one thing: Kelly could not have died from the wound they saw on his left wrist in the woods that Friday morning. It was 9.40am when the emergency call came in. Bartlett and Hunt had just started their morning shift and were having coffee in the crew room of Abingdon ambulance station in Oxfordshire when they were told of an incident involving a male at Harrowdown Hill. 'On the way, we thought it might have been somebody who committed suicide in their car. That is quite common in the mornings,' said Bartlett. 'Or somebody out walking the dog who had collapsed,' said Hunt. When they arrived at the woods 15 minutes later it was immediately clear that this was not a run-of-the-mill incident. 'There were a lot of police around,' said Hunt. 'Some were in civilian clothes and others in black jackets and army fatigues. I thought it might have been a firearm incident as there were the guys from the special armed response units.' 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. 'He was about 20 metres away lying flat down with his feet towards us,' said Hunt. Bartlett's first thought was that the 'poor chap had hung himself and fallen from the tree'. As they approached the body, Hunt went to the right of Kelly and Bartlett to the left. Hunt checked for a pulse and Bartlett shone a light into his eyes to see if there was any pupil reaction. They then put four electrodes on his chest to detect any heart activity, but there was none. Kelly was pronounced dead at 10.07am. 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 agreed: 'I remember saying to one of the policemen it didn't look like he died from that [the wrist wound] and suggesting he must have taken an overdose or something else.' 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.' The surprise of the paramedics that there was not much blood is supported by a number of medical experts. A letter was written to the papers earlier this year questioning his death. In particular, one group of doctors has pointed to the fact that the pathology report into Kelly's death revealed that the only artery completely severed was in his left wrist, called the ulnar artery. This is not the normal main radial artery that is used to take a pulse, but a small artery below the little finger which is hard to locate and lies deep within the wrist. Martin Birnstingl was until recently president of the Vascular Surgical Society of Great Britain. He is a former consultant at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and one of the country's most respected vascular surgeons. Birnstingl said he believed it was 'extremely unlikely' for Kelly to have died by simply severing the ulnar artery. He explained that arteries have muscles around them that will constrict when severed, to prevent life-threatening loss of blood. 'It would spray blood around and make a mess. But after the blood pressure started to fall, the artery would contract and stop bleeding,' he said. This is a view echoed by Dr Bill McQuillan, a former consultant at Edinburgh's Royal Infirmary who for 20 years has dealt with hundreds of wrist accidents. 'I have never seen one death of somebody from cutting an ulnar artery,' he said. He also pointed out that a warm bath might allow more bleeding, but in the open air the artery would simply close down. 'I can't see how he would lose more than a pint of blood.' Despite these doubts, other forensic experts remain 'satisfied' with Hutton's verdict, including Professor Robert Forrest and Professor Chris Milroy. They claim to have seen suicides where a single slit artery led to death. Hutton's findings were based on evidence given to the inquiry that there was more blood around Kelly's body, including a stain two to three feet in length running across the undergrowth. But the paramedics are insistent. 'I am sure I would not have missed that amount of blood,' said Hunt. Then there was the issue of an overdose. If Kelly had not died by slitting his wrists, perhaps he had taken tablets to hasten his death. Hutton did reveal Kelly had swallowed several painkillers, believed to have been taken from his wife's medicine cabinet. The pathologist found three blister packets of the painkiller coproxamol in Kelly's left-hand jacket pocket. Each of these packets would have contained 10 tablets, but there was only one left, leading to the conclusion that Kelly may have swallowed 29 pills. Could this have been enough to kill him? No. Copraxamol is typically prescribed for mild back pain and consists of two compounds: paracetamol and an opiate-type drug, dextropropoxyphene. Both can be lethal if consumed in sufficient amounts, but a detailed toxicology report on Kelly's blood revealed the presence of only one-third of the dose that normally causes death. Dr Alexander Allan, the forensic toxicologist who examined Kelly's blood and urine, told the Hutton inquiry that although the levels he found were more than therapeutic, they were significantly lower than doses that would lead to death. Bartlett and Hunt are also concerned about another issue. The Hutton report said Kelly's body was found with his head and shoulders 'slumped against a tree'. The judge said he had seen a photograph showing his body in that position. One of the first people to find Kelly, Louise Holmes, agreed that he was resting against a tree. But by the time Bartlett and Hunt arrived, Kelly was lying flat, some feet from the tree. Had someone moved him? Had his body been searched? Why the discrepancy? None of the police officers at the scene said they had touched the body. What next? A full independent inquest might have offered answers to some of the issues raised by the paramedics. The Hutton inquiry prevented a full inquest from taking place and, although witnesses were summoned, they were not cross-examined under oath. The Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, decided there was no public interest in reopening the inquest. After all, there had been no evidence from the police or any individual that a third party had been involved in Kelly's death. More important, his family had accepted Hutton's verdict and had no desire to reopen the case. Yet for Michael Powers QC, a barrister and former doctor who is one of Britain's leading experts in coroner law, the lack of a public inquest is unsatisfactory. 'For an inquest to conclude that suicide is the cause of death, it has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt,' he said. 'In this case, there are a lot of gaps. The evidence of the paramedics, who are professionals, is significant. There appears to be no accurate measure of how much blood Kelly lost and a very real question, backed up by witnesses, that it was insufficent to lead to his death. 'The toxicological evidence is very poor. There are questions over where the pills came from and how many he took.' Like the paramedics, Powers is unwilling to suggest that Kelly might have died in mysterious circumstances. But on the evidence he has studied, he believes any inquest would be forced to conclude an open verdict. An individual who was very close to Kelly also has serious doubts about Hutton's verdict. The person does not want to be named, but told The Observer that even if you accepted that Kelly's mental state was desperate enough for him to take his own life, it is inconceivable he would have chosen such an uncertain method. 'He was a scientist, a highly intelligent man. If he had chosen to kill himself, he would have opted for something certain, like hanging himself or throwing himself under a train. He would not have risked surviving. I can't believe he would have chosen to cut one small artery and take some pills. The outcome would be too uncertain.' The big question is: if Kelly did not kill himself, then what happened? No one wants to give an answer to that, though many are aware of the rumour mill and conspiracy theorists who say that the death was suspicious. Bartlett says there is one way to put such rumours to rest: 'If they showed me photos showing a lot of blood and said he had massive amounts of drugs or another substance in his body and that killed him, I would accept it. But until then there has to be some doubt.' Bartlett and Hunt know that by making their concerns public they will have increased those doubts. All they want is to get to the truth and a final verdict on the death of a government scientist who threatened the future of the Prime Minister, so that everyone can be satisfied. Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt sought permission from their employer, Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust, before agreeing to be interviewed. They spoke as individuals and not as representatives of the trust." THE MURDER OF DAVID KELLY by Jim Rarey On Thursday, July 17th sometime between 3 and 3:30pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill. Kelly, the U.K.'s premier microbiologist, was in the center of a political maelstrom having been identified as the "leak" in information about the "dossier" Prime Minister Tony Blair had used to justify the war against Iraq. While the Hutton inquiry appears set to declare Kelly's death a suicide and the national media are already treating it as a given, there are numerous red flags raised in the testimony and evidence at the inquiry itself. Kelly's body was likely moved from where he died to the site where two search volunteers with a search dog found it. The body was propped up against a tree according to the testimony of both volunteers. The volunteers reported the find to police headquarters, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and then left the scene. On their way back to their car, they met three "police" officers, one of them named Detective Constable Graham Peter Coe. Coe and his men were alone at the site for 25-30 minutes before the first police actually assigned to search the area arrived (Police Constables Sawyer and Franklin) and took charge of the scene from Coe. They found the body flat on its back a short distance from the tree, as did all subsequent witnesses. A logical explanation is that Dr. Kelly died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found. This is buttressed by the medical findings of livor mortis (post mortem lividity), which indicates that Kelly died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. Propping the body against the tree was a mistake that had to be rectified. The search dog and its handler must have interrupted whoever was assigned to go back and move the body to its back before it was done. After the volunteers left the scene the body was moved to its back while DC Coe was at the scene. Five witnesses said in their testimony that two men accompanied Coe. Yet, in his testimony, Coe maintained there was only one other beside himself. He was not questioned about the discrepancy. Researchers, including this writer, assume the presence of the "third man" could not be satisfactorily explained and so was being denied. Additionally, Coe's explanation of why he was in the area is unsubstantiated. To the contrary, when PC Franklin was asked if Coe was part of the search team he responded, "No. He was at the scene. I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived." Franklin was responsible for coordinating the search with the chief investigating officer and then turning it over to Sawyer to assemble the search team and take them to the assigned area. They were just starting to leave the station (about 9am on the 18th) to be the first search team on the ground (excepting the volunteers with the search dog) when they got word the body had been found. A second red flag is the nature of the wounds on Kelly's wrist. Dr. Nicholas Hunt, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial "scratches" or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery. The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery. For those familiar with first aid, the radial artery is the one used to determine the pulse rate. Just hold your left arm out with the palm up and see how difficult it would be to slash across the wrist avoiding the radial artery while severing the ulnar artery. However, a second person situated to the left of Kelly who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first. A reasonably competent medical examiner or forensic pathologist would certainly be able to determine in which direction the knife was drawn across the wrist. That question was never asked nor the answer volunteered. In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted. The coroner's inquest was never completed as it was preempted by the Hutton inquiry and the autopsy report will not be made public. Neither will the toxicology report. Two paramedics who arrived by ambulance at the same time as Franklin and Sawyer (some time after 9am) and accompanied them to where the body was located. After checking the eyes and signs of a pulse or breathing, they attached four electro-cardiogram pads to Kelly's chest and hooked them up to a portable electro-cardiograph. When no signs of heart activity were found they unofficially confirmed death. One paramedic (Vanessa Hunt) said the Police asked them to leave the pads on the body. The other paramedic (David Bartlett) said they always left the pads on the body. Both paramedics testified that DC Coe had two men with him. Curiously, both also volunteered that there was a surprisingly small amount of blood at the scene for an artery having been severed. When the forensic pathologist (Dr. Nicholas Hunt) who performed the autopsy testified, he described copious amounts of blood at the scene. He also described scratches and bruises that Kelly "stumbling around" in the heavy underbrush may have caused. He said there was no indication of a struggle or Kelly having been forcibly restrained. However, the police made an extensive search of the area and found no indication of anyone, including Kelly, having been in the heavy underbrush. Strangely, none of the witnesses mentioned anything about rigor mortis (stiffening of the body) which is useful in setting the approximate time of death. Even Dr. Hunt, when was asked directly what changes on the body he observed that would have happened after death, failed to mention rigor mortis. He only named livor mortis. Hunt set the time of death within a range of 4:15pm on the 17th to 1:15am the next morning. He based the estimate on body temperature which he did not take until 7:15pm on the 18th, some seven hours after he arrived on the scene. A forensic biologist (Roy James Green) had been asked to examine the scene. He said the amount of blood he saw was consistent with a severed artery. Green works for the same private company (Forensic Alliance) as Dr. Hunt. A majority of the company's work is done for police organizations. The afternoon of the 18th DC Coe turned up at the Kelly residence accompanied by a man identified only as "an attachment," who acted as an "exhibits officer" presumably collecting documents in behalf of some other government agency. Detective Constable Coe and those accompanying him are somewhat of a mystery. There are no corroborating witnesses to any of his actions to which he testified (other than "just being there" at the scene where the body was found). However, on a listing of evidence provided to the Hutton inquiry by Thames Valley Police is a reference to a document described thusly, "TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book…Between 1430 17.07.03 and 930 18.07.03. DCI Alan Young. It is labeled "not for release – Police operational information." Many of the exhibits are labeled that way or are not to be released as personal information. The police took over 300 statements from witnesses but less than 70 were forwarded to the Hutton inquiry. Witness statements were not to be released (even to the inquiry) unless the witness signed an authorization permitting it. TVP also withheld witness interviews they did not consider "relevant" to the inquiry. Witnesses were not put under oath so it is impossible for the public to know if their public statements are at variance with what they told police. The ‘tactical support" document must have been considered relevant to the inquiry on Kelly's death or it wouldn't have been forwarded. So this "tactical support" began at 2:30pm on the 17th, about one hour before Dr. Kelly left the house on his final walk. It ended at 9:30am the following morning about the time DC Coe and his men left the death scene. The obvious question is, to what was TVP giving tactical support? The name given the effort was "Operation Mason." In 1984 Dr. Kelly was invited by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) to take the position of chief microbiologist at its secret facility at Porton Down. Kelly had been working in the NERC Institute of Virology in Oxford. He brought a number of scientists with him from there to Porton Down. At the Hutton inquiry, Brian Jones testified as to Kelly's involvement, with the highest security clearance, in analyzing top-secret information regarding biological weapons of the U.K. and other governments. Jones was director of a department on the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). That involvement, beginning in 1987, presumably continued until his death and through his several other jobs as weapons "inspector" in Russia and (for UNSCOM) in Iraq. It was before and during Kelly's tenure at Porton Down that it became involved with South Africa's bioweapon program named Project Coast. A cardiologist named Wouter Basson who was the personal physician of South African Prime Minister Botha headed the project. After the apartheid government fell, there was a nearly two-year trial of Basson who was charged with numerous crimes including murder and misappropriation of project funds. During the trial several astounding revelations came out. (Basson was acquitted of all charges by a judge who would not let him take the fall for an official government program.) Basson was said to have had entrée not only to Porton Down but the U.S. Army facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland (the U.S. counterpart of Porton Down). The two main thrusts of Project Coast were developing genetically altered diseases that would affect only groups with similar DNA characteristics, e.g. blacks, and weapons to be used in assassination of individuals. Two (as yet unidentified) scientists working at Porton Down were also paid consultants to Basson's projects. The CIA in the U.S. contributed to Basson's efforts through Dr. Larry Ford. Ford was set up as co-president of a laboratory supposedly developing a feminine birth control device that would also protect against AIDS. The company never had a product or any sales. According to an undercover FBI informant, Ford did develop an "anti-black" product he delivered to an attaché of the South African government in California. Ford was later killed by a shotgun blast that was ruled a suicide. At the time he was under suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination of his partner in the CIA front. Ford had made several trips to South Africa in connection with Project Coast. In 1989, Vladimir Pasechnik, head of the Soviet bioweapons program at its Biopreparat facility, defected to the U.K. His revelations of Soviet activity created a diplomatic uproar over violations of the 1972 treaty banning such activity that had been pushed and signed by the U.K., U.S. and USSR. Dr. Kelly and Christopher Davis of the U.K and U.S. microbiology experts debriefed Pasechnik. Davis, who comes out of MoD Intelligence, was at the time an employee of Veridian Corp., which has an interesting history. According to mind control researcher David Hoffman, in 1946 Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory was founded including the "Fund for the Study of Human Ecology." The "fund" was a CIA financing conduit for mind control experiments by émigré Nazi scientists and others under the direction of CIA doctors Sidney Gotttlieb, Ewen Cameron and Louis Jolyn West. Gottlieb, of course was the director of the CIA's infamous MK-ULTRA mind control program. Cornell was later absorbed into Calspan Advanced Technology Center in Buffalo , NY . The company continued experiments in mind control and artificial intelligence. In 1997 Calspan was in turn absorbed by Veridian Corp. Veridian (Calspan) is deeply involved in artificial intelligence. In August of this year giant defense contractor General Dynamics acquired Veridian-Calspan. Here is a strange "coincidence." After Timothy McVeigh left the army, he joined the Army National Guard in Buffalo . He landed a job with Burns International Security and was assigned to guard the premises of (you guessed it) Calspan. McVeigh had told friends the army had implanted a microchip in him during the Gulf war. (We now know that a number of soldiers were implanted with microchips explained as an experiment to keep track of their locations during battle.) The CIA doctors at Calspan were experimenting with merging brain cells with microchips. Pasechnik was put to work at Porton Down where he remained until set up with his own company. Three weeks after the mailed anthrax attacks in the U.S. , He died, "apparently" of a stroke. Strangely, the death was announced by Christopher Davis. His death began a string of mysterious deaths and obvious murders of world-class microbiologists, which continues to this day. Dr. Kelly's death is one of those but not the latest. One of the most disturbing deaths is that of Harvard scientist Don C. Wiley. Wiley was one of America's preeminent researchers into infectious diseases and HIV in particular. After years of meticulous research, Wiley had just scored a breakthrough by identifying the properties of the HIV virus that make it infectious and how it avoids destruction by the antigens in the human immune system. In theory, the discovery has application to other viruses that cause diseases. Viruses, as opposed to bacteria, seem to be immune to treatment by antibiotics. The dark side of the discovery, as Wiley himself discussed, is that the same information could be used to change relatively benign viruses into killers. **(See footnote on this author's three-part series on "Anthrax, GOCO's and Designer Germs.") In 1991, a team of U.S. and U.K scientists, including Kelly and Davis, made a trip to the USSR to inspect Biopreparat facilities at four locations. Their host was deputy chief of the program, Kanatjan Alibekov, who would later "defect" to the U.S. and change his name to Ken Alibek. Kelly made several inspection trips to Russia. Dr. Kelly was described by his contemporaries as an iron-willed individual who did not hesitate to challenge Russian and Iraqi authorities and scientists. However, he may have been a bit naïve concerning three individuals with whom he had extensive communications, all three women. Judith Miller of the New York Times (NYT) exchanged numerous e-mails with Kelly. The Pulitzer Prize winner is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and through her articles in the paper the most prominent of those warning of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The second "confidant" of Kelly's was Olivia Bosch, a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). The RIIA, also known as Chatham House, is the U.K counterpart of the CFR. Both organizations were set up by the financial elite to work for a one-world government. Both wield inordinate influence on the governments in their respective countries. Kelly had recently joined the RIIA. The third woman is a real-life Mata Hari. Mai Pederson met Kelly in Iraq where her cover was as a translator. She is a U.S. Army intelligence agent. Mai was instrumental in Kelly's conversion to the Baha'i faith. The first inspection trip was dramatized in a Frontline production in 1998 entitled "Plague War" shown on PBS in the U.S. and BBC in the U.K. Its main theme was that only Russia had violated the 1972 treaty but the U.S. and U.K. had abated their programs. Co-author of the script for the program was Tom Mangold, a sometime author and until very recently a BBC employee (propagandist?). Mangold was one of the earliest writers to proclaim Kelly's death as a suicide and has written articles "explaining" why Kelly killed himself. He bills himself as a "best friend" of Kelly but had to admit to the Hutton inquiry that his contacts with Kelly had been relatively few and mostly by e-mail. When Alibek defected to the U.S. in 1992 he underwent extensive debriefing by, among others, Davis and William Patrick ("father" of the U.S. bioweapons program and a CIA consultant). He was then rewarded with a job at BMI and became a CIA consultant. He is currently president of a subsidiary of Hadron, the defense contractor that peddled the PROMIS software to various governments (with a backdoor in the software) that resulted in an intelligence bonanza for the U.S. According to author Gordon Thomas, Kelly maintained close communications with Alibek, Patrick and other scientists in the U.S. Thomas reports that Kelly had contacts only weeks before two of the scientists died violent deaths. One was Dr. Don Wiley. In the months before his death, Dr. Kelly became embroiled in a shouting match between the British government and BBC. Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for BBC claimed that Kelly had given him and other reporters information that proved the government had exaggerated the Iraqi danger in its "dossier" justifying the war against Iraq and that Kelly had not been completely honest in telling his MoD superiors what he had disclosed to them. Writer Tom Mangold (it's not clear when he left the employ of BBC) used this to reason that Kelly's loss of integrity at being exposed as a "liar" was what led him to suicide. Mangold was not the only one to push the suicide angle. After Kelly's death, Foreign Office diplomat David Broucher made headlines around the world when he claimed Kelly had said if Iraq was attacked he might be "found dead in the woods." Broucher testified the remark was made at the end of a meeting he had with Kelly in February of this year in Geneva where they discussed the WMD "dossier." He said he didn't think much of it at the time but in retrospect Kelly may have been considering suicide then. When Kelly's daughter Rachel testified at the inquiry, she proved through her father's diaries that the only time he had been in Geneva, and the only time he ever met Broucher, was a year earlier in February of 2002. There was not even a draft of the "dossier" in existence at that time suggesting that Broucher's story was fiction. Actually, the opposite of the Mangold thesis appears to be the truth. Kelly was treated badly by MoD over the last three years of his life. He had not had a salary increase in three years as he approached retirement where his pension would be a function of salary. At one time he was told there would be reorganization within the intelligence operation and he would get a sizeable increase in salary. That didn't happen. Kelly had written several letters about his position and, according to his widow, was quite upset and frustrated about it (not despondent and suicidal). Kelly had voluntarily disclosed to MoD his contacts with the media. To his dying day, he maintained that he had not provided all the information Gilligan attributed to him. Nevertheless, Kelly was hauled before the Joint Intelligence Committee for a grilling. The final affront came in a mandated one-on-one session with MoD Personnel Director Richard Hatfield. MoD, with the approval of Tony Blair, had devised an orchestrated charade to "out" Kelly as the source of the "leak. Hatfield, head of the department that had been jerking Kelly around for three years, was supposed to get Kelly's acquiescence in the plan. Somehow, he never got around to the subject. Subsequently, at an MoD press conference, through a series of disclosures to the press, the MoD confirmed Kelly as the leak (as previously planned) when a reporter asked if Kelly was the one. Understandably, this treatment would have made Kelly a resentful employee. In intelligence circles, resentful employees are considered "unstable" and security risks. Kelly had for years maintained his silence about his extensive knowledge of the bio-warfare weapons of at least four countries. Had it become imperative that the silence be made permanent? However the public perception of Kelly was as the “single source” of statements made by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to the effect that the government had “sexed up” the dossier used to justify the war against Iraq. Kelly had voluntarily disclosed to his MoD superiors he had met with Gilligan but denied he made the statements Gilligan attributed to his source. In a July 9th press conference, the MoD confirmed that Dr. Kelly was Gilligan’s source. Kelly was hauled before the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for a grilling but convinced committee members he had not provided statements ascribed to him by Gilligan. The committee chairman, MP Donald Anderson wrote a letter to Secretary of State Jack Straw confirming the committee’s judgment and adding their view that, “Dr. Kelly had been poorly treated by his government..” Kelly told his wife he felt he had been betrayed. We did not understand the depth and duplicitous nature of that betrayal until further reviewing testimony at the Hutton inquiry, particularly that of Richard Hatfield, Director of MoD Personnel. Hatfield had no personnel management experience when he was appointed to that job in June of 2001. He had been Policy Director of MoD and a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. On July 7th Hatfield met with Kelly to review (and get Kelly’s approval) of a clarification the MoD intended to issue to clarify inaccurate information in Gilligan’s report without naming Kelly. What Hatfield knew, but did not tell Kelly, was that MoD intended to confirm Kelly’s name as the source to the press if any reporter mentioned his name after the charade of a “Q & A” session designed to lead to Kelly. When Kelly learned of this deception it must have infuriated him. Indeed, if it had been Hatfield’s body that was “found dead in the woods” Dr. Kelly might have been a prime suspect in the death. Another BBC reporter, Susan Watts, claimed on the evening program Newsnight, that Kelly made statements to her indicating he had lied to the MoD about statements he made to reporters. Later, after Kelly’s death, Watts had to back off from that allegation when the inquiry reviewed transcripts of a taped conversation Watts had with Kelly (without Kelly knowing it was being taped) and hearing an enhanced version of the tape recording. However, in the interim the media, led by Tom Mangold who claimed to be “Kelly’s best friend” and until very recently was himself a BBC reporter, claimed Kelly was so shamed by being branded a liar that he killed himself. However, that was belied by Kelly’s actions and communications right up to the morning of the day he disappeared (July 17th). He did not at all appear to be depressed and was looking forward to returning to Iraq to continue the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, he did communicate in an e-mail the day before his death that there were “many dark actors playing games.” Ironically, that e-mail was to Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter and CFR stalwart who probably was one of those dark actors. Miller, along with two other women was a close confidante of Kelly’s. The second was Olivia Bosch, a long-time functionary of the CFR’s sister organization in the U.K. the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). The third was a U.S. Army intelligence agent named Mai Pederson. However, information new to this writer since that article provides a much stronger motive for the assassination of Dr. Kelly. For several months, Kelly had been communicating with Victoria Roddam, a commissioning editor for Oneworld Publications based in Oxford. One week before Kelly’s death, she had sent him an e-mail that said in part, “I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government, policy and war - I’m sure you would agree.” They had been discussing Kelly authoring a book to be published by Victoria’s company. Another document found among Kelly’s effects at his home and removed by police was an undated hand-written note from Roddam with a list of suggested topics to be included in the book, any one of which would have sent the elite in several countries into a containment mode. One such topic was the ethics of biological warfare, a sticking point that could be responsible for a string of deaths of world-class microbiologists in various countries. A second one was the involvement of corporations in biological warfare. A third was the role of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries in biowarfare as well as prevention and containment. Yet another was the connection between Russia and Iraq with WMD. Victoria had also listed a look at the proliferation in the arms trade as well a look into the Royal United Services Institute-Whitehall. Finally, in the document there was a cryptic one-line reference to the rules of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). Recall Kelly was a neophyte member of the RIIA and likely would not have known what rules, if any, the organization had on members authoring books on sensitive subjects. He probably would have inquired disclosing his intentions. He also may have discussed it with his fellow member and confidante, Olivia Bosch. It would have been in character for him to discuss the project with Judith Miller and perhaps seek her advice as she had authored several books on topic. He may even have discussed it with his spiritual advisor Mai Pederson. At any rate, Kelly’s and Victoria’s project was no longer a secret (if it ever was). And now David Kelly has joined the growing list of world-class microbiologists who have met mysterious deaths and/or been murdered. Kelly, some four years earlier, had converted to the Baha’i faith (a minority branch of Islam) apparently under the influence of Mai Pederson, a U.S. Army linguist and intelligence operative. Pederson was one of several women Kelly evidently considered confidants as he had extensive correspondence with them. Another was Olivia Bosch, a senior researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (more commonly known as Chatham House or RIIA). A third was Judith Miller, star reporter for the New York Times and a long-time member of the RIIA’s sister organization the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Bosch testified at the Hutton inquiry in to Kelly’s death. Police evidently obtained witness statements from both Miller and Pederson, which have not been made available to the inquiry. The MoD told police that witnesses could opt not to have their statements given to the Hutton “probe.” At the hearings witnesses were not put under oath. Pederson has since, as the British say, “gone to ground” or disappeared from public view. However she has hired (or had provided for her) a very high profile spokesperson, a lawyer named Mark Zaid. The attorney often represents former/current government employees, intelligence officers and others. He is currently representing the father of Dodi Fayed (who died with Princess Diana in a controversial car accident) in obtaining alleged FBI and CIA documents said to relate to those deaths. However, in previous articles we might have slighted one of Kelly’s colleagues who may have been closer to him than any of the other three. Gabriele Kraatz Wadsack worked with Kelly in Iraq. She is one of Germany’s top biowarfare experts and is a former head of Unscom’s biological weapons program. She is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the German Army. Wadsack and Kelly had traveled around the world giving joint presentations to scientists on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Just weeks before Kelly’s death, he was gone for a week in Baltimore, Maryland giving a presentation according to testimony of Mrs. Kelly before the Hutton inquiry. Upon returning home Kelly sent an e-mail to Gabriele that said in part, “Thanks for a great week. I had a lot on my mind so I know that I was a little subdued. – thanks for being just you!” Police found a two-page handwritten note in Kelly’s briefcase titled “Gabriele’s concerns.” They say it appears to relate to Iraq and WMD.” However it is being withheld on grounds of personal ”privacy.” Once a regular panelist on TV, Wadsack is refusing interviews and is said to be working at the German Army’s biological weapons facility in Munich. While Kelly was definitely “plugged in” to the biowarfare scene, there is an undercurrent of possible religious influence on his actions and secret society involvement in his death that may yet generate the biggest controversy. According to news reports and former members, the national (UK) and international leadership of the Baha’i branch of Islam were solidly behind the removal of Saddam in Iraq, but for their own reasons. Islamic religionists were frozen out of Saddam’s secular Baath socialist government. The Baha’i leadership saw the removal of Saddam as an opportunity to expand their worldwide membership of over three million. It is not clear what the Baha’i attitude is toward the occupation of Iraq now that Saddam is gone and the Baath Party has been outlawed. One of the minor controversies raised during the course of the Hutton inquiry was the allegation that Kelly had made disparaging remarks about the “dossier” at a private meeting in the home of a fellow member of the Baha’i, Roger Kingdon. About thirty invited members of the Baha’i were present. Kelly had given a slide presentation on Iraq WMD, but the alleged remarks were made during a question and answer portion of the meeting. However, potentially the most controversial item to come out of the Hutton inquiry is a little noted piece of “evidence” submitted by the Thames Valley Police (TCP). Listed among the items submitted by the TVP is an exhibit titled “TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book.” The name given to the effort is Operation Mason. In 1997, Tony Blair’s election manifesto promised to compile a register of freemasons in public life. In February 1998 Blair’s new government (put out by then Home Secretary Jack Straw) required all new appointments to the judiciary, police, legally qualified staff of the Crown Prosecution Service and probation and prison services to declare membership in Masonic organizations. Existing government employees in those categories were encouraged to voluntarily announce such membership. Few have come forward. The government’s action was the culmination of anti-Masonic fervor dating back as far as 1869 when Rev. C.G. Finney in his book, “The Character, Claims and Practical Workings of Freemasonry” inveighed against the Masons with the following: “Can a man who has taken and still adheres to the oath of the Royal Arch degree be trusted in office? He swears to espouse the cause of a companion of this degree when involved in any difficulty, so far as to extricate him from the same, whether he be right or wrong. He swears to conceal his crimes, murder and treason not excepted. He swears to give a companion of this degree timely notice of any approaching danger that may be known to him. Now is a man bound fast by such an oath to be entrusted with office? Ought he to be accepted as a witness, a juror--when a Freemason is a party, in any case--a sheriff, constable, or marshal; ought he to be trusted with the office of judge or justice of the peace? Gentlemen, you know he ought not, and you would despise me should I not be faithful in warning the public against entrusting such men with office.” Another author, Anthony Beevor, was told by a leading Mason that all thirteen members of the Army Management Board were Masons (in 1991). The board comprises a mix of politicians and top army officers. It exercises authority over all forms of appointments, ranking and promotion in the army. The chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, Chris Mullin, is said to have been considering legislation to mandate that members of the criminal justice system be required to reveal if they are freemasons. However, that proposal was dropped (at least temporarily) after 5,000 Masons from London’s 1,585 lodges met to establish a new central organization. They were led by Prince Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick Windsor, Duke of Kent. He and his wife present the trophies at Wimbledon every year and is less well known in his position as head of the English Freemasonry movement. The Duke and Duchess, after selling their own home in Coppins, now live in two residences supplied by the Queen at Anmer Hall and St. James Palace. At the meeting, the Masons protested the contemplated mandatory declarations as a violation of the 1998 Human Rights Act. There are an estimated 300,000 Masons in England and Wales. An Italian government was brought down following a 1981 investigation of the (former) P2 Masonic lodge. Consecrated in 1895, the P2 lodge included elite members from the Italian government, military and intelligence services and bankers serving the Vatican and mafia. The P2 Grand Master, an Italian named Licio Gelli joined the CIA and worked in league with mafia banker Michele Sindona and president Roberto Calvi of the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in the Vatican banking scandal. Gelli himself was expelled from Masonry in 1976. As a result of the scandal, the Italian government banned secret societies. Calvi, twenty years ago, was found hanging from a bridge over the Thames River in what was thought to be a suicide. However British authorities have reopened the case and are now calling it murder and may prosecute three men and a woman for the crime. The motives conjectured include his mishandling of mafia money and/or potentially blackmailing P2 members. The timing of the reopening of the Calvi case could be more than a coincidence considering the civil trial due to begin next month against the Bank of England for its role in the supervision and closing of BCCI. The mafia, CIA, British intelligence, the Mossad an assorted terrorist and drug trafficking organizations used BCCI for laundering money. However, Lord Hutton’s report on his inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of microbiologist David Kelly is due out in the same time frame. It undoubtedly will dominate news coverage as BBC and politicians try to blame each other for the supposed “suicide” of Kelly and the debate over the “dossier” justifying the war against Iraq. The capture yesterday of Saddam Hussein and its attendant publicity may be a wild card in the public relations battle. It is not clear why the TVP named its tactical support Operation Mason. It could be a red herring or just a taunt to the anti-Masonic movement. It possibly could be a straightforward reference to support of a Masonic operation. But what was that operation? One thing this writer can confidently predict, the Hutton report will label Kelly’s death a suicide giving no credence to any of the evidence that points conclusively to murder. Some may wonder why an American writer would choose a purely British colloquialism as the title of his article. There simply could not be found a better description of Lord Hutton’s manipulation, distortion and omission of evidence in his report on the death of world-class microbiologist David Kelly. But Hutton may have outsmarted himself by providing information that will prove Kelly’s body was moved at least twice before police and forensic investigators saw it. Come with us as we follow Hutton’s tortuous path trying to discount the testimony of Louise Holmes (and Paul Chapman), the volunteers who found Kelly’s body. Numbers enclosed in parentheses are references to items in Chapter 5 of the Hutton report where Hutton comments and (very) selectively presents testimony from published transcripts of testimony at his hearings and/or excerpts from witness statements and reports that are not available to the public. In (130) Hutton correctly characterizes Louise Holmes’ testimony saying, “She saw the body of a man at the base of the tree with his head and shoulders slumped back against it.” (Keep this in mind because it becomes crucial in two aspects of where Kelly died.) The two volunteers started down a path on Harrowdown Hill (where the body was found) to meet police who were being dispatched from Thames Valley Police (TVP) headquarters after being notified by Chapman over his mobile phone. On the way they met three uniformed police (not the ones being dispatched). Chapman took one of them, DC Coe back to where the body was. In (131) Hutton comments, ”Mr. Chapman showed Detective Constable Coe the body lying on its back…” Already, Hutton has moved the body to its back. Chapman had testified at his hearing that the body was “sitting up against a tree….” All subsequent witnesses at the hearings (including DC Coe) said the body was lying on its back (but not in contact with the tree). In item (151) Hutton tries to finesse a reconciliation of these contradictory descriptions of the position of the body. He comments: “In the evidence which I heard from those who saw Dr Kelly's body in the wood there were differences as to points of detail, such as the number of police officers at the scene and whether they were all in uniform, the amount of blood at the scene, and whether the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. I have seen a photograph of Dr Kelly's body in the wood which shows that most of his body was lying on the ground but that his head was slumped against the base of the tree (emphasis added)- therefore a witness could say either that the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. These differences do not cause me to doubt that no third party was involved in Dr Kelly's death.” The photograph, to which Hutton refers, has never been seen by the public or media. Hutton is very careful not to say the back was on the ground (there is a reason) and neglects to say the shoulders, as well as the head, were slumped against the tree. This photograph could only have been taken by one of the volunteers who found the body and could be the “smoking gun” that unravels the whole suicide charade. Hutton, in (131) skips very lightly over the activities and testimony of the two Police Constables (Franklin and Sawyer) dispatched from TVP headquarters in Abingdon who arrived about a half hour after Chapman’s call with the two paramedics (Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett) in tow. Although not included in Hutton’s report, all four testified Kelly’s body was lying on its back. Both Hunt and Bartlett said the feet were facing towards them. PC Sawyer said the body was “lying on its back with its head at the base of a tree….” But most significantly, and also not disclosed in the report, is the fact that PC Sawyer took several photographs with his digital camera before, during and after the paramedics attended to the body. When Hutton and Sawyer at one of the hearings discussed the photographs, Hutton’s only interest was whether or not the photos showed Kelly’s shirt buttoned or unbuttoned! A simple comparison of Sawyer’s photographs with the one Hutton referenced should prove whether his rationalization of the differences in testimony is valid or if the head and shoulders were against the tree as Holmes testified. If the photographs show different positions of the body, the implications are obvious. Kelly’s body was moved during the half-hour interval before the two constables and paramedics arrived. It may be necessary for all the pictures to be subpoenaed for that comparison to be made. There is another reason Hutton has gone to such pains to make it appear the body was found laying on its back. Not discussed in the report is the portion of the testimony of Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, where he discloses discoloration on the back of the body (called hypostasis, livor mortis, or post-mortem lividity) indicates Dr. Kelly died while on his back. Hunt also says the body was found on its back. Of course Hunt did not arrive on the scene at Harrowdown Hill until about noon, a good three and a half hours after the body was found so he has no first-hand knowledge of the position in which the body was discovered. The discoloration appears on the lowest parts of the body after the heart stops pumping blood. This is a further complication for Hutton in that if the body was found with its head and shoulders against the tree, that means it was moved to the tree after he had died and the blood had settled to the back and where Kelly died has not been established. But where Kelly died is not the only thing in question. Dr. Hunt assigned the primary cause of the death as bleeding caused by self-inflicted knife injuries to the left wrist. He said one artery (the ulnar) had been completely cut through while the artery usually cut in suicide attempts, the radial (which is much easier to reach), had not been touched. Several medical experts have come forward to challenge that finding. In a letter released to the media, three medical professionals, Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon David Halpin, Dr. Stephen Frost in Sweden who is a specialist in diagnostic radiology, and a retired anaethesiologist in South Africa, maintained that a completely severed artery would almost immediately retract and limit the bleeding while promoting clotting. They said they dispute that Dr. Kelly could have died from the bleeding. Support came for that position Wednesday from Dr. Don MacKenchnie who is head of accident and emergency at Rochdale infirmary and chair of the British Medical Association’s accident and emergency medicine committee. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Dr. A. Peter Fletcher of Halstead, Essex (a retired pathologist) derided Hunt’s finding based on the blood evidence described in the hearings. He said about five pints of blood would have to have been lost to cause death. “Anybody who has seen five pints of blood spurted forcefully out of a severed artery will know that there is one hell of a mess.” He concludes that, “Either Kelly did not die of blood loss or it occurred at some place distant from where the body was found.” Fletcher closed by remarking, “A coroner has the power of subpoena, witnesses give testimony under oath and a jury is usually involved. Lord Hutton was denied these requirements for his inquiry.” Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner has said he will make a decision after a legally required 28-day period, whether to reopen the inquest that was cut short by appointment of the Hutton Inquiry. As this writer said in an earlier open letter to the public and media (published before the Hutton report was released) if Gardiner does not resume the inquest, color him part of the cover-up. Oxfordshire Coroner Nicholas Gardiner has a problem. On March 16th he is holding a hearing to determine if he should resume the inquest into the death of microbiologist David Kelly that was cut short with the appointment of Lord Hutton to head an inquiry. Earlier, Gardiner had been quoted as saying he had seen no “fresh” evidence that would warrant reopening the inquest. The hearing was expected to be a pro forma announcement of that decision. However, Tuesday evening Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the Home Office pathologist on whose testimony Lord Hutton relied for his suicide verdict, dropped a bombshell in Gardiner’s lap during a Channel 4 news program. Alex Thomson was airing film clips of interviews with medical specialists who challenged the medical evidence provided by Hunt (and toxicologist Allan) and were calling for resumption of the inquest. Thomson also showed clips from supporters of Hutton’s verdict. During Thomson’s how, Dr. Hunt called the newsroom and told them he would, “feel more comfortable with a full coroner’s inquest.” Dr. Hunt would obviously be one of the main witnesses in a resumed inquest and apparently has some information he feels he was not allowed to give at the inquiry. While many have serious doubts about the suicide verdict by Lord Hutton in the death of microbiologist David Kelly, a close reading of the testimony of the two key forensic experts, on whose testimony Hutton based his verdict, reveals they also had doubts. The questioning of the forensic witnesses was aimed at eliciting only that information that would support a suicide verdict. The “questioning was replete with leading questions (suggesting the answer) and at times statement of “fact” with which witnesses were asked to agree. Indeed, at times it was not clear who was giving testimony, the witnesses or Lord Hutton and his Queen’s counsels. Statements and answers by witnesses that begged for follow-up questions were ignored or the subject was quickly changed. For most of his time in the witness stand, Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the Home Office pathologist who performed the autopsy on David Kelly’s body, dutifully supplied the expected answers with two notable exceptions. Evidently witnesses had been directed to suspend common sense and logic and stay within their fields of expertise in their testimony. When Hunt and Alexander Allan, the toxicologist on the case, were asked at the end of their stints on the witness stand “is there anything else which you know of which might have contributed to the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death?” Allan answered, “From a toxicological point of view, no.” To the same question, Dr. Hunt replied, “Nothing I could say as a pathologist, no.” Clearly both were implying they had other information that was “outside their expertise.” Mr. Allan had testified that the level of coproxamol components he found in Kelly’s blood was only about one third of what he would consider a fatal level. He also said it was not possible to determine how many of the 29 tablets not accounted for had been ingested by Kelly. However, he said, “What I can say is that it is consistent with say 29/30 tablets but it could be consistent with other scenarios as well. Of course he was not asked what other scenarios. During his testimony, Dr. Hunt refused to bail Lord Hutton out of a dilemma he faced. The two volunteers who found the body had described it as, “head and shoulders against a tree” and “sitting up against a tree” respectively. Yet all subsequent witnesses saw the body as flat on its back away from the tree. In item 151 of his report, Hutton said he had seen a photograph of the body with its head against the tree but the rest of the body on the ground. He reasoned there was no conflict in the various testimonies. Hunt was asked if any part of Kelly’s body was in contact with the tree. He said no. He probably knew that was what photographs taken by Police Constable Sawyer a half hour after the volunteers left would show the body away from the tree. Thus Hutton had actually furnished proof that Kelly’s body had been moved at least twice after he died. Once to the tree and second to the position on its back to conform to the livor mortis evidence that showed Kelly was on his back when he died. This may have been one of the things to which Hunt was referring in his answer when asked if he could rule out any third party involvement in Kelly’s death. His reply to that question was, “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 the case.” The subject was quickly changed and no mention of this startling reservation appeared in the media and no one commented on the lack of follow through. With a few exceptions, the media, which has excoriated Hutton for his treatment of BBC in his report (and exoneration of the government from any wrong doing), has been strangely silent about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the testimony about the death. That is, until two days ago. However, the print media has yet to pick up on them or on Dr. Hunt’s courageous call to resume the inquest. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=pantselk>Pants Elk</A> at: 9/6/05 11:01 am

by **antiaristo** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:03 pm

Judith Miller and David Kelly <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessage?topicID=659.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...=659.topic</a>

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 12:58 am

<a href="http://www.deadscientists.blogspot.com/2003_11_01_deadscientists_archive.html#107021268618958804" target="top">The New Alchemy:</a> Turning Murder into Suicide by Rowena Thursby 28 November, 2003 Updated F O R E W O R D When the slant put on the reporting of a case almost guarantees a suicide "verdict", it is important to focus on the players who seed this interpretation. On 18th July 2003 the world was stunned by the news that Dr David Kelly had been found dead on Harrowdown Hill near his home in Oxfordshire. Dr Kelly had been caught in the vortex of a political storm & forced to appear before British government committees - one of them televised - investigating alleged revelations he made to the BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan. Gilligan claimed that Kelly had revealed to him it was Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's chief aide, who inserted the questionable claim that WMDs could be unleashed in Iraq in 45 minutes, to induce the public to support a war with Iraq. A public inquiry was set up to look into all the circumstances leading to Kelly's death. A key figure in this drama: pathologist, Nicholas Hunt, appears to have forged a new type of alchemy in forensic science - turning murder into suicide. >>>>>>>>>> Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist who testified before Lord Hutton in September, is one of only 35 Home Office-accredited pathologists in the UK. We might imagine, being appointed by the British government, Dr Hunt would be of the highest calibre, displaying impeccable professional judgement. Television news and drama, with their frequent references to "DNA evidence", bolster a view of the forensic pathologist as "never wrong". However, this article highlights a number of recent cases where flawed assessments by Home Office pathologists have given rise to unsafe convictions, and explores how professional fallibility may have led to similarly erroneous interpretations from Dr Hunt regarding the death of Dr David Kelly. It also raises the more sinister possibility that Hunt's interpretations were weighted deliberately with the express purpose of convincing us this was suicide. ERRORS & OMISSIONS One case found to be unsafe as a result of another Home Office pathologist's mistake was that of Stuart Lubbock, who died in the swimming-pool of the UK entertainer, Michael Barrymore. A BBC report on the case reads as follows: "A police investigation into the death of a man in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool may have been hampered by a Home Office pathologist's failure to spot crucial evidence..... Dr Heath was brought in when Stuart Lubbock was found dead at the entertainer's Essex home in April last year. He concluded the 31-year-old had drowned. But three other pathologists told the inquest into his death this month that marks on his face indicated he died of asphyxia, possibly from having an arm clamped round his throat during a violent sexual assault." Two further cases showed Dr Heath's findings to be wrong. Steven Taylor, a traveller, spent 10 months on remand facing a murder-charge after Dr Heath said he had strangled his wife. But two other pathologists concluded that marks on Beatrice Taylor's neck were caused by procedures carried out by a mortuary technician. Kenneth Fraser was accused of killing his girlfriend after Dr Heath maintained that she had been hit on the head with a plank of wood. Fraser was released after four other pathologists found she had fallen downstairs. Serious errors like these are not infrequent. In previous cases Dr Heath was also criticised for omissions A further case where a crucial omission was made was that of Sally Clark, wrongfully accused of murdering her two children and sent to prison for life. Her conviction was overturned on appeal after it was discovered that Alan Williams, another Home Office pathologist, had deliberately withheld cerebral spinal fluid test results from the original trial. These indicated one of Clark's children had had bacterial meningitis. Dr Williams, the holder of a distinction award which boosts his salary by an extra £27,000, is currently under investigation by the General Medical Council. Astonishingly, it is not a question of just a few bad apples in the barrel - the very system which investigates professional incompetence and malpractise is itself flawed. A Guardian article relates how, after a lengthy investigation, Paula Lannas, a Home Office pathologist, went before a police advisory board in 2001, accused of botching post-mortem examinations. Paula Lannas's methods of investigation were described as "demonstrating a continuing pattern of inadequate and unsatisfactory examinations and breaches of accepted forensic pathology practice". When the board failed to reach a conclusion due to a "conflict of interest or lack of impartiality" - meaning that members of the board did not feel comfortable passing judgement on a colleague - the case collapsed. Senior Home Office forensic pathologist Nat Cary observed wryly, "It may be a cynical view, but I think they want to keep the lid on things". Given that at least two of these Home Office pathologists were criticised for some years and yet remained in their jobs, it begs the question: were these government professionals huddling together for protection, or were some of these "mistakes" and "omissions" made deliberately, or allowed to pass, for political reasons? With fallibility - and corruption - in mind, it may be instructive to review Nicholas Hunt's testimony to the Hutton Inquiry. BLOOD What is striking in Nicholas Hunt's account of Dr Kelly's death is the impression he creates of blood everywhere: blood on Kelly's jacket, on his trousers, on his left wrist, on the palm of his right hand, on the right side of his neck, and on the right side of his face. But actually he is not talking of large amounts - only of small patches smeared on the body and clothing. Contrast this with the paramedics' assertion that, in their professional view, there was very little blood around for an arterial bleed. Normally an artery (which Hunt says was "completely severed") would produce copious amounts of blood spurting from the wound. Yet to quote paramedic Vanessa Hunt: "....the amount of blood that was around the scene seemed relatively minimal and there was a small patch on his right knee, but no obvious arterial bleeding. There was no spraying of blood or huge blood loss of any obvious loss on the clothing." PC Franklin, one of the police constables at the scene, reported blood being "puddled around". However, this was not what the paramedics saw contemporaneously. Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett worked much closer to the body than the two police constables; had there been blood puddled around when they unbuttoned Kelly's shirt to put the electrodes on his chest, they would have been practically kneeling in it. Vanessa Hunt also commented "On his left arm...there was some dry blood"....." - only some blood, while Bartlett expressed surprise there was not more blood on the body itself, suggesting that is what he would expect to have found with an arterial bleed. WRIST INCISIONS According to Nicholas Hunt, there "was a series of incised wounds, cuts, of varying depth over the front [inside] of the left wrist and they extended.. over about 8 by 5 cm...", some of which he describes as "hesitation marks." Perhaps we too need to hesitate, and ask: why would this world-class scientist - and according to Keith Hawton the psyciatrist, an "extremely meticulous" man - choose such an astonishingly clumsy and uncertain method of suicide? The following information is from an internet police investigation site: "Wrist slashing by itself is not a very effective means of committing suicide and few people actually die of it. This is especially true if the victim cuts laterally across the wrist. He or she may do substantial damage to the important tendons which control the fingers. He or she may even cut an important artery or vein but the blood vessels will immediately draw back into the muscles surrounding them, effectively sealing off any major leakage of blood." Most people attempting suicide in this way slash both wrists with the intention of losing as much blood in as short a time as possible. They also know the importance of immersing the wrists in hot water to help prevent blood coagulation and keep the wound open. Even so, "success" is not guaranteed, and many wake up later in a tub of cold water." Other internet sources point out that the best way to kill oneself using a knife is to make a longitudinal incision, from the crease of the inside of the wrist up to the elbow. Kelly would surely have been aware of this. It seems surprising that he chose to slash his wrist. As a professional scientist, once Head of Microbiology at Porton Down, one would imagine he might have chosen a much more effective & certain method. But to follow Nicholas Hunt's version of events, far from acting in the precise and careful manner of a world-class scientist, Kelly apparently kills himself in the most painful manner possible. Hunt tells the inquiry that amongst the multiple incised wounds to the inside of the wrist was one much deeper wound. He says that this represented the severing of the ulnar artery. Why though, would Kelly choose to sever the ulnar artery on the little finger side - one which is deep within the wrist - rather than the radial artery on the thumb side, which is much more accessible. Moreover the ulnar artery was not just cut but COMPLETELY SEVERED. How likely is it that Kelly would cut so deep into his own wrist that he would completely sever one of the trickiest arteries to reach? In his article: "The Murder of David Kelly" Part 1, Jim Rarey points out that cutting the ulnar artery suggests not so much a right-handed Kelly slashing from left to right, missing the superficial radial and cutting deep into the ulnar, as someone other than Kelly standing in front of the body slashing deep into the inside of the wrist (the ulnar side) across to the outside (the radial side) of the wrist. Hunt describes "hesitation marks" which "are commonly seen prior to a deep cut being made into somebody's skin." These hesitation marks might seem to indicate that this was indeed a genuine suicide - but how do we know that they were not added after the body had been removed from the scene, as part of a staged, state-sanctioned murder? An assassin might have slashed the wrist once while Kelly was unconscious & left the detail to others. There is sufficient evidence - see article, "Dark Actors at the Scene of Kelly's Death" by Rowena Thursby - to suggest that this may have been a "show" suicide, intended to dupe the layperson into believing this was suicide when it may have been murder made to look like suicide. ABRASIONS Nicholas Hunt next mentions abrasions to the left side of Kelly's scalp. But rather than leave the reason for those scalp abrasions open, he jumps in and tries to make them seem perfectly normal: "... and of course that part of his head was relatively close to the undergrowth." How many abrasions does one receive on one's head just from walking through a wood? Kelly was a seasoned and vigorous walker, fully capable of ducking under or pushing aside any branches or twigs in his way." Lord Hutton however, appears to support Hunt's line of reasoning; he asks: "Were those abrasions consistent with having been in contact with the undergrowth?" - as if receiving abrasions from walking through a wood was an everyday occurrence! (One starts to wonder whether there might not be a degree of collusion between the questioner and the witness). But Hunt does not stop there. His testimony starts to descend into the realms of high farce. Pleased that Lord Hutton is uncritically followinghis drift he answers: "They were entirely, my Lord; particularly branches, pebbles and the like." Pebbles? Is this man serious? He is in a wood, not on a beach! Woods do not contain pebbles. Even allowing for a slip of the tongue - let us say he meant to say "stones" as, indeed he states later - how is Dr Kelly's scalp supposed to have come into contact with stones? He had three fresh scalp abrasions: are we supposed to believe this cool scientist, whose brain, according to Tom Mangold, could "boil water", been hitting his head repeatedly on the ground? BRUISES Hunt next attempts to explain away a number of bruises on Kelly's body: "There was a bruise below the left knee. There were two bruises below the right knee over the shin and there were two bruises over the left side of his chest. All of these were small..." When asked how they could have occurred Hunt states: "They would have occurred following a blunt impact against any firm object and it would not have to a particularly heavy impact....some of them may have been caused as Dr Kelly was stumbling, if you like, at the scene." First we have Kelly banging his head on the odd stone that happened to be lying on the floor of the wood, and now Hunt now tries to seduce us into imagining Kelly "stumbling at the scene". Why should Kelly have been stumbling at the scene? If the official scenario is to be believed, here was a man, calmly looking for a place in the wood where he could end his life. According to Keith Hawton, the psychiatrist, having made the decision to commit suicide, Kelly would have felt a sense of peace and calm. So why now are we being asked to accept as consistent the notion that he was "stumbling" around the wood? We are reassured by Hunt there were "no signs of defensive injuries.... and by that I mean injuries that occur as a result of somebody tryping to parry blows from a weapon or trying to grasp a weapon." But what if someone, or a group, assaulted Kelly without a weapon? Perhaps the bruise on the chest for example occurred as a result of a single sharp push. It is possible that the grazes on the head could have occurred if Kelly had been manhandled. A cut on the mouth mentioned by Hunt, again may have been the result an assault. Much is made of the possiblity of Kelly having been attacked with a knife. Why? Because a knife was found at the scene? Hunt appears to be suggesting that one of the few alternatives to suicide would have been murder at the hands of a random knife-wielder lurking in the wood. The possiblity of a small group of state-sponsored professional assassins setting up a suicide scene appears to be regarded as taboo or too hot to mention. Kelly may have been accosted before he reached the wood, abducted, and drugged - and only later placed in the copse with suicide props around him. When seeking reasons for the cuts and bruises on the scalp, chest and mouth, why is murder-made-to-look-like-suicide not properly explored? Presumably pathologists employed by the Home Office know better than to mention such a scenario. PRE-JUDGING THE CASE Throughout his testimony Hunt starts from a position of assuming Kelly's death was probably straightforward suicide: "The orientation and arrangement of the wounds over the left wrist are typical of self-inflicted injury. Also typical of this was the presence of small cuts called tentative or hesitation marks. The fact that his watch appeared to have been removed whilst blood was already flowing suggests that it had been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist. The removal of the watch in that way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self-harm" Plus, he adds, the "neat way in which the bottle an its top were placed, the lack of obvious sign of trampling of the undergrouth or damage to the clothing..."and the pleasant and private location of the spot. But is it right to start with a theory, or should the evidence be examined without pre-judgement? When facts are interpreted - or misinterpreted - through a filter of prejudice which says "this looks like suicide" crucial points may be missed. For example, how does Hunt know the watch was removed whilst blood was already flowing? We are left to assume it is because he found blood on the watch. But blood on the watch need not mean that the watch was still on the wrist. Blood may have splashed onto the watch after it was removed. Moreover it need not have necessarily have been Kelly who removed the watch. Had he removed his own watch it would have made more sense to do so before he started cutting. Another party - a professional assassin intent on creating a suicide-scene - could have removed the watch. So the interpretation of "watch removed by suicidal man in order to gain better access to wrist" is but one possibility. Hunt alights upon this tortuous explanation either to back his prejudice or to convince his audience that this was straightforward suicide. Unfortunately the system is set up to regard him as an expert whose interpretation is of great value. But it is still only one interpretation, and can obviously be wrong. The neat placement of the bottle & top need not mean Kelly himself had arranged them. A private spot may be considered by some an ideal location for a suicide - but by others, for a murder. The possiblity of murder is dismissed point by point, without proper examination. No evidence was found, says Hunt, of: - restraint-type injury - sustained violent assault - strangulation or use of arm hold. But had Kelly been frogmarched through the wood with a gun to his back, violent assault or restraint would be unnecessary. And had he been overpowered by a chloroform-type substance, prior to the cutting of his wrists, we would be none the wiser. Interestingly, Hunt was questioned on this last point, which suggests that some kind of assassination was being considered, but he merely refers to the toxicologist's report, which to date has not been made available. Is it hoped that such "details" may be forgotten as the media circus transfers its focus from the details of the death itself onto whose political head will fall? FINAL WORD Hunt's final assessment, his own personal interpretation - "there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly's death.... the features are quite typical, I would say, of self-inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of the case" - is the version of events the media reports. The pathologist has spoken - the silent inference being that he is best placed to know - so we must bow to his "expertise". But as we have seen in the introduction, such "expertise" is sometimes questionable. In Hunt's qualifier - "if one ignores all the other features of the case" - lies the rub. Ignore the fact that Kelly had become an embarrassment to the establishment through divulging inconvenient facts & suppositions to the media? Ignore the fact that he was about to return to Iraq, where his by- now public profile would have guaranteed publicity to the dearth of WMDs? The fact that this would highlight the mendacity employed in persuading the British and American public to support a war with Iraq? The fact that here was a man scrupulous about a truth they did not want told? The fact that Kelly had met and was discussing book projects with Victoria Roddam, a publisher in Oxford who in an e-mail to the scientist only a week before his death wrote: "I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government policy and war - I'm sure you would agree."?** Far from ignoring Kelly's pivotal political position at the time of his death, we should surely highlight it: as we explore the physical evidence provided at the death scene, the fact that there were elements in government and intelligence who wanted Kelly silenced has to figure prominently in understanding how he died. Nicholas Hunt may have been a pathologist doing his job in the way he saw fit, nothing more than that. Perhaps, like other Home Office pathologists, he was displaying a degree of bias in his interpretations. Alternatively, Hunt may have been party to a degree political sorcery requiring solid indications from this key professional figure that on 17th-18th August, Dr Kelly had killed himself on Harrowdown Hill by slashing his own left wrist. UPDATED: This is an updated version of the article elsewhere on the Internet dated this date. URL: http://www.GuluFuture.com/alchemy.htm ** See article: "David Kelly and Victoria's Secret" by Jim Rarey. See also "The Murder of Dr David Kelly", Parts 1 and 2, by Jim Rarey & article: "Dark Actors at the Scene of Kelly's Death" by Rowena Thursby More investigations into the circumstances of Kelly's death at www.deadscientists.blogspot.com. may be contacted at: RowenaThursby@onetel.net.uk. This investigation continues. Please write if you wish to be put on the Kelly mailing list.

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 1:00 am

<a href="http://www.deadscientists.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_deadscientists_archive.html#107797498493327192" target="top">The Strange "Suicide" of David Kelly:</a> Questions for the coroner's inquest by Renan Talieva With the release of his report last month, Lord Brian Hutton pronounced the death of scientist David Kelly a suicide. But the evidence given at the inquiry does not substantiate the finding. It is not yet known exactly how he died. Members of the medical community and the general public are beginning to express growing skepticism about the stated cause of death. In response to their concerns, Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner will hold a hearing in March to determine if 'exceptional reasons' compel him to reopen the original inquest. [1] There is more than adequate cause to question the current interpretation of the scientist's demise, as set forth by the Hutton report (HR) and the public record of the Hutton inquiry (HI). The official version can be summarized as follows. Between 3.00 and 3.20 pm on 17 July 2003, Dr Kelly left his Oxfordshire residence after telling his wife he was going for his regular walk. At about 9.20 am on 18 July, his body was found by volunteer searchers in a wooded area on Harrowdown Hill. On the body was a mobile telephone, glasses, key fob, and three 10-tablet blister packs of coproxamol with 1 tablet remaining. Near the body was a Barbour cap, wristwatch, Sandvig knife, and half-litre bottle of water. From this it was concluded that although he suffered from no significant mental illness, by the afternoon of 17 July Dr Kelly was feeling isolated and hopeless. When he left the house he took with him several packets of his wife's prescription pain medication, a gardening knife from his desk drawer, and a bottle of water. He proceeded to one of his favorite haunts, a peaceful and secluded spot, where sometime between 4.15 pm and 1.15 am he removed his watch and glasses, swallowed over 20 pills, and repeatedly slashed at his left wrist, leaving the radial artery intact but completely severing the ulnar artery which caused him to bleed to death, most of the blood soaking into the detritus of the woodland floor. In the process of stumbling or thrashing about in the undergrowth he possibly sustained minor abrasions to the scalp and lower lip, along with bruising to the lower legs and left side of chest. His demise was further hastened by a less than fatal but more than therapeutic blood level of dextropropoxyphene and paracetamol, and by clinically silent coronary artery disease. It is an odd and illogical tale, notable for its abundance of conjecture and conflicting witness accounts. The ten questions below highlight some disturbing anomalies. Did Kelly cut his own wrist? Forensic pathologist Nicholas Hunt gave no evidence specifying the direction in which the wounds were made to support a conclusion of self-infliction. The presumed scenario is that Dr Kelly drew the knife with his right hand across his left wrist (thumb to little finger). But the location of arteries in the wrist suggests that in so doing he would have more easily damaged the superficial radial artery on the lateral aspect. It is not likely he would have left the radial artery intact while exerting enough pressure to completely sever the deeper, better protected ulnar artery at the medial aspect. [2] And forensic biologist Roy Green observed that finding a bloodstain on the right sleeve of Dr Kelly's jacket was 'slightly unusual' [HI] in view of the presumed scenario. The pathologist did not mention blood on the right sleeve in his evidence. Dr Hunt also made the questionable inference that the apparent removal of the watch 'whilst blood was already flowing' [HI], along with the removal of the spectacles, pointed toward an act of self harm. It seems more likely Dr Kelly would have removed the watch before inflicting the wounds and left his glasses on to facilitate the effort. Then there is the alleged weapon. If Dr Kelly's intention was to efficiently open an artery, his choice of an old, blunt* gardening knife seems highly unlikely. As does the horizontal incision of a single wrist. *Bluntness is assumed from the pathologist's description of the wound's crushed edges. Did Kelly bleed to death? Medical specialists have questioned whether the incised wounds as described by Dr Hunt could have led to fatal haemorrhage. Only the small ulnar artery was cut which, having been completely transected, would have defensively retracted and clotted while blood pressure slowed, thereby greatly inhibiting the flow of blood. [3] And if one were to accept a verdict of death by exsanguination, why was there not more blood found in the vicinity? It has been estimated that for a person of Dr Kelly's size to die of haemorrhage, he would need to lose about five pints of blood. But witness accounts did not indicate anything near that amount at the scene. Paramedic Vanessa Hunt volunteered the observation that there was 'no obvious arterial bleeding. There was no spraying of blood or huge blood loss or any obvious loss on the clothing. ... As to on the ground, I do not remember seeing a sort of huge puddle or anything like that.' [HI] This was seconded by ambulance technician David Bartlett, who commented 'we was surprised there was not more blood on the body if it was an arterial bleed.' [HI] In rebuttal to these comments, the forensic biologist referred to 'a fair bit of blood' [HI] around the body and surmised that much of it had probably been absorbed by leaf litter covering the ground. He does not appear from the evidence to have tested the premise. The pathologist's conclusion that '[t]he arterial injury had resulted in the loss of a significant volume of blood,' [HI] seemed to derive from the fact that the artery had been cut rather than from specific evidence at the scene or the post mortem examination. He did not offer an assessment of the amount of blood remaining in the heart and large vessels to support a conclusion of haemorrhage. Did Kelly take an overdose of his wife's medication? Although the secondary cause of death was determined to be coproxamol ingestion, forensic toxicologist Alexander Allan reported finding merely 67 milligrammes of paracetamol in the stomach contents (equivalent to one-fifth of one tablet of coproxamol), and blood level concentrations per millilitre of 97 microgrammes for paracetamol and 1.0 microgrammes for dextropropoxyphene (equivalent to approximately 20 tablets). Dr Allan acknowledged this amount to be three to four times lower than the medically accepted level for fatal overdose. Dr Hunt offered no post mortem evidence of respiratory depression or heart failure consistent with dextropropoxyphene overdose, or of liver damage from paracetamol overdose. Lord Hutton noted that according to Dr Allan, 'the only way in which paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene could be found in Dr Kelly's blood was by him taking tablets containing them which he would have to ingest.' [HR p 95] But acquaintance Mai Pederson reportedly told police that Dr Kelly had difficulty swallowing pills -- a condition which could be confirmed by family, friends or physician. If true, it is doubtful that he would have voluntarily chosen to ingest over 20 of them. In addition, as a scientist and biowarfare specialist Dr Kelly would presumably have known how much coproxamol was required to induce overdose, and have had knowledge of and access to faster and more lethal substances. Nor was it adequately demonstrated at the inquiry that the blister packs found in Dr Kelly's jacket were taken from his wife's prescription. In his report, Lord Hutton deemed it 'probable that the Coproxamol tablets which Dr Kelly took just before his death came from a store of those tablets which Mrs Kelly, who suffered from arthritis, kept in their home.' [HR p 96] This despite evidence from Detective Constable Eldridge that their identical batch numbers were shared with 1.6 million other packets sold throughout the country. And Mrs Kelly did not confirm that an equivalent number of tablets were missing from her store at the house. Was Kelly suicidal? In the expert opinion of psychiatrist Keith Hawton it was 'well nigh certain' [HI] that Dr Kelly had committed suicide, a conclusion based largely on circumstantial evidence: isolated location of the site, wounds to the wrist, apparent use of a familiar object, presence of several empty blister packs. Less attention was given to the numerous contraindicators of suicidal ideation. Professor Hawton told the inquiry that Dr Kelly was 'an intensely private man' who kept his emotions bottled up and whose self-esteem was tied to his work. [HI] He theorized that in the wake of the parliamentary hearings, Dr Kelly had begun to see himself as publicly disgraced and to fear the loss of his job. Receiving additional parliamentary questions at about 9.28 am on 17 July possibly led to a perception that the problem was escalating and increased his sense of hopelessness. But these suppositions are not borne out by witness accounts or by Dr Kelly's own behavior. According to MoD colleague Wing Commander John Clark, Kelly had reporting being in good spirits when they spoke by telephone on 17 July. Clark and Kelly had agreed on 25 July as the date for him to fly to Iraq to work with the survey group, and the evidence indicated he was eager to resume that effort. At about 11.18 am that morning, Dr Kelly sent several e-mails to friends and colleagues, most anticipating that it would 'all blow over by early next week' [HI] and indicating his expectation of returning to Baghdad the following Friday. The e-mail messages given as evidence are not indicative of depression, despair, or hopelessness. Nor did Dr Kelly seem uncharacteristically distraught in encounters with two neighbors after leaving the house. Sometime around 3.00 pm he stopped and chatted amiably for a few minutes with neighbor Ruth Absalom, who described him as '[j]ust his normal self, no different to any other time when I have met him.' [HI] Farmer Paul Weaver also saw Kelly walking through farmland that afternoon, as reported by the 20 July Observer. Weaver commented that Kelly 'seemed happy enough' and had smiled at him. [4] Professor Hawton in his evidence mentioned three possible factors that might have acted as deterrents against Dr Kelly's suicide. One was faith. Dr Kelly was acknowledged to have been a practicing member of the Baha’i faith, which strongly condemns the act of suicide. Another was family. He had arranged with his daughter Rachel the night of 16 July to join him at his home the next evening for a walk and to visit a nearby foal. He was also looking forward to his daughter's wedding in October. A third was the effect of a previous suicide by a family member, which may decrease the likelihood of the survivor choosing a similar course. Dr Kelly has been quoted by Mai Pederson as saying in regard to his mother's suicide, 'Good God no, I couldn’t imagine ever doing that ... I would never do it.' [5] These mitigating factors, coupled with Professor Hawton's observation that Dr Kelly's 'mood was predominantly reported as being quite upbeat in spite of all his difficulties' with no 'sense of a persistent depressive mood' [HI], and an historical lack of psychiatric problems, contrast sharply with Hawton's depiction of a man suddenly pushed over the edge by additional parliamentary questions and a terminal case of mortification. Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page confirmed that 'based on early discussions with the inquiry it seemed entirely out of character' for Dr Kelly to have taken his own life. [HI] Was Kelly's body moved? Throughout the inquiry it was assumed that the body remained undisturbed until checked for vital signs by the ambulance crew. But there were marked discrepancies in descriptions of body position, particularly whether the body was lying flat or the head and shoulders rested against the tree, and whether the right arm was lying to the side of the body or across the chest. By all accounts, the first person on the scene was Louise Holmes, a volunteer member of the search team who approached to within a few feet of the body. She stated: 'I could see a body slumped against the bottom of a tree. ... He was at the base of the tree with almost his head and his shoulders just slumped back against the tree. His legs were straight in front of him. His right arm was to the side of him. His left arm had a lot of blood on it and was bent back in a funny position.' [HI] The second person to view the body was fellow searcher Paul Chapman. From a distance of 15 to 20 metres he saw: 'The body of a gentleman sitting up against a tree... He was sitting with his back up against a tree...' [HI] Soon after, Detective Constable Graham Coe arrived at the scene. His description was quite different: 'It was laying on its back -- the body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.' [HI] He also reported seeing a knife, watch, and small water bottle near the body. Holmes and Chapman did not mention seeing other objects, nor were they questioned about them at the inquiry. Lord Hutton chose not to quote Chapman directly in his report but related that, 'Mr Chapman then took one of the police officers, Detective Constable Coe, to show him where the body was. Mr Chapman showed Detective Constable Coe the body lying on its back...' [HR p 86] Hutton later commented, 'I have seen a photograph of Dr Kelly's body in the wood which shows that most of his body was lying on the ground but that his head was slumped against the base of the tree - therefore a witness could say either that the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree.' [HR p 10<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/alien.gif ALT="0]"> But Chapman twice used the term 'sitting' to denote body position, which is not to be confused with 'lying.' And subsequent witnesses did not use the term 'slumped' at all, nor did they indicate that any part of the body was resting against the tree. Police Constables Dean Franklin and Martyn Sawyer were next on the scene. PC Franklin described the victim as 'lying on his back with his right hand to his side and his left hand was sort of inverted with the palm facing down (Indicates), facing up on his back.' [HI] PC Sawyer described the body as '[l]ying on its back with its head at the base of a tree, a large tree. The head was tilted to the left. The right arm was by the side. The left arm was palm down.' [HI] The ambulance crew arrived soon after and waited while police photographs were taken before checking for vital signs. Hunt stated: 'There was a male on his back, feet towards us. On his left arm, which was outstretched to the left of him, there was some dry blood. ... The only part of the body we moved was Dr Kelly's right arm, which was over the chest, to facilitate us to place the fourth lead on to the chest.' [HI] Bartlett stated: 'They led us up to where the body was laid, feet facing us, laid on its back, left arm out to one side (indicates) and the right arm across the chest.' [HI] It is possible the body was moved for some reason by police. But no one gave evidence to that effect. DC Coe in particular made a point of telling the inquiry he observed the scene but 'did not go over the body.' [HI] As related by Lord Hutton, Coe 'remained about seven or eight feet away from the body and stayed in that position for about 25 or 30 minutes until two other police officers arrived...' [HR p 86] The position of the head at the time the body was found is significant in relation to what Bartlett described as stains going from the 'corners of the mouth' towards the 'bottom of the ears.' [HI] These were confirmed by pathologist Hunt to be vomit streaks. The direction of the streaks indicate the head would have been lying flat, not slightly raised. If the head was resting against the tree at the time, the streaks would have come forward down the chin. This raises the further possibility that the body was moved after death but prior to discovery by Holmes. These disparities could possibly be resolved using the digital photographs taken by search team leader PC Sawyer, supposedly before the body and surrounding area were disturbed. It does not appear that searchers Holmes and Chapman or ambulance crew members Hunt and Bartlett were asked to verify whether the photos accurately reflected the position in which they found the body. Is there reason to suspect foul play? ACC Page's stated confidence that Dr Kelly 'met his death at his own hand' [HI] derived from the absence of contravening evidence. But as noted by the following items, there were some intimations of outside involvement. It is not apparent that these were seriously explored by the inquiry. On the morning of the day he went missing, Dr Kelly sent an e-mail message to Judith Miller, a journalist acquaintance with the New York Times, containing the line: 'I will wait until the end of the week before judging - many dark actors playing games.' [HI exhibit COM/1/15] David Broucher, British ambassador to the disarmament conference, reported to the inquiry a conversation he recalled having with Dr Kelly at a Geneva meeting in February 2003 (the date and location of which are subject to debate). Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.'[HI] Professor Hawton dismissed this as 'pure coincidence' and without relevance to Dr Kelly's death. [HI] Others have strangely twisted it to represent a premonition of his impending suicide. Taken at face value, it could as readily be interpreted to mean he was aware of some threat to his safety. The coproxamol and knife found at the scene are ideal choices for lending the appearance of suicide, especially if one starts out with that conclusion. Both items could easily be associated with the victim and shown to be readily available to him at his home. Of interest here is the comment by a Thames Valley Police spokesman reported in the 18 July Guardian, the day the body was found. 'Responding to questions about whether the dead man had died of gunshot wounds, the spokesman said that Dr Kelly was not a licensed firearms holder.' [6] ACC Page gave evidence that he had been contacted by a witness who reported seeing three men dressed in dark or black clothing between 8.30 and 9.30 am on 18 July near the site where Dr Kelly's body was found. ACC Page said he was able to satisfy himself by plotting the movements of the approximately 50 officers at the scene that he was 'aware of the identity of these three individuals.' [HI] He declined to elaborate on their purported activities. ACC Page told the inquiry that Dr Kelly's dentist had reported the following incident. Upon hearing on 18 July of Dr Kelly's death, she had attempted to retrieve his dental records from the filing cabinet and found them missing; two days later they had reappeared in their expected place in the filing cabinet. According to ACC Page, the police had investigated and 'found no trace of anything untoward.' [HI] There was no evidence from the dentist that she believed the records to have been misplaced. Dr Hunt's post mortem examination noted three minor abrasions to the scalp, a small abrasion on the inner lower lip, a bruise below the left knee, two bruises below the right knee, and two bruises over the left side of the chest. His supposition that these injuries may have been sustained through contact with the undergrowth or by stumbling about in the brush merits further critical analysis. Who is DC Coe? According to evidence given at the inquiry, Detective Constable Graham Coe enjoyed some prominence in the police investigation. He initially took charge of the death scene, and by his own account supervised an exhibits officer during a search of the Kelly residence on 19 July. But he was not mentioned by ACC Page in connection with the case, nor did the search adviser or search team leader seem to be aware of his activities. There is also some question as to how he came to be the first police officer on the scene and who accompanied him. Upon locating the body, searchers Holmes and Chapman notified Abingdon police station by mobile phone and were instructed to return to the car and wait for police officers to arrive. Within a few minutes, while walking back to the car, they encountered three men coming up the track, one of whom identified himself as DC Coe. Chapman told the inquiry, 'As we were going down the path we met three police officers coming the other way that were from CID. We identified ourselves to them. They were not actually aware that (a) the body had been found or we were out searching this area. They I think had just come out on their own initiative to look at the area.' [HI] DC Coe told the inquiry he had been called out to Abingdon police station at 6.00 am and instructed to 'make some house to house inquiries in the area where Dr Kelly lived.' After speaking to neighbor Ruth Absalom about her encounter with Dr Kelly the previous afternoon, DC Coe and a colleague, whom he identified as Detective Constable Shields, 'went to the area where she had last seen him and made a sort of search towards the river.' [HI] But search adviser PC Franklin stated he had believed there were only two volunteers out searching at that time, and he had anticipated that after receiving the call he and search team leader PC Sawyer 'were going to be the first team out on the ground.' He evidenced surprise at having found DC Coe and the 'two uniformed police officers' there, commenting 'I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived.' [HI] PC Sawyer stated: 'We continued walking up the hill, where I saw DC Coe and two uniformed officers. ...The three officers -- DC Coe and the two uniformed officers -- stayed on the path which leads through the woods.' [HI] DC Coe affirmed he had only one companion. But at least four other witnesses contradicted his account, specifically stating (some more than once) that he had been accompanied by two other men. Lord Hutton dismissed these discrepancies by noting that 'entirely honest witnesses often give evidence as to what they saw at the scene which differs as to details.' [HR p 10<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/alien.gif ALT="0]"> It does not appear that the inquiry attempted to verify who DC Coe was with, why they were at the scene, and whether or not he and his two companions were the three men in dark clothing witnessed earlier that morning near Harrowdown Hill. What is Operation 'Mason'? One piece of evidence listed on the Hutton inquiry website was 'TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book: Operation 'Mason' Between 1430 17.07.03 and 0930 18.07.03, DCI Alan Young.' [HI exhibit TVP/10/0099-0105] In the course of the inquiry PC Sawyer identified Detective Chief Inspector Alan Young as senior investigating officer for the case. ACC Page stated that upon being notified that Dr Kelly's body had been found, he had appointed an unnamed senior investigating officer to 'carry out the technical issues around the investigation.' [HI] It is assumed that both statements referred to the same individual. But the above exhibit indicates his participation began on the afternoon of the day before. It does not appear that DCI Young gave evidence at the inquiry. Nor was anyone questioned about the tactical support operation under his command, which appears to have commenced at least half an hour before Dr Kelly left his home -- a full 10 hours before his family reported him missing -- and to have terminated at about the time the body was found. Has all of the evidence been considered? Unlike a coroner's inquest, the inquiry lacked the authority to request new evidence or compel witnesses to appear. Testimony was not given under oath, nor was it subject to aggressive cross-examination. Key pathological evidence, especially, was not introduced or queried. The pathologist failed to include assessment of rigor mortis or to establish an approximate time of death -- he offered a nine-hour window based on a temperature reading taken seven hours after gaining access to the body. And his medical evidence did not substantiate haemorrhage, self-infliction, or coproxamol overdose. In view of the nature of Dr Kelly's work, it is not unreasonable to suspect he may have been killed by someone familiar with the use of techniques and substances which are difficult to detect. But it is unclear whether the necessary sophisticated and exhaustive toxicological analysis was performed to address such a possibility. As reported by ACC Page, about 500 people were contacted and 300 statements taken in the course of the police investigation, of which five individuals refused to permit their statements to be forwarded to Lord Hutton. The inquiry heard from about 70 individuals whose evidence the police deemed relevant to the proceedings. Those not heard from included Paul Weaver, Mai Pederson, and Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak. Farmer Paul Weaver may have been the last person to see Dr Kelly alive. The 19 July Guardian reported that Weaver had seen Dr Kelly in the fields near his home on the afternoon of 17 July, and later that day he and councillor John Melling had searched for Kelly in the area between Southmoor and Longworth. [7] Mai Pederson, considered a friend and confidante of Dr Kelly's, was interviewed by detectives after his death but declined to give evidence to the inquiry. In a 25 January interview with the Mail on Sunday she claimed to have told police of his aversion to swallowing pills, his feeling about suicide, and his sense that his life might be in danger. [8] Yet ACC Page stated that his conversation with Pederson 'added nothing that was of relevance to my inquiry at all.' [HI] Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak was identified at the inquiry as an officer in the German army who had worked with Dr Kelly in Iraq and been in contact with him days before his death. In reference to her interview, ACC Page judged it also to be '[n]othing that furthered my inquiries...' [HI] Conceivably, the missing witness statements and pathology details could shed additional light on Dr Kelly's state of mind or behavior. The coroner has indicated that his review of the case will include evidence not considered by the inquiry. What really happened? Lord Hutton was unequivocal in his finding of suicide. With all due respect for his juridical competence, such conviction is not warranted by the evidence offered. The preponderance of circumstantial evidence and the exaggerated political context makes questionable a definitive ruling. As the pathologist noted, Dr Kelly's death has the appearance of typical self-inflicted injury 'if one ignores all the other features of the case.' [HI] Throughout the inquiry, Lord Hutton neglected to challenge contradictory evidence or to pursue testimony suggesting an alternative scenario. The most obvious explanation in support of suicide was consistently seized upon with little regard for Dr Kelly's known character and disposition. Despite the circumstantial evidence, it is doubtful that this particular individual would have chosen such an awkward, messy, and potentially ineffectual method. And notwithstanding expert opinion, it is unlikely that in this specific situation he would have gone to his death without attempting to vindicate himself or to put his affairs in order. All that has been shown thus far is the circumstance under which Dr Kelly was found dead in the woods. It has not been shown that he went there to kill himself, or that he bled to death from self-inflicted injuries. The inquiry did not reliably establish when or how he died. Lord Hutton's official version remains unproven, the facts as documented by the inquiry incomplete. A coroner's inquest is needed to render a plausible explanation of events based on rigorous examination of the toxicological and pathological evidence. It is left to Mr Gardiner, wielding the instruments of subpoena and sworn testimony, to probe more deeply into these questions and uncover the truth about David Kelly's death. About the author: RENAN TALIEVA is a freelance writer living in the western US, trained in psychological research, with knowledge of suicidal thought and behaviour. He states: 'I have closely followed the Kelly case from the beginning and find it absolutely incredible that the public and the media accept without question the official story.' Notes HI The Hutton Inquiry http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/ HR Lord Brian Hutton, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G., 28 January 2004 http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/index.htm 1. Danny Kemp, 'Kelly Coroner May Examine Unseen Evidence,' The Scotsman, 29 January 2004 http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2468152 2. Jim Rarey, 'The Murder Of David Kelly,' 14 October 2003 http://www.worldnewsstand.net/MediumRare/31.htm 3. 'Our doubts about Dr Kelly's suicide,' The Guardian, 27 January 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1131833,00.html 4. 'A haunted man,' The Observer, 20 July 2003 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1001786,00.html 5. 'Dr Kelly 'did not kill himself',' femail.uk, 26 January 2004 http://www.femail.co.uk/pages/standard/article.html?in_article_id=206680&in_page_id=2 6. Tom Happold, 'Body matches Kelly's description,' The Guardian, 18 July 2003 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1000922,00.html 7. Steven Morris and Hugh Muir, 'Mystery of last, lonely walk,' The Guardian, 19 July 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1001358,00.html 8. Chris Marsden, 'More questions on Dr Kelly’s death as a confidante rejects suicide claim,' World Socialist Web Site, 30 January 2004, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan20 ... -j30.shtml

by **Byrne** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:00 pm

This, from <a href="http://deadscientists.blogspot.com/" target="top">deadscientists.blogspot.com/</a> Wednesday, December 03, 2003 DAVID KELLY COULD NOT HAVE BLED TO DEATH A retired anaesthetist wrote to me regarding the fact that, if we are to believe the suicide story, Kelly chose not to cut the radial artery (which is the most easily accessible and the one most suicides choose) but rather to cut the ulnar artery which is much deeper inside the wrist. And not only did he cut it, he COMPLETELY SEVERED it (see Nicholas Hunt's testimony). Note what the anaesthetist says about an artery which is completely severed.... RT Ulnar artery I agree with you about the cutting of the ulnar artery --- nothing about it makes any sense. In fact, as you mention, a completely transected artery retracts immediately and thus stops bleeding, even at a relatively high blood-pressure, as against a partially severed vessel which cannot retract. In fact, it is the cutting of the ulnar artery as an apparent act of suicide which arouses one's suspicion that the alleged suicide was not suicide at all. As I understand it, there is also "confusion" as regards the actual amount of blood lost. Some say there was a lot, others say a little and some say there was just a bit of dried blood. I would imagine for a man of the size of Dr Kelly to die from haemorrhage he would have to lose at least three litres of blood. At autopsy, it would also be clear that the subject had bled to death because there would be very little blood in the heart and the large vessels. And I might add to bleed to death from a cut blood vessel is not as simple as it sounds because as the blood is lost the blood pressure falls and this, in turn, slows the blood loss. In fact, it is extremely difficult to lose significant amounts of blood at a pressure below 50-60 systolic in a subject who is compensating by vaso-constricting (contracting the blood vessels) for the blood loss. And, although the subject may lose consciousness at this BP, he may not necessarily die. As you know, in order to successfully commit suicide in this way the subject has to cut both radial arteries and prevent vasoconstriction by lying in a warm bath, a truly messy business but, clearly, a situation where one could have no doubt about what was intended. In fact, 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. - posted by Rowena @ 12:06 PM Sunday, November 30, 2003 THE DAVID KELLY STORY THE NEW ALCHEMY: TURNING MURDER INTO SUICIDE by Rowena Thursby 28 November, 2003 Updated F O R E W O R D When the slant put on the reporting of a case almost guarantees a suicide "verdict", it is important to focus on the players who seed this interpretation. On 18th July 2003 the world was stunned by the news that Dr David Kelly had been found dead on Harrowdown Hill near his home in Oxfordshire. Dr Kelly had been caught in the vortex of a political storm & forced to appear before British government committees - one of them televised - investigating alleged revelations he made to the BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan. Gilligan claimed that Kelly had revealed to him it was Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's chief aide, who inserted the questionable claim that WMDs could be unleashed in Iraq in 45 minutes, to induce the public to support a war with Iraq. A public inquiry was set up to look into all the circumstances leading to Kelly's death. A key figure in this drama: pathologist, Nicholas Hunt, appears to have forged a new type of alchemy in forensic science - turning murder into suicide. >>>>>>>>>> Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist who testified before Lord Hutton in September, is one of only 35 Home Office-accredited pathologists in the UK. We might imagine, being appointed by the British government, Dr Hunt would be of the highest calibre, displaying impeccable professional judgement. Television news and drama, with their frequent references to "DNA evidence", bolster a view of the forensic pathologist as "never wrong". However, this article highlights a number of recent cases where flawed assessments by Home Office pathologists have given rise to unsafe convictions, and explores how professional fallibility may have led to similarly erroneous interpretations from Dr Hunt regarding the death of Dr David Kelly. It also raises the more sinister possibility that Hunt's interpretations were weighted deliberately with the express purpose of convincing us this was suicide. ERRORS & OMISSIONS One case found to be unsafe as a result of another Home Office pathologist's mistake was that of Stuart Lubbock, who died in the swimming-pool of the UK entertainer, Michael Barrymore. A BBC report on the case reads as follows: "A police investigation into the death of a man in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool may have been hampered by a Home Office pathologist's failure to spot crucial evidence..... Dr Heath was brought in when Stuart Lubbock was found dead at the entertainer's Essex home in April last year. He concluded the 31-year-old had drowned. But three other pathologists told the inquest into his death this month that marks on his face indicated he died of asphyxia, possibly from having an arm clamped round his throat during a violent sexual assault." Two further cases showed Dr Heath's findings to be wrong. Steven Taylor, a traveller, spent 10 months on remand facing a murder-charge after Dr Heath said he had strangled his wife. But two other pathologists concluded that marks on Beatrice Taylor's neck were caused by procedures carried out by a mortuary technician. Kenneth Fraser was accused of killing his girlfriend after Dr Heath maintained that she had been hit on the head with a plank of wood. Fraser was released after four other pathologists found she had fallen downstairs. Serious errors like these are not infrequent. In previous cases Dr Heath was also criticised for omissions A further case where a crucial omission was made was that of Sally Clark, wrongfully accused of murdering her two children and sent to prison for life. Her conviction was overturned on appeal after it was discovered that Alan Williams, another Home Office pathologist, had deliberately withheld cerebral spinal fluid test results from the original trial. These indicated one of Clark's children had had bacterial meningitis. Dr Williams, the holder of a distinction award which boosts his salary by an extra £27,000, is currently under investigation by the General Medical Council. Astonishingly, it is not a question of just a few bad apples in the barrel - the very system which investigates professional incompetence and malpractise is itself flawed. A Guardian article relates how, after a lengthy investigation, Paula Lannas, a Home Office pathologist, went before a police advisory board in 2001, accused of botching post-mortem examinations. Paula Lannas's methods of investigation were described as "demonstrating a continuing pattern of inadequate and unsatisfactory examinations and breaches of accepted forensic pathology practice". When the board failed to reach a conclusion due to a "conflict of interest or lack of impartiality" - meaning that members of the board did not feel comfortable passing judgement on a colleague - the case collapsed. Senior Home Office forensic pathologist Nat Cary observed wryly, "It may be a cynical view, but I think they want to keep the lid on things". Given that at least two of these Home Office pathologists were criticised for some years and yet remained in their jobs, it begs the question: were these government professionals huddling together for protection, or were some of these "mistakes" and "omissions" made deliberately, or allowed to pass, for political reasons? With fallibility - and corruption - in mind, it may be instructive to review Nicholas Hunt's testimony to the Hutton Inquiry. BLOOD What is striking in Nicholas Hunt's account of Dr Kelly's death is the impression he creates of blood everywhere: blood on Kelly's jacket, on his trousers, on his left wrist, on the palm of his right hand, on the right side of his neck, and on the right side of his face. But actually he is not talking of large amounts - only of small patches smeared on the body and clothing. Contrast this with the paramedics' assertion that, in their professional view, there was very little blood around for an arterial bleed. Normally an artery (which Hunt says was "completely severed") would produce copious amounts of blood spurting from the wound. Yet to quote paramedic Vanessa Hunt: "....the amount of blood that was around the scene seemed relatively minimal and there was a small patch on his right knee, but no obvious arterial bleeding. There was no spraying of blood or huge blood loss of any obvious loss on the clothing." PC Franklin, one of the police constables at the scene, reported blood being "puddled around". However, this was not what the paramedics saw contemporaneously. Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett worked much closer to the body than the two police constables; had there been blood puddled around when they unbuttoned Kelly's shirt to put the electrodes on his chest, they would have been practically kneeling in it. Vanessa Hunt also commented "On his left arm...there was some dry blood"....." - only some blood, while Bartlett expressed surprise there was not more blood on the body itself, suggesting that is what he would expect to have found with an arterial bleed. WRIST INCISIONS According to Nicholas Hunt, there "was a series of incised wounds, cuts, of varying depth over the front [inside] of the left wrist and they extended.. over about 8 by 5 cm...", some of which he describes as "hesitation marks." Perhaps we too need to hesitate, and ask: why would this world-class scientist - and according to Keith Hawton the psyciatrist, an "extremely meticulous" man - choose such an astonishingly clumsy and uncertain method of suicide? The following information is from an internet police investigation site: "Wrist slashing by itself is not a very effective means of committing suicide and few people actually die of it. This is especially true if the victim cuts laterally across the wrist. He or she may do substantial damage to the important tendons which control the fingers. He or she may even cut an important artery or vein but the blood vessels will immediately draw back into the muscles surrounding them, effectively sealing off any major leakage of blood." Most people attempting suicide in this way slash both wrists with the intention of losing as much blood in as short a time as possible. They also know the importance of immersing the wrists in hot water to help prevent blood coagulation and keep the wound open. Even so, "success" is not guaranteed, and many wake up later in a tub of cold water." Other internet sources point out that the best way to kill oneself using a knife is to make a longitudinal incision, from the crease of the inside of the wrist up to the elbow. Kelly would surely have been aware of this. It seems surprising that he chose to slash his wrist. As a professional scientist, once Head of Microbiology at Porton Down, one would imagine he might have chosen a much more effective & certain method. But to follow Nicholas Hunt's version of events, far from acting in the precise and careful manner of a world-class scientist, Kelly apparently kills himself in the most painful manner possible. Hunt tells the inquiry that amongst the multiple incised wounds to the inside of the wrist was one much deeper wound. He says that this represented the severing of the ulnar artery. Why though, would Kelly choose to sever the ulnar artery on the little finger side - one which is deep within the wrist - rather than the radial artery on the thumb side, which is much more accessible. Moreover the ulnar artery was not just cut but COMPLETELY SEVERED. How likely is it that Kelly would cut so deep into his own wrist that he would completely sever one of the trickiest arteries to reach? In his article: "The Murder of David Kelly" Part 1, Jim Rarey points out that cutting the ulnar artery suggests not so much a right-handed Kelly slashing from left to right, missing the superficial radial and cutting deep into the ulnar, as someone other than Kelly standing in front of the body slashing deep into the inside of the wrist (the ulnar side) across to the outside (the radial side) of the wrist. Hunt describes "hesitation marks" which "are commonly seen prior to a deep cut being made into somebody's skin." These hesitation marks might seem to indicate that this was indeed a genuine suicide - but how do we know that they were not added after the body had been removed from the scene, as part of a staged, state-sanctioned murder? An assassin might have slashed the wrist once while Kelly was unconscious & left the detail to others. There is sufficient evidence - see article, "Dark Actors at the Scene of Kelly's Death" by Rowena Thursby - to suggest that this may have been a "show" suicide, intended to dupe the layperson into believing this was suicide when it may have been murder made to look like suicide. ABRASIONS Nicholas Hunt next mentions abrasions to the left side of Kelly's scalp. But rather than leave the reason for those scalp abrasions open, he jumps in and tries to make them seem perfectly normal: "... and of course that part of his head was relatively close to the undergrowth." How many abrasions does one receive on one's head just from walking through a wood? Kelly was a seasoned and vigorous walker, fully capable of ducking under or pushing aside any branches or twigs in his way." Lord Hutton however, appears to support Hunt's line of reasoning; he asks: "Were those abrasions consistent with having been in contact with the undergrowth?" - as if receiving abrasions from walking through a wood was an everyday occurrence! (One starts to wonder whether there might not be a degree of collusion between the questioner and the witness). But Hunt does not stop there. His testimony starts to descend into the realms of high farce. Pleased that Lord Hutton is uncritically followinghis drift he answers: "They were entirely, my Lord; particularly branches, pebbles and the like." Pebbles? Is this man serious? He is in a wood, not on a beach! Woods do not contain pebbles. Even allowing for a slip of the tongue - let us say he meant to say "stones" as, indeed he states later - how is Dr Kelly's scalp supposed to have come into contact with stones? He had three fresh scalp abrasions: are we supposed to believe this cool scientist, whose brain, according to Tom Mangold, could "boil water", been hitting his head repeatedly on the ground? BRUISES Hunt next attempts to explain away a number of bruises on Kelly's body: "There was a bruise below the left knee. There were two bruises below the right knee over the shin and there were two bruises over the left side of his chest. All of these were small..." When asked how they could have occurred Hunt states: "They would have occurred following a blunt impact against any firm object and it would not have to a particularly heavy impact....some of them may have been caused as Dr Kelly was stumbling, if you like, at the scene." First we have Kelly banging his head on the odd stone that happened to be lying on the floor of the wood, and now Hunt now tries to seduce us into imagining Kelly "stumbling at the scene". Why should Kelly have been stumbling at the scene? If the official scenario is to be believed, here was a man, calmly looking for a place in the wood where he could end his life. According to Keith Hawton, the psychiatrist, having made the decision to commit suicide, Kelly would have felt a sense of peace and calm. So why now are we being asked to accept as consistent the notion that he was "stumbling" around the wood? We are reassured by Hunt there were "no signs of defensive injuries.... and by that I mean injuries that occur as a result of somebody tryping to parry blows from a weapon or trying to grasp a weapon." But what if someone, or a group, assaulted Kelly without a weapon? Perhaps the bruise on the chest for example occurred as a result of a single sharp push. It is possible that the grazes on the head could have occurred if Kelly had been manhandled. A cut on the mouth mentioned by Hunt, again may have been the result an assault. Much is made of the possiblity of Kelly having been attacked with a knife. Why? Because a knife was found at the scene? Hunt appears to be suggesting that one of the few alternatives to suicide would have been murder at the hands of a random knife-wielder lurking in the wood. The possiblity of a small group of state-sponsored professional assassins setting up a suicide scene appears to be regarded as taboo or too hot to mention. Kelly may have been accosted before he reached the wood, abducted, and drugged - and only later placed in the copse with suicide props around him. When seeking reasons for the cuts and bruises on the scalp, chest and mouth, why is murder-made-to-look-like-suicide not properly explored? Presumably pathologists employed by the Home Office know better than to mention such a scenario. PRE-JUDGING THE CASE Throughout his testimony Hunt starts from a position of assuming Kelly's death was probably straightforward suicide: "The orientation and arrangement of the wounds over the left wrist are typical of self-inflicted injury. Also typical of this was the presence of small cuts called tentative or hesitation marks. The fact that his watch appeared to have been removed whilst blood was already flowing suggests that it had been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist. The removal of the watch in that way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self-harm" Plus, he adds, the "neat way in which the bottle an its top were placed, the lack of obvious sign of trampling of the undergrouth or damage to the clothing..."and the pleasant and private location of the spot. But is it right to start with a theory, or should the evidence be examined without pre-judgement? When facts are interpreted - or misinterpreted - through a filter of prejudice which says "this looks like suicide" crucial points may be missed. For example, how does Hunt know the watch was removed whilst blood was already flowing? We are left to assume it is because he found blood on the watch. But blood on the watch need not mean that the watch was still on the wrist. Blood may have splashed onto the watch after it was removed. Moreover it need not have necessarily have been Kelly who removed the watch. Had he removed his own watch it would have made more sense to do so before he started cutting. Another party - a professional assassin intent on creating a suicide-scene - could have removed the watch. So the interpretation of "watch removed by suicidal man in order to gain better access to wrist" is but one possibility. Hunt alights upon this tortuous explanation either to back his prejudice or to convince his audience that this was straightforward suicide. Unfortunately the system is set up to regard him as an expert whose interpretation is of great value. But it is still only one interpretation, and can obviously be wrong. The neat placement of the bottle & top need not mean Kelly himself had arranged them. A private spot may be considered by some an ideal location for a suicide - but by others, for a murder. The possiblity of murder is dismissed point by point, without proper examination. No evidence was found, says Hunt, of: - restraint-type injury - sustained violent assault - strangulation or use of arm hold. But had Kelly been frogmarched through the wood with a gun to his back, violent assault or restraint would be unnecessary. And had he been overpowered by a chloroform-type substance, prior to the cutting of his wrists, we would be none the wiser. Interestingly, Hunt was questioned on this last point, which suggests that some kind of assassination was being considered, but he merely refers to the toxicologist's report, which to date has not been made available. Is it hoped that such "details" may be forgotten as the media circus transfers its focus from the details of the death itself onto whose political head will fall? FINAL WORD Hunt's final assessment, his own personal interpretation - "there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly's death.... the features are quite typical, I would say, of self-inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of the case" - is the version of events the media reports. The pathologist has spoken - the silent inference being that he is best placed to know - so we must bow to his "expertise". But as we have seen in the introduction, such "expertise" is sometimes questionable. In Hunt's qualifier - "if one ignores all the other features of the case" - lies the rub. Ignore the fact that Kelly had become an embarrassment to the establishment through divulging inconvenient facts & suppositions to the media? Ignore the fact that he was about to return to Iraq, where his by- now public profile would have guaranteed publicity to the dearth of WMDs? The fact that this would highlight the mendacity employed in persuading the British and American public to support a war with Iraq? The fact that here was a man scrupulous about a truth they did not want told? The fact that Kelly had met and was discussing book projects with Victoria Roddam, a publisher in Oxford who in an e-mail to the scientist only a week before his death wrote: "I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government policy and war - I'm sure you would agree."?** Far from ignoring Kelly's pivotal political position at the time of his death, we should surely highlight it: as we explore the physical evidence provided at the death scene, the fact that there were elements in government and intelligence who wanted Kelly silenced has to figure prominently in understanding how he died. Nicholas Hunt may have been a pathologist doing his job in the way he saw fit, nothing more than that. Perhaps, like other Home Office pathologists, he was displaying a degree of bias in his interpretations. Alternatively, Hunt may have been party to a degree political sorcery requiring solid indications from this key professional figure that on 17th-18th August, Dr Kelly had killed himself on Harrowdown Hill by slashing his own left wrist. UPDATED: This is an updated version of the article elsewhere on the Internet dated this date. URL: http://www.GuluFuture.com/alchemy.htm ** See article: "David Kelly and Victoria's Secret" by Jim Rarey. See also "The Murder of Dr David Kelly", Parts 1 and 2, by Jim Rarey & article: "Dark Actors at the Scene of Kelly's Death" by Rowena Thursby More investigations into the circumstances of Kelly's death at www.deadscientists.blogspot.com. may be contacted at: RowenaThursby@onetel.net.uk. This investigation continues. Please write if you wish to be put on the Kelly mailing list. - posted by Rowena @ 9:18 AM Tuesday, November 18, 2003 URGING NICHOLAS GARDINER TO RE-OPEN KELLY INQUEST A BBC report has suggested that Nicholas Gardiner, the original coroner in the Kelly case may re-open the inquest due to witness statements being withheld from the Hutton Inquiry...... Kelly inquest may be reopened The coroner will make his decision based on Lord Hutton's report The inquest into the death Dr David Kelly may have to be reopened because some witnesses have refused to allow their statements to be passed to the Hutton inquiry. The original inquest was adjourned under a section in the Coroners Act which allows a public inquiry conducted by a judge to fulfil the function of an inquest. But Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner said he may ask Thames Valley Police to hand over the evidence if he is not satisfied with Lord Hutton's findings. ------------------------------------------------------ A member of the Kelly Group & myself have written the following letter to Nicholas Gardiner, the original coroner in the Kelly case, urging him not only to examine further evidence, but also to review anomalies arising from testimonies already in the public domain, and to consider re-opening the inquest with a full jury present. You may wish to write your own letter. The more pressure he receives from the public the more inclined he may be to take a maverick stand and press ahead. Rowena Thursby -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 November 2003 Nicholas Gardiner the Oxfordshire Coroner (City) Coroner’s Office New Post Mortem Suite John Radcliffe Hospital Headley Way Oxford OX3 9DU Cc. All National Newspapers. Dear Mr Gardiner, RE: The Death of Dr David Kelly I am writing to express my deep concerns over the way the Hutton Inquiry (the Inquiry) into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly has been conducted. In such a high profile case it is surely questionable that an inquest - where evidence is heard under oath with a jury present - be replaced by an inquiry where evidence is not given under oath and witnesses are not subpoenaed and there is no jury. I understand many witnesses refused to appear at the Inquiry and requested that their statements be withheld. In a straight inquest you, as coroner, would have powers to subpoena witnesses and require them to give evidence under oath. This would both broaden the scope from that of the Inquiry and increase the reliability of testimonies. In addition, if Lord Hutton's final report reflects the way the Inquiry has been treated in the media, there is a great danger that anomalies regarding the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death may be disregarded or glossed over in favour of political concerns. If I may, I will in this letter outline some of these anomalies which, in my view, throw a suicide verdict into question. The Body Moved and Items Appeared Beside It According to testimonies the first people to see the body of Dr Kelly were the SEBEVs (volunteers) Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman. They both described the position of the body as "against" a tree. Neither of the volunteers reported seeing any of the items around the body seen by other witnesses - watch, knife, bottle of water, cap. Nor were they asked by legal counsel whether they had seen them. Chronologically the next body-witness was DC Coe, who described the body as laying on its back. After him came two police constables PCs Franklin and Sawyer, who also described the body as lying on its back. In fact all witnesses subsequent to the volunteers, including the pathologist (Dr Nicholas Hunt), described the body as laying on its back and having beside it various items - watch, knife, bottle of water and cap. The body-witnesses’ testimonies indicate that the body appears to have moved after being seen by the volunteers and before being seen by all subsequent witnesses, and that the items next to the body seem to have appeared after the volunteers had left the death scene (the scene). It is also noteworthy that PC Sawyer reports that the body’s jeans were "ridden up". This might be expected if the body was hurriedly dragged from a “sitting-up” position to a “laying-on-its-back” position. DC Coe took charge of the scene immediately after the volunteers reported to him that they had found a body. It seems that either DC Coe moved the body himself, or he was aware of who did move the body. If the first two body-witness testimonies are correct, then the body was moved. DC Coe maintained that he did not touch the body and did not mention others moving the body, but if the body was first sitting-up and then laying down, and DC Coe was in charge of the scene at the time, then it can only be concluded that in some way DC Coe was involved in moving the body. Assistant Chief Constable Page mentioned that three individuals in dark clothing were seen by a member of the public acting suspiciously near the scene at the time DC Coe was there. Although Assistant Chief Constable Page told the Inquiry that the three had been accounted for as being members of TVP, it is surely worth investigating whether or not this is actually correct. DC Coe himself might have been one of these three individuals, or have been working with them. The Officers with DC Coe First there is the question of the number of officers accompanying DC Coe. Five witnesses - the two volunteers, PCs Franklin and Sawyer, and the paramedic (Vanessa Hunt) - clearly state that DC Coe was with two officers. Yet DC Coe himself, testifying some time later, maintains that he was with only one other officer - DC Shields. Thus, in the six statements with regard to the number of officers accompanying DC Coe, all but one of them - DC Coe's own - state that there are two officers with Coe. Second, there is the question of whether these officers were in uniform or in plain clothes. Paul Chapman, identifying them through their Thames Valley Police ID, said they were from CID, so I infer from this they were in plain clothes. Vanessa Hunt testified that DC Coe was with two plain-clothed officers - one "search & rescue" (her interpretation of a man dressed in black polo shirt and trousers), and "one other gentleman". DC Coe himself said he was with only one other companion – the plain-clothed detective, DC Shields. However PCs Franklin and Sawyer described DC Coe's companions as "uniformed officers". What are we to infer from these anomalies? If five witnesses say that DC Coe was with two men and he says he was with only one, then it is necessary to find out who is telling the truth. Similarly, if some witnesses say these officers are in plain clothes and others say they are in uniform then that needs to be clarified also. On the face of it, it looks as though DC Coe is not telling the truth about being accompanied by only one officer and that PCs Franklin and Sawyer could also be mistaken about the two officers being "uniformed". This is surely a matter for cross-examination or much more rigorous scrutiny. Paucity of Blood When asked at the end of their testimonies if they have anything to add, each ambulance crew member, paramedic (Vanessa Hunt) and ambulance technician (David Bartlett), independently emphasizes that in their view, there was surprisingly little blood at the scene for an arterial bleed. These assertions may be the most important of the whole Inquiry. The implication from the ambulance crew surely is that if there was very little visible blood produced at the scene for an arterial bleed, then death may not have taken place at that spot or in that manner. Yet far from being probed or examined in any detail as they should have been, these assertions were alternately denigrated by counsel Mr Dingemans, and ignored by counsel Mr Knox. Vomit Stains from Mouth to Ear PC Sawyer reported a dark stain (he thought vomit) from the right corner of the mouth to the right ear. David Bartlett also reported that the body had two stains running from both corners of the mouth to each ear. Such stains are clearly consistent with Dr Kelly having vomited in a "laying-on-his-back" position but not in a "sitting-up-against-a-tree" position. Ambulance Crew Saw no Wounds Both ambulance crew witnessed the left hand positioned palm-up, and as Dr Hunt reports, it was the left wrist which was wounded. Thus both ambulance crew must have had a good view of the area of the arm and wrist where the five incisions reported by Dr Hunt were made. Yet neither of the ambulance crew members reports seeing any wounds. The blood may have dried onto the wounds and completely covered them but this question needs further exploration. Ulnar Artery not Radial The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, where the latter is generally far more accessible (closer to the surface) than the former (which is deeper) strongly suggests that the knife-wound was inflicted by drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside. This is an action that may well have been performed by another party. Yet Dr Hunt's testimony made no mention of the direction in which any of the cuts had been made. I understand that this should be normal procedure for a pathologist's report. Conclusions In summary, the points presented above lead to the following possible conclusions: 1. If an arterial bleed was the major cause of death (as stated by Dr Hunt) then there would have been more blood present at the scene of death than was seen by the ambulance crew. Very little blood at the scene suggests that Dr Kelly did not die where his body was found. While Dr Hunt and the forensic biologist (Roy Green) suggest that blood may have disappeared into leaf litter, no evidence has been publicly presented to demonstrate that this was in fact the case. 2. If the cause of Dr Kelly's death was an arterial bleed and there was very little blood at the place where he was found, this suggests he died elsewhere. As has been shown, testimonies suggest that at one point the body was sitting-up, and then later on, laying on its back. This reinforces the suggestion that Dr Kelly did in fact die in a different place and was moved to the copse on Harrowdown Hill. The body may initially have been positioned incorrectly to be consistent with livor mortis and the vomit stains on his face, and had to be repositioned. It is also possible that those setting up the "suicide-scene" were in fact disturbed in their work by the volunteers and that the reason Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman did not see any items surrounding the body was because they had not yet been placed in position. 3. DC Coe was in charge of the scene during the period when the body was moved. It is reasonable to infer from this that either he moved it himself or was aware of others doing so. Secondly, but equally importantly, DC Coe contradicts no fewer than five other witness testimonies when he claims to have been accompanied by just one (and not two) other officers. His testimony appears to be particularly unreliable. 4. Both PCs Sawyer and Franklin report that DC Coe had two uniformed officers with him - contradicting all other testimony. This suggests that their testimony needs rigorous cross-checking with that of witnesses who assert the officers were in plain-clothes. 5. The fact that the ambulance crew state that they did not see actual wounds could indicate that the five incisions in the body’s left arm (or some of them) may have been inflicted after they (the ambulance crew) left the scene. An independent examination of the body, or the cause of death evidence, by a second pathologist may be required to ascertain if this is the case. 6. It is remarkable that the ulnar artery was severed rather than the radial given that the radial is far easier to cut - and hence less painful - when attempting suicide. This evidence suggests that the wrist may have been cut by another party. I trust that you find sufficient material evidence in the above to conclude that Dr David Kelly may well not, in fact, have taken his own life and that another party was involved. If Lord Hutton's final report concludes that Dr Kelly did commit suicide, I would like to strongly recommend your original inquest into Dr Kelly’s death be resumed so that testimonies can be made under oath and with a jury present. Yours sincerely, - posted by Rowena @ 12:16 PM Friday, November 14, 2003 DAVID KELLY AND VICTORIA’S SECRET by Jim Rarey No, it’s not the Victoria’s Secret of the soft porn lingerie ads. This is a different Victoria who may have innocently provided the final impetus for the assassination of David Kelly. In Part I of this writer’s *article, “the Murder of David Kelly” we detailed the numerous red flags in the evidence and testimony submitted at the Hutton inquiry into Kelly’s death that showed conclusively that his death was not a suicide. One of the more important “clues” was evidence that his body had been moved after he died to the scene in which it was found. Other testimony showed it to be very doubtful that Kelly had inflicted the knife wounds on his left wrist that severed an unlikely artery but left the most easily reached artery untouched. In Part II of the article, we detailed Kelly’s extensive involvement with and/or knowledge of the bio/chemical weapons programs of the U.K., U.S. and Russia. One author reports Kelly also had visited the Israeli bio/chemical weapons facility. Kelly almost certainly would have been aware of the involvement of two U.K. scientists at Porton Down simultaneously as paid consultants to South Africa’s notorious bioweapons program. He had also served as an inspector in Iraq of that country’s WMD programs. We also recited the deplorable treatment Kelly had been subjected to by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Personnel Department in withholding any pay increase over a three-year period as Kelly approached retirement. However the public perception of Kelly was as the “single source” of statements made by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to the effect that the government had “sexed up” the dossier used to justify the war against Iraq. Kelly had voluntarily disclosed to his MoD superiors he had met with Gilligan but denied he made the statements Gilligan attributed to his source. In a July 9th press conference, the MoD confirmed that Dr. Kelly was Gilligan’s source. Kelly was hauled before the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for a grilling but convinced committee members he had not provided statements ascribed to him by Gilligan. The committee chairman, MP Donald Anderson wrote a letter to Secretary of State Jack Straw confirming the committee’s judgment and adding their view that, “Dr. Kelly had been poorly treated by his government..” Kelly told his wife he felt he had been betrayed. We did not understand the depth and duplicitous nature of that betrayal until further reviewing testimony at the Hutton inquiry, particularly that of Richard Hatfield, Director of MoD Personnel. Hatfield had no personnel management experience when he was appointed to that job in June of 2001. He had been Policy Director of MoD and a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. On July 7th Hatfield met with Kelly to review (and get Kelly’s approval) of a clarification the MoD intended to issue to clarify inaccurate information in Gilligan’s report without naming Kelly. What Hatfield knew, but did not tell Kelly, was that MoD intended to confirm Kelly’s name as the source to the press if any reporter mentioned his name after the charade of a “Q & A” session designed to lead to Kelly. When Kelly learned of this deception it must have infuriated him. Indeed, if it had been Hatfield’s body that was “found dead in the woods” Dr. Kelly might have been a prime suspect in the death. Another BBC reporter, Susan Watts, claimed on the evening program Newsnight, that Kelly made statements to her indicating he had lied to the MoD about statements he made to reporters. Later, after Kelly’s death, Watts had to back off from that allegation when the inquiry reviewed transcripts of a taped conversation Watts had with Kelly (without Kelly knowing it was being taped) and hearing an enhanced version of the tape recording. However, in the interim the media, led by Tom Mangold who claimed to be “Kelly’s best friend” and until very recently was himself a BBC reporter, claimed Kelly was so shamed by being branded a liar that he killed himself. However, that was belied by Kelly’s actions and communications right up to the morning of the day he disappeared (July 17th). He did not at all appear to be depressed and was looking forward to returning to Iraq to continue the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, he did communicate in an e-mail the day before his death that there were “many dark actors playing games.” Ironically, that e-mail was to Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter and CFR stalwart who probably was one of those dark actors. Miller, along with two other women was a close confidante of Kelly’s. The second was Olivia Bosch, a long-time functionary of the CFR’s sister organization in the U.K. the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). The third was a U.S. Army intelligence agent named Mai Pederson. In part two of the article, we suggested that Kelly’s mistreatment by MoD had made him a resentful employee and, with all his dangerous knowledge, a prime candidate for elimination. However, information new to this writer since that article provides a much stronger motive for the assassination of Dr. Kelly. For several months, Kelly had been communicating with Victoria Roddam, a commissioning editor for Oneworld Publications based in Oxford. One week before Kelly’s death, she had sent him an e-mail that said in part, “I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government, policy and war-I’m sure you would agree.” They had been discussing Kelly authoring a book to be published by Victoria’s company. Another document found among Kelly’s effects at his home and removed by police was an undated hand-written note from Roddam with a list of suggested topics to be included in the book, any one of which would have sent the elite in several countries into a containment mode. One such topic was the ethics of biological warfare, a sticking point that could be responsible for a string of deaths of world-class microbiologists in various countries. A second one was the involvement of corporations in biological warfare. A third was the role of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries in biowarfare as well as prevention and containment. Yet another was the connection between Russia and Iraq with WMD. Victoria had also listed a look at the proliferation in the arms trade as well a look into the Royal United Services Institute-Whitehall. Finally, in the document there was a cryptic one-line reference to the rules of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). Recall Kelly was a neophyte member of the RIIA and likely would not have known what rules, if any, the organization had on members authoring books on sensitive subjects. He probably would have inquired disclosing his intentions. He also may have discussed it with his fellow member and confidante, Olivia Bosch. t would have been in character for him to discuss the project with Judith Miller and perhaps seek her advice as she had authored several books on topic. He may even have discussed it with his spiritual advisor Mai Pederson. At any rate, Kelly’s and Victoria’s project was no longer a secret (if it ever was). And now David Kelly has joined the growing list of world-class microbiologists who have met mysterious deaths and/or been murdered. *The Murder of David Kelly (Parts I & II) can be found at: http://www.worldnewsstand.net/MediumRare/Archives.htm Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety. The author is a freelance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution. If you would like to receive Medium Rare articles directly, please contact the author at jimrarey@comcast.net. - posted by Rowena @ 8:04 AM Thursday, November 06, 2003 WAS DC COE'S THIRD MAN ONE OF THE "MEN IN BLACK"? Reviewing some of the Hutton testimonies, I focused on the variations in the descriptions of the one or two people accompanying DC Coe*: - DC Coe says there was one other person with him - DC Shields - Louise Holmes says there were three "police officers" - Paul Chapman says "three police officers" but then elaborates "they were from CID" - PCs Franklin & Sawyer both say "two uniformed officers" were with DC Coe - Vanessa Hunt says one DC, one search & rescue, and "one other gentleman" - David Bartlett does not give a coherent enough description How do we account for the differences? If my understanding is correct, detective constables are always in plain clothes, not in uniform. Both Chapman and Vanessa Hunt say that at least one is a detective. Chapman thinks they are all from CID, which would mean that they were all in plain clothes. PCs Franklin & Sawyer however, both use the same phrase: "two uniformed officers" which suggests that they have agreed beforehand this is what they would both say at the inquiry. Vanessa Hunt, along with Chapman, contradicts this & says there was one Detective Constable - Coe - but then "one search & rescue" and "one other gentleman" - which indicates that she regards them as being all in plain clothes, not in uniform. Let's say then they were NOT in uniform and that PCs Franklin and Sawyer were covering up the fact that the three were all in plain clothes. It was important to hide the identity of at least one of them, which is why DC Coe fails to mention him in his evidence at the inquiry. So who is this mystery third man & why was it so important to hide his identity? Maybe there is a clue in Vanessa Hunt's assertion that there was "one search & rescue": VANESSA HUNT: "There was an officer in regulation clothing who directed us to two or three other officers in combat trousers and black polo shirts and we followed them along the track." Vanessa Hunt had noted that Franklin & Sawyer and other search and rescuers were wearing black polo shirts. Had Coe's two companions been ordinary "uniformed officers" as Franklin & Sawyer maintain, she would have said so. Note in the quote above she talks of "regulation clothing" - so this is a phrase she could have used. I suggest that the "third man" may actually been one of the "men in black" spotted earlier that morning - around 8.30 - 9.30am - by a member of the public - see Asst Chief Constable Page's second testimony - and had taken off his black balaclava (say) in order to blend in with the search & rescue team. Otherwise why would Coe not admit to the Hutton Inquiry that one of his companions was a search & rescue officer & offer us his name? So worried is he about revealing the identity of this man he denies that he even exists! It's possibly because he was NOT a search & rescue officer, but someone much more sinister, that he could not be identified. Rowena Thursby Join Kelly Group and receive regular mailings: write to me at RowenaThursby@onetel.net.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Q. Who were you with at this time? DC COE: Detective Constable Shields. Q. It is just the two of you? DC COE: Yes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOUISE HOLMES: We walked back towards the car. On the way to the car we met three police officers and Paul took them back to show them where the body was, and I went back to the car. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PAUL CHAPMAN: As we were going down the path we met three police officers coming the other way that were from CID..... ...they showed me their Thames Valley Police identification. Q. Do you recall their names? A. Only one of them was DC Coe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLICE CONSTABLE DEAN FRANKLIN: two uniformed police officers and DC Coe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PC SAWYER: We continued walking up the hill, where I saw DC Coe and two uniformed officers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MS HUNT: Initially there were three people on the track, what I now know to be detective constable, one was the search and rescue and there was another gentleman there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DAVID BARTLETT: We got to the end of the lane, there were some more police officers there. I think it was two or three, I cannot remember, I think it was two, took us up into the woods which was like right angles to the track. As we walked up they were in front of us putting the marker posts in and told us to stay between the two posts. - posted by Rowena @ 3:28 PM Friday, October 24, 2003 DAVID KELLY DISCUSSED BOOK DEAL WITH OXFORD PUBLISHER APRIL 2003 On 11 April 2003 Victoria Roddam of Oneworld Publications in Oxford sent David Kelly an e-mail subsequent to a meeting she had with him on Friday 4th April about possible book projects. She writes: "As I said last week, if you can think of any other individuals who it might be useful for us to contact regarding these projects we talked about and the ideas we discussed, I would be very grateful - particularly those who might specialise in the areas where policy and ethics collide. Also if you could suggest anyone who might be useful in authoring or recommending an author for a book on the arms trade, this would be most useful." It looks like much of the book-project talk revolved around AREAS WHERE POLICY AND ETHICS COLLIDE. In a later mail Ms Roddam pushes the idea again: "In light of recent events, I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government, policy and war - I'm sure you would agree." This shows that discussions revolved heavily around these highly sensitive areas. And not only was Kelly's interest focused in these areas - he was also pointing Victoria Roddam in the direction of others who were willing to write about them. Could this be a key motive for Kelly's assassination? I wonder, with Kelly out of the way, will the authors Kelly came up with for Ms Roddam be writing on "areas where policy and ethics collide" now? Or will they have they got the message? Rowena Thursby

by **Byrne** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 6:18 pm

"This from my friends on the river bank: Hutton is a jigsaw puzzle. And like all the best puzzles there was a piece missing. Some people have found the missing piece, but they keep trying to put it in upside-down. 1998 - Mai Pederson attached to Kelly as UNSCOM translator. 1998 - UNSCOM out of Iraq 1998 - Tom Mangold presents Panorama documentary revealing extensive infiltration of UNSCOM by national security services. 1998+ Pederson / Kelly relationship remains close 2000-2003 MoD becomes suspicious of Kelly's relationship with Pederson. Begins moving Kelly towards the door marked 'exit', but does it quietly so as not to alarm Kelly or his friends overseas. No grading increase, retirement age reduced from 65 to 60, moved to PR role with no access to classified information. May 2003 Gilligan interviews senior member of HMG, who makes the Campbell 45 minute claim 'off the record'. Gilligan cannot run the story without a creditable source, so is pointed to Kelly as 'unattributable' MoD source. Gilligan goes to Kelly, tells him he knows the 45 minute claim is fictitious and plays the 'name game', then goes home and writes up his piece overnight using info from souce 1 effectively attributed to Kelly. Kelly is baffled by Gilligan's interview, but once Gilligan's piece goes out he realises he has been set up. He writes to MoD to admit the unauthorised interview but denies he is the original source of Gilligan's information. Kelly is called to meeting with line managers and told that orders from on high dictate that he will be the 'fall guy' or will lose his pension and find his relationship with Pederson plastered across the front page of the Telegraph and tv news. What Kelly did not realise was that this was a bluff. MoD were well aware of Pederson's actual role and would never have allowed the name to come out in this way at the time. Kelly does as he's told and goes before the parliamentary committee and ISC. This should be the end of it, except that Kelly broods on it and decides he will take steps to clear his name. Unfortunately, to do this he has to admit to the Pederson relationship. throughout the whole saga Kelly has been in close touch with Pederson, who has been reporting back to her masters. On July 17th Kelly tells Pederson he is going to leave his wife and going to the press to clear his name. Pederson reports immediately to her managers, the alarm bells go off in Washington as they believe she is about to be 'outed' and it's "goodnight Vienna". Here's why: The CIA did to Kelly what they did to everyone, lied to him about Iraq's WMD. The difference is that they thought Kelly's position as MoD bio-weapons expert would allow him to influence the policy of HMG. Here's how it was done: Pederson was a US airforce translator working from Arabic to English. After the removal of UNSCOM from Iraq in 1998, evidence of WMD capability came from satellites and smuggled documents. These would land first on the desk of Ms Pederson and her colleagues for translation, before passing to the scientists for analysis, who then advised USG. In the case of Pederson, however, the documents did not come from Iraq, but from the CIA. Pederson 'leaked' fake intelligence to Kelly over an extended period, which she claimed came from smuggled Iraqi documents indicating the existence of WMD. By 2003, Kelly was completely convinced not only of the existence of WMD in Iraq, but also believed he knew what they were and where they were. However, when Kelly attempted to go to Iraq (post invasion) to locate them, he found his was mysteriously barred. On a first occasion his official visa proved worthless and he was turned back at Kuwait. On a second occasion he found himself confined to an airbase for the duration of his stay on security grounds. There may be some evidence that shortly before his death, Kelly became aware of the nature of Pederson's information. In preparation for his next planned visit to Iraq Kelly appears to have shared informaton from Pederson with Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack, a German army weapons inspector and biological weapons expert. It appears from her reply, however, that she was less than convinced as to the veracity of the information, as made clear by the 'concerns' she expressed. In short, Kelly's death was the result of two conspiracies colliding. The first being the civil war within the cabinet of HMG, which nearly resulted in the exposure of the second, USG's plans to help HMG make up its mind with regard to Iraq's WMD. Ultimately, it wasn't murder or suicide, but a series of unfortunate accidents. Trouble with this jigsaw puzzle is, once you put it together, you realise it's just a part of a much bigger puzzle." Comments: Pederson wasn't CIA or working for the CIA, but for military intelligence (although I suppose she could have been cross-posted); there is no reason to believe Kelly was going to leave his wife; the Iraq warmongering plans go back to the late 1990's, and part of Pederson's job was to 'process' faked Iraq documents to create the intelligence dossier used within the American government to press for war, a process that was so successful it is still influencing opinion in Washington (David Kay's recent comments prove that the whole thing was a lie); Pederson met Kelly, saw a weakness in him, and exploited that weakness through converting him and turning him into a back channel by which the Pentagon could funnel some of this misleading data on Iraq to the British government; Judith Miller may have been a witting or unwitting part of this, buttering Kelly up by praising him in a book and being one of the last persons he e-mailed, perhaps indicating a constant line of communication (with more American intelligence lies on Iraq funneled to Kelly to influence the British government); German Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack may also have played a role in miseducating Kelly by feeding him fake documents, but it is more likely that it was her 'concerns' that started to tip Kelly off to the fact that he had been had; the fact that Gilligan had two sources for his story, one high up in the MoD or elsewhere in the British government, explains why Kelly was confused about the contents of Gilligan's reporting (he thought he was Gilligan's source but couldn't understand where Gilligan got information Kelly hadn't told him; this was so confusing Kelly had started to doubt his own memory), and why Kelly saw 'dark actors playing games', as he knew what he told Gilligan would not in itself be a breach of any confidentiality agreements (but what the secret source told Gilligan would have been, thus setting Kelly up for the treatment he received at the hands of the MoD and Blair's operators); Kelly was being used as a backdoor conduit of information from the Pentagon to the MoD, and simultaneously was used by his female contacts (Pederson and possibly Miller) to get inside information to the Pentagon on the status of thinking on Iraq in the MoD and the progress the MoD was having in motivating the Blair government (despite Hoon's lies about it, Kelly had had a lunch with Hoon not long before all this mess started, showing how well connected he actually was, and how useful he would be as a two-way conduit of information); Kelly honestly believed the lies he was being fed by Pederson until his suspicions were raised in the process of meeting to discuss Blair's dossier, when he began to realize that he was being used, and started the process of discovering what was really going on; fundamentalists in the Bahá'í faith found out about Kelly's misgivings when he gave his presentation to a group of Bahá'í members in October, and manipulated Kelly to keep quiet about his misgivings until after the war so that the defeat of Saddam would open up the Bahá'í pilgrimage sites in Baghdad and revitalize a failing religion (Kelly probably justified this to himself on the basis that Saddam had to be taken out sometime anyway, even though he presented no imminent danger, and Kelly may have still been partly misled by Pederson's documents); the peculiar nuances in Kelly's positions on the war are explained by the fact he was trying to balance his commitment to the truth, his anger at being lied to and manipulated in the creation of the dossier, his gradual realization that Pederson had been feeding him lies over the years, and his continuing loyalty to the Bahá'í faith, whose leaders saw a benefit in the attack on Iraq; Kelly was murdered either because he was regarded as a traitor by someone in the MoD or British Intelligence, or because the Americans feared he would disclose the intelligence nature of the relationship with Pederson and that the information he was being given was Pentagon lies intended to influence British government opinion; and the bottom line is that David Kelly died because he somehow fouled up or threatened to foul up the secret line of communications between American military intelligence to the British government whereby lies, not just those involving Iraq, are fed to the British government to influence British actions along lines favorable to the Pentagon. Do you think that Lord Hutton will have the courage to get close to the truth? That the anthrax attacks appeared to silence opponents of the Patriot Act shows only that appearances can be deceiving.

by **Byrne** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:13 pm

<a href="http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/" target="top">dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/</a>

by **antiaristo** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:00 pm

.
From the Manchester Evening News (part of the Guardian Group)

Thursday, 15th February 2007
One in four doubt David Kelly killed himself

Dr David Kelly
NEARLY a quarter of all people questioned in a BBC poll do not believe former Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly killed himself.

The poll for the corporation found that 23% of people believed Dr Kelly didn't commit suicide, while 39% believed he did and 39% said they did not know.

Dr Kelly was found dead on July 18, 2003 after being named as the possible source of a BBC story on the Government's Iraq weapons dossier.

An inquest was adjourned indefinitely while Lord Hutton held an inquiry. Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner concluded in March 2004 that there were "no exceptional reasons" to justify reopening it.

The official account given by the Hutton Inquiry said that Dr Kelly committed suicide by cutting his left wrist. He had also taken an overdose of the painkiller Co-Proxamol.

The poll comes ahead of a three-part BBC Two series, The Conspiracy Files, starting on Sunday, investigating conspiracies into Dr Kelly's death, the World Trade Centre attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.

The programme on Dr Kelly, to be broadcast on Sunday, February 25, will examine in detail the hours leading up to and immediately after his death.

:: The Gfk NOP poll surveyed 1,000 adults in the UK by telephone between 27-29 October last year.

Do you think David Kelly killed himself? Have your say.

Submit your comments
View comments (11 comments. Last comment 16/02/2007 at 21:47)

I don't think Kelly killed himself.
William , USA
16/02/2007 at 21:47

Mr David Kelly is a Scientist, a man of knowledge & Wisdom,people like him do not commit suicide, I do not believe he killed himself,
Raschid Al Weissi, Bremen - Germany
16/02/2007 at 17:44

I read that there was very little blood loss, also the particular artery supposedly cut, would have curled up immediately. I also read that the post mortem revealed only a few tablets, not enough to overdose on. His body had been suspiciously been moved too, not ringing true so far? He was also looking forward to revealing no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was a loving husband and father, don't make me laugh. He was killed by people who had a lot to lose by his findings, and this so called pressure was no big deal to a man in his position.
Ronnie Lambert, Durham
16/02/2007 at 17:22

Dr David Kelly did NOT kill himself. Anyone who entertains this idea for one moment must also believe that this current 'government' of Tony Blair is pure lily white. The only thing white about this corrupt 'government' is the white in whitewashes. This government has produced more WHITEWASHES than most people have had hot dinners! The whitepaper on the "dodgy dossier", then Lord Hutton's report, followed by Lord Butler's report, and the latest, Lord Stevens' report which also has many unanswered questions and issues as well as 18 valid witnesses who were never interviewed despite their having come forward of their own accord. This is the most corrupt 'government' in the past century if not in all of British history. It stinks to the highest echelons. Please pass the air freshener.
Mary Belsey, London, England
16/02/2007 at 16:14

It was obvious from the start that Dr Kelly was assassinated on orders from government, where criminals were afraid that their lies would be exposed by somebody they could not dismiss as a crank.
Barney, Sussex coast
16/02/2007 at 15:56

on its own it would be hard to say or prove but with the other major crimes like 9/11 7/7 Bali bomb and the constant trend through history of false flag operations to influence populations and war. Add it to those and its apparent its just another state sponsored crime.
Dave, Mansfield
16/02/2007 at 15:44

The true controversy is over how the Hutton Inquiry supplanted the process of the Coroner's Inquest, commencing instead on the basis of an assumed premise for Dr David Kelly cause of death and then, without sound investigation or due legal process, inappropriately coming to a finding that his death was suicide, whilst deflecting national attention with the shenanigans between Downing Street and the BBC. It was Mr Blair who called for an urgent inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. It was the findings of this inquiry which ultimately supplanted the process of the coroners inquest. Dr Kelly is the only British citizen who has been a single victim of an incident resulting their sudden death and yet not had a coroners inquest return a verdict. The Hutton inquiry was not the appropriate means by which to conclude the cause of Dr Kelly's death. Lord Hutton's remit was to 'urgently' examine the 'circumstances surrounding' the death of Dr Kelly. An inquiry of this type usually relates to an incident - such as a rail disaster - where individual's cause of death is not so much at question but rather to question the cause of the incident itself. The terms of reference given to Lord Hutton are no wider in their scope. The coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, should have been allowed to concluded his inquest before the Hutton inquiry commenced. Failing this the coroner should not have subsequently waited for Lord Hutton's findings. His delay in reconvening the coroners inquest anticipated Lord Hutton may drawn a conclusion in his report as to the probable cause of death. Lord Hutton should not have attempted to draw a conclusion as to the cause of death as this was outside of his remit and the "rigours that are normally undertaken at a coroner's inquest simply were not fulfilled" (I quote coroner Dr Michael Powers). Nothing obvious was to be gained by so very 'urgently' commencing Lord Hutton's inquiry. Indeed it was inappropriate to have urgently commenced the inquiry without the coroner having first confirmed how Dr Kelly died. From the outset this was a prejudicial conclusion of the Hutton inquiry. An inquest's verdict of suicide and murder has to be established beyond reasonable doubt. If the coroner had returned an open verdict the thrust of the Hutton inquiry would have been wholly different or perhaps not occurred at all.
Richard Tobin, Wellingborough
16/02/2007 at 15:34

Isn't it obvious by now? Its the same with 9/11 and 7/7 People are finally starting to wake up to the truth and no longer believe the lies spun by Goverment and the controlled media
Mark Hutchby, Oldham
16/02/2007 at 14:06

No, I don't believe Dr Kelly killed himself. After having spent some time in Northern Ireland (read into that what you like), I am fully aware of the UK Government 'dirty tricks', involving clandestine operatives.
Richard Lewis, Suffolk
16/02/2007 at 12:59

This mustn't be doing his family any good. Whether he did kill himself or he didn't, it still stinks to high heaven. Someone is accountable. I think it's the Government.
PW, Manchester
16/02/2007 at 08:57

It might have helped if we were told the full truth about the overdose; it was co-proxamaol - paracetamol and a codeine-like drug. Codeine and its relations are opiates; opiate poisoning was the preferred MO of a certain dr Shipman.
J Boy, Manchester
15/02/2007 at 21:05

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