New book claims Blair nixed wider D. Kelly coroner inquest

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New book claims Blair nixed wider D. Kelly coroner inquest

Postby Jerky » Mon Dec 31, 2018 2:10 pm

Tony Blair blocked coroner’s inquest into death of Dr David Kelly ‘within minutes’ of body being found, explosive new book claims

A new book investigating the death of Dr David Kelly – the Iraq weapons inspector who let slip that Tony Blair’s claim in the lead-up to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in just 45 minutes was at best ‘dubious’, and that Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ had been ‘sexed up’ – has claimed that the former Prime Minister Blair blocked a coroner’s inquest into Mr Kelly’s death ‘within minutes’ of his body being found.

The claim that the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could launch Weapons of Mass Destruction in just 45 minutes was a key plank to Blair’s argument for war, and the death of Mr Kelly just days after essentially rubbishing the argument has sparked numerous conspiracy theories in the past decade.

But now, explosive new claims that Blair and the then Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer ‘established an inquiry’ into Mr Kelly’s death – a much ‘less rigorous form of investigation’ than a coroner’s inquest – ‘within minutes’ of Mr Kelly’s death have been made in a new book entitled An Inconvenient Death – How The Establishment Covered Up The David Kelly Affair, written by award -winning investigative journalist Miles Goslett, and due to be released on April 5th.

In the book Goslett writes:

“At the time [of Dr Kelly’s death] the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was on a plane travelling between Washington DC and Tokyo.

“The Lord Chancellor, Charles Falconer, who was in London, rang Blair on the aircraft’s phone within minutes of the body being found and in a surprisingly brief call was instructed to set in motion a full-blown public inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death.

“Falconer established this inquiry several hours before any exact cause of Dr Kelly’s death had been determined officially – and, indeed, before the body found that morning had been formally identified.”

“What could possibly have led Falconer and Blair, the two most senior political figures of the day, to take this unusual step on the basis of what, according to contemporaneous police reports, appeared to be a tragic case of a professional man ending his own life?

“Why were they even involved at such an early stage in what was essentially an incident that was local to Oxfordshire?

“What was it about the death of David Kelly that had disturbed Falconer and Blair so much that they went on to interrupt and ultimately derail the coroner’s inquest, which had been opened routinely?

“And why were they content to replace that inquest with a less rigorous form of investigation into Dr Kelly’s death?

“These questions preoccupied me as a journalist for years. They pointed to powerful forces working against the proper investigation of an unexpected event – in this case, a death mired in mystery.”

A coroner’s inquest usually takes months or, in complex cases such as Mr Kelly’s, could even take years to complete – whereas the Hutton inquiry set up to investigate Mr Kelly’s death was began in August 2003 – just 24 days after his body was found – and closed just over a month later in September, returning a conclusion that Mr Kelly had taken his own life.

However, since the closing of the Hutton inquiry, there has been widespread criticism of the way the public inquiry circumvented the usual process for investigating unexplained deaths – criticism that ultimately led to Mr Kelly’s body being exhumed just last year by his family who were reportedly worried that campaigners calling for an inquest may interfere with the grave.

Following the exhumation, Mr Kelly’s body is now thought to have been cremated.

Numerous experts have cast severe doubt over the Hutton Inquiry’s verdict into Mr Kelly’s death, with one group of 8 experts labelling the official cause of death – that Mr Kelly died due to blood loss after cutting his wrists with a blunt gardening knife – as ‘extremely unlikely’ and called for a coroners inquiry.

Goslett concludes the findings in his book by listing numerous questions which he claims still remain unanswered surrounding Dr Kelly’s death following the public inquiry, such as:

*Why all medical records and photographs of Dr Kelly were classified for 70 years and witness statements for 30 years from the end of the inquiry?

*Why no fingerprints were found on any of Dr Kelly’s possessions, including the knife and empty pill packets, when he wore no gloves?

*Why Dr Kelly’s dental records apparently went missing from, and were then returned to, his dental practice in Abingdon, around the time of his death?

*Why a police helicopter with thermal imaging camera which earlier flew over the site found no trace of the body?

Goslett also claimed that 22 relevant witnesses had not given evidence during the inquiry, and added that:

“It is clear that the Hutton Inquiry was an inadequate substitute for a coroner’s inquest into Dr Kelly’s death.

“It raised more questions than it answered.”

Goslett goes on to say that only a full coroner’s inquest would be able to get to the bottom of these unanswered questions, before going on to conclude that:

“As a result of Tony Blair’s decision to set up the Hutton Inquiry, the British public is required to accept that Dr Kelly took his own life.

“But, based on the available evidence, there are too many inconsistencies attached to the official finding of suicide to accept it wholeheartedly.

“I still believe for a multitude of reasons that a coroner’s inquest is the only way that the full truth about his death will ever be known.”

In response to the latest explosive claims, The Express reported that Lord Falconer had told them that ‘there was no need for an inquest into the death, as the Hutton Inquiry had already reached a verdict.’

Lord Falconer also added that: “These sort of allegations have been made for a long time and I have dealt with them before.” and when asked if he thought ‘the air of suspicion over Dr Kelly’s death would persist‘, Falconer reportedly said he ‘felt it [suspicion] had already gone away.’

https://evolvepolitics.com/tony-blair-b ... ok-claims/
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Re: New book claims Blair nixed wider D. Kelly coroner inque

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Dec 31, 2018 2:35 pm

:)

seemslikeadream Sat Jul-19-03 08:16 AM
Response to Original message
1. Maybe they cut the wrong wrist

https://www.democraticunderground.com/d ... =102x22830



kpete Sat Jan-23-10 11:13 PM

70-year gag on Kelly death evidence

Source: London Evening Standard

70-year gag on Kelly death evidence


Evidence relating to the death of Government weapons inspector David Kelly is to be kept secret for 70 years, it has been reported.

A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified until after all those with a direct interest in the case are dead, the Mail on Sunday reported.

And a 30-year secrecy order has been placed on written records provided to Lord Hutton's inquiry which were not produced in evidence.

The Ministry of Justice said decisions on the evidence were a matter for Lord Hutton. But Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has conducted his own investigations into Dr Kelly's death, described the order as "astonishing".




Read more: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... 23798597...


David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information

By Miles Goslett
Last updated at 11:28 PM on 23rd January 2010

Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years.

In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence.

The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War.

It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr Kelly killed himself.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... /David-K...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/d ... 02x4239870


So now who killed Dr. David Kelly



https://twitter.com/search?q=dr+david+k ... r%5Esearch


David Kelly: The threat from Saddam
Here we reprint Dr David Kelly's article, written days before the Iraq war, in which he assessed the threat from Saddam.
Profile image of authorThe Guardian
Jul 06, 2016


Indeed it seems likely that Dr David Kelly died for providing strong evidence against the war BEFORE it happened

The betrayal of Dr David Kelly, 10 years on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rs-on.html … #Chilcot #AlistairCampbell


#Chilcot - Dr David Kelly, the forgotten hero who helped to expose the lies of the "sexed up" case for war


I would add Dr David Kelly, Charles Kennedy and the 179 to this.

Today as the Chilcot report is published, we remember Robin Cook. https://m. …


Dr David Kelly stands vindicated by the #IraqInquiry . The British Government still conceals his documents. #Iraq


RIP Dr David Kelly
How they abused his name in previous inquiries makes my skin crawl.
#Chilcot
#IraqInquiry.org

Anita Hunt (lissnup) added,
Jonathan Harden @jonatharden
"Here we reprint Dr David Kelly's article, written days before the Iraq war..." http://www.theguardian.com/politics/200 ... are_btn_tw … #Chilcot #ChilcotReport


Spare a thought for Dr David Kelly today #Chilcot http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... rs-on.html


My immediate thoughts - 150k Iraqis died for what? British service personal died for what? Dr David Kelly died for what?

Don't forget the inquest and medical docs into the death of Dr David Kelly have been sealed and kept secret for 70 years

We must remember Dr David Kelly. A man of honour and integrity, swimming against the tide of flotsam. #ChilcotReport


Remember him today. Dr David Kelly - convenient death of scientist remains unresolved for me. #Chilcot http://gu.com/p/3hcv3/stw

#DodgyDossier
Dr David Kelly
Millions of Iraqis
Millions in the UK
Were all lied to...
#Chilcot
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027982093
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: New book claims Blair nixed wider D. Kelly coroner inque

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:37 pm


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ydXdwCJv0


The betrayal of Dr David Kelly, 10 years on

Andrew Gilligan, the journalist at the centre of the 'dodgy dossier’ row, reflects on the shocking facts that have emerged since Dr David Kelly’s death

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

Even then, I couldn’t really believe that he had died. Surely it was some sort of misunderstanding? Perhaps he’d just decided to go off for a few days and would turn up in some hotel, à la Stephen Fry? As soon as I got to the BBC, the director of news, Richard Sambrook, called me to his office. While I had been on the way in, he said, not sounding like he believed it himself, Dr Kelly’s body had been found, and it looked like suicide. He’d taken painkilling tablets and slashed one of his wrists.

If Sambrook sounded shaken, it was nothing to how I sounded. He had to get me a glass of water to calm me down. But as well as being upset, I was very, very surprised. I hadn’t known David all that well, but he didn’t strike me as the suicidal type, if there is such a thing.

He was quite used to confrontation and pressure: he’d been a weapons inspector in Iraq, for goodness’ sake. I thought his famous grilling by the Foreign Affairs Committee had been distasteful, and symptomatic of the committee’s stupidity, but it hadn’t been that bad. And the affair was tailing off. Politics was breaking for the summer, both the BBC and I had refused to confirm or deny whether David was my source, and the battle between us and Downing Street had essentially reached stalemate.

What a lot I didn’t know. Even now, almost precisely 10 years since David Kelly’s last journey, we are still learning just how extraordinary and inexcusable the behaviour of our rulers was – both towards him, and in the wider cause, defending the Iraq war, for which he was outed and died. On July 18 2003, I did not consider myself a shockable person; I was an experienced, sceptical journalist with, I thought, a realistic idea of how politicians, intelligence officers and civil servants behaved. But over the months and years that followed, my views, and those of most of the country, changed. To borrow the famous words of David Astor over Suez, we had not realised that our government was capable of such folly and such crookedness.

You probably remember Dr Kelly’s main contention, which became the centrepiece of my BBC story – that a government dossier making the case against Iraq had been “transformed” at the behest of Downing Street and Alastair Campbell “to make it sexier”, with the “classic example” being the insertion in the final week of a claim, based on a single source, that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes. The intelligence services were unhappy about the 45-minute claim, David said. They believed it was unreliable. In the first of my 18 broadcasts on the story, I added a claim, mistakenly attributing it to David, that the Government probably knew the 45-minute claim was wrong.

What we now know is that at precisely the same moment as the Government was launching hysterical attacks on the BBC and on me for reporting this, Whitehall had quietly conceded that it was true. In July 2003, literally as David Kelly was outed, MI6 secretly withdrew the 45-minute intelligence as unreliable and badly-sourced.

What we now know is that according to Major General Michael Laurie, the head of the Defence Intelligence Staff at the time of the dossier, “we could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was clear to me that pressure was being applied to the Joint Intelligence Committee and its drafters. Every fact was managed to make the dossier as strong as possible. The final statements in the dossier reached beyond the conclusions intelligence assessments would normally draw from such facts.”

What we now know is that, according to an MI6 officer working on the dossier, the 45-minute claim was “based in part on wishful thinking” and was not “fully validated”. Another MI6 officer said that “there were from the outset concerns” in the intelligence services about “the extent to which the intelligence could support some of the judgments that were being made”.

What we now know is that on September 17 and 18 2002, a week before the dossier was published, Alastair Campbell sent memos to its author, Sir John Scarlett, saying that he and Tony Blair were “worried” that on Saddam’s nuclear capability the dossier gave the (accurate) impression that “there’s nothing much to worry about”. On September 19, Campbell emailed Scarlett again, suggesting the insertion of a totally false claim that, in certain circumstances, Saddam could produce nuclear weapons in as little as a year. This fabrication duly appeared in the dossier.

What we now know is that in his September 17 memo, Campbell suggested 15 other changes to the text of the dossier. Most were accepted; their effect was to harden the document’s language from possibility to probability, or probability to certainty. Campbell lied to Parliament about the content of this memo, giving the Foreign Affairs Committee an altered copy which omitted his comments on the 45-minute claim and played down his interventions on most of the other issues.

And what we now know is that, contrary to his campaigning certainty at the time, Blair admits in his memoirs that he privately saw the case for war against Iraq as “finely balanced”. No wonder a little tipping of the scales was needed – or, as Blair also put it in his book, “politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand that it be done”.

We knew nothing of this then. Indeed, in his evidence to the Hutton inquiry, Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, described the 45-minute claim, straight-faced, as “a piece of well-sourced intelligence”, two months after his own service had discredited it. Despite his key role as Dearlove’s military counterpart, General Laurie was never called to Hutton at all; his explosive statement, and that of the two MI6 people, emerged only in 2011, at the Chilcot inquiry.

I don’t blame you if you knew nothing of all this until now; most of it, by happy coincidence, came out only long after public attention had moved on, and the government could no longer be damaged.

But the government knew – and this is what makes its behaviour towards the BBC and David Kelly so incredible. He came forward to his bosses as my source under a promise that his identity would be kept secret, but was effectively given up to the world after Campbell, in his words, decided to “open a flank on the BBC” to distract attention from his difficulties over the dossier.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, the FAC, was inquiring into the dossier. After it failed to denounce me to Campbell’s satisfaction, he confided to his diary that “the biggest thing needed was the source out”. That afternoon, on Downing Street’s orders, Ministry of Defence press officers announced that a source had come forward, handed out clues allowing anyone with Google to guess who he was, then kindly confirmed it to any reporter who guessed right. One newspaper was allowed to put more than 20 names to the MoD before it got to Dr Kelly’s.

Once outed, Dr Kelly was openly belittled by the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. The FAC, by the way, didn’t want to question him – its inquiry had finished and its report had already been published – but Downing Street forced it to hold a special hearing anyway. The day before, for several hours, he was intensively coached in the need to “f---” me. Under great pressure, he blurted an untruth in the glare of the TV lights; an untruth which, on the morning of his death, his bosses told him they would investigate.

Dr Kelly defined himself by his work and his reputation for integrity. The fear of losing it must have been terrifying, even if it was almost certainly unfounded. Understanding that is one reason why I am certain that he did indeed kill himself, for all some people’s obsession to the contrary.

They’ll hate this comparison, but there’s an odd symmetry between the Kelly conspiracy theorists and Mr Blair. In both cases, their convictions seem to require them to fit the facts into unusual shapes. For Dr Kelly to have been murdered, as the pathologist’s report makes clear, it would have needed someone to force 29 pills down his throat, making him swallow them without protest. Then they would have had to get him to sit on the ground without any restraint, making no attempt to defend himself, while they had sawn away at his wrist with a knife. That knife, by the way, came from the desk drawer in Dr Kelly’s study, so they’d also have had to burgle his house to get it.

The even more telling question, though, is what motive anyone could have had for murder. Even if you believe the British government goes round bumping off its employees in cold blood, killing David Kelly would simply not have been in its interest. It was guaranteed to create a scandal and a crisis, as anyone with an iota of sense would have known. There’s no need to claim that David Kelly was murdered; his suicide is scandal enough.

Ten years on, there are some Groundhog Day elements. Over successive crises, the BBC’s management has been as incompetent as ever. Politicians still appear to think that set-piece inquiries are worth the paper they’re written on – despite the evidence from Lord Hutton’s and Sir John Chilcot’s efforts on Iraq, the latter entering its fifth year with few signs of a report.

Whatever Chilcot may eventually say, the debate on the war appears to have been decided. Few would now dispute the dossier was sexed up. But there is still a fascinating degree of dispute about David Kelly. I have sometimes asked myself why the self-inflicted death of one scientist should matter to us as much as, if not more than, the violent deaths of perhaps 120,000 Iraqis (535 of them this month alone, by the way – so much for making Iraq safe for democracy).

I think it’s partly because there may still be some excuses for what the Government did in Iraq. They expected it to be like Kosovo: the operation would succeed, the troops be welcomed and the predictions of doom confounded. They expected, too, that a few barrels of WMD would probably be found that could have been cast as a threat. Even the charge of “lying” about those weapons is not quite cast-iron: I prefer the charge I made, of sexing-up, or exaggeration. I and most others always thought Iraq had something in the WMD line; the exaggeration lay in the fact that it was nowhere near threatening enough to justify a war.

But there are no excuses for what the government did to the BBC and to Dr Kelly. He was outed to further a series of denials which we can, quite plainly, call lies. An explanation, if not an excuse, may rest in Campbell’s mental state: even Blair, in his memoirs, called him a “crazy person” who by that stage “had probably gone over the edge”. But that doesn’t explain the really scary part: how the machinery of government, in a mature democracy such as Britain’s, allowed itself to be captured by someone in that state.

Sir Richard Dearlove, the former MI6 chief responsible for the dossier, was once asked what he thought of me. Flatteringly, he said: “I wouldn’t want you to print my views on Andrew Gilligan.” My own views on Sir Richard, Sir John Scarlett and the other distinguished knights of Iraq who got too close to New Labour are perfectly printable: they failed catastrophically in their duty, bringing their professions, their services – and their country – into deep, possibly permanent, disrepute.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politi ... rs-on.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: New book claims Blair nixed wider D. Kelly coroner inque

Postby Grizzly » Thu Jan 03, 2019 1:52 am

Around the same time, as Kelly's death, they tried to frame weapons inspector Scott Ritter as a paedophile. Which I never believed. I saw that he was standing in the way of the war crims, so they do what they do best. Plant evidence. Fortunately, he was never convicted. But it did shut him up, as 'Shock and Awe' Reigned down on Baghdad... there was also,


Jan 31st 2003. It was the most critical meeting (the famous second resolution meeting) in the tense weeks before the Iraq war. Face to face talks in the Whitehouse between President Bush and Tony Blair along with their most senior officials. Channel 4 news has seen a secret memo which details that discussion between the two leaders. The President makes it clear that there will be war on Saddam regardless whether the UN passes a further resolution. The Prime Minister replies that he is, "solidly with the President", and George Bush even floats the idea of trying to lure Saddam into war by flying an American spy plane over Iraq painted in UN colours. The President said, "If Saddam fires on them, he would be in breach." There was no smoking gun. Blair wanted a second resolution and said, "A second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected and international cover, including with the Arabs." Bush said, "The US would put it's full weight behind efforts to get a second resolution and would even 'twist arms' and even 'threaten'."
:shock:

For example, Ritter claimed, Rockingham would leak false information to weapons inspectors but then use the inspections as evidence for WMD: "Rockingham was the source of some very controversial information which led to inspections of a suspected ballistic missile site. We ... found nothing. However, our act of searching allowed the US and UK to say that the missiles existed."

Ritter alleged that "Operation Rockingham" assumed a central role within the UK intelligence system in building the case that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities constituted a threat to the UK and the US.

Ritter said that the Rockingham cell included military officers, intelligence services representatives as well as civilian Ministry of Defence personnel. According to Ritter, the British weapons expert David Kelly, played an important role in Operation Rockingham. Ritter describes him as "Rockingham's go-to person for translating the data that came out of Unscom into concise reporting".

The day before he died, Kelly had told the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) : "Within the defence intelligence services I liaise with the Rockingham cell." Although this evidence was given in secret, a transcript was released to the Hutton Inquiry. (1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rockingham
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

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