David Kelly
Encyclopedia
David Christopher Kelly, CMG
(14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a British scientist and expert on biological warfare
, employed by the British Ministry of Defence
, and formerly a United Nations
weapons inspector in Iraq. He came to public attention in July 2003 when an unauthorised discussion he had off the record with a BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan
—about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq—was cited by the journalist and led to a major controversy. Kelly's name became known to the media as Gilligan's source, and he was called to appear on 15 July before the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee, which was investigating the issues Gilligan had reported. Kelly was questioned aggressively about his actions. He was found dead two days later.
Tony Blair
's government set up the Hutton Inquiry
, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death. This determined that Kelly had committed suicide, the pathologist who conducted the postmortem examination giving the cause of death as "haemorrhage due to incised wounds of the left wrist" in combination with "coproxamol
ingestion and coronary artery atherosclerosis". Lord Hutton
also decided that evidence related to the death, including the post-mortem report and photographs of the body, should remain classified for 70 years. In October 2010, Hutton explained that he had done so to protect the wife and daughters of Kelly from the distress of further media reports about the death. "My request was not a concealment of evidence because every matter of relevance had been examined or was available for examination during the public inquiry. There was no secrecy surrounding the postmortem report because it had always been available for examination and questioning by counsel representing the interested parties during the inquiry."
In 2009 a group of British doctors who had not had access to the evidence—including Michael Powers, a physician, barrister, and former coroner challenged Hutton's verdict, offering their opinion based on published reports that the cause of death was untenable; they argued that the artery is small and difficult to access, and severing it would not have triggered sufficient blood loss to cause death. This opinion was challenged by several forensic pathologists, who told The Guardian that the combination of Kelly's heart disease and the overdose would have meant a smaller loss of blood could have killed him than would be needed to kill a healthier person. In August 2010 the former leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard
, called for a full inquest, and Dominic Grieve
, the Attorney General for England and Wales
, confirmed that he was considering re-opening it.
In October 2010, the postmortem—including the pathologist's 14-page report and the six-page toxicology report—was made public, confirming the conclusion of the Hutton report. Powers continues to maintain that questions remain about the amount of blood found at the scene and the number of pills taken.
The death of Kelly and preceding events has served as an inspiration for artistic tributes and dramatisations including Harrowdown Hill
by Thom Yorke
and a painting titled Death of David Kelly (2008) by Dexter Dalwood
.
, Wales. He graduated from the University of Leeds
with a BSc, and subsequently obtained an MSc at the University of Birmingham
. In 1971, he received his doctorate in microbiology
from Linacre College, Oxford
. In 1984, he joined the civil service, working at what is now Dstl
Porton Down
, as head of the Defence Microbiology Division. He moved from there to work as an ad hoc advisor to the MoD and the Foreign Office
.
In 1989, Kelly was involved in investigations into the Soviet violations of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
and was a key member of the inspection team visiting the former USSR on several occasions between 1991 and 1994. His experience with biological weapons at Porton Down led to his selection as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq
following the end of the Gulf War
. Kelly's work as a member of the UNSCOM team led him to visit Iraq thirty-seven times and his success in uncovering Iraq's biological weapons programme led to Rolf Ekéus
nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize
. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
in 1996. Although he was never a member of the intelligence services, the Secret Intelligence Service
(MI6) regularly sought out his opinion on Iraq and other issues. David Kelly became a member of the Bahá'í Faith
around 1999. He was introduced to this faith by Mai Pederson, a US military linguist and intelligence operative.
at the time of the compilation of a dossier
by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq. The government had commissioned the dossier as an element of the preparation for what later became the 2003 invasion of Iraq
.
Although he was not responsible for writing any part of the dossier, Kelly's experience of weapons inspections led to him being asked to proofread
sections of the draft dossier on the history of inspections. Kelly was unhappy with some of the claims in the draft, particularly a claim, originating from August 2002, that Iraq was capable of firing battlefield biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them (known as "the 45-minute claim"). Kelly's colleagues queried the inclusion of the claim but their superiors were satisfied when they took it up with MI6 through the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections. After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes, and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003, when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation.
The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003, when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories
as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer
, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said:
It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry
that Kelly was the source of this quote.
, a BBC journalist who had spent some time writing about the war in Baghdad
. Kelly was anxious to learn what had happened in Iraq, while Gilligan, who had discussed a very early draft of the dossier with Kelly, wished to ask him about it in light of the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction. They agreed to talk on an unattributable
basis, which allowed the BBC to report what was said, but not to identify the source. Kelly told Gilligan of his concerns over the 45-minute claim and allegedly ascribed its inclusion in the dossier to Alastair Campbell
, the director of communications for Prime Minister
Tony Blair
.
Gilligan broadcast his report on 29 May 2003 on the Today programme
, in which he said that the 45-minute claim had been placed in the dossier by the government, even though it knew the claim was dubious. In a subsequent article in The Mail on Sunday
newspaper, Gilligan directly identified Alastair Campbell
as the person responsible. The story caused a political storm, with the government denying any involvement in the intelligence content of the dossier. The government pressed the BBC to reveal the name of the source because it knew that any source who was not a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee would not have known who had a role in the preparation of the dossier.
As the political fight ensued, Kelly knew he had talked to the journalist involved but felt that he had not said exactly what was reported. He also told his friend and work colleague Olivia Bosch that his meeting with Andrew Gilligan had been "unauthorised" and therefore outside his terms of employment. On 30 June 2003, he wrote to his line manager at the Ministry of Defence to report his contact with Gilligan, though he added "I am convinced that I am not his primary source of information."
Kelly was interviewed twice by his employers, who concluded that they could not be sure he was Gilligan's only source. Eventually they took the decision to publicly acknowledge the fact that an employee had come forward who might be the source. The announcement contained sufficient clues for alert journalists to guess Kelly's identity and the Ministry of Defence confirmed the name when it was put to them. This was not an everyday procedure (it usually refuses to comment on such matters), and it was alleged by some critics of the government that the Ministry of Defence was implementing a government decision to reveal Kelly's name as part of a strategy to discredit Gilligan. Andrew Rawnsley
has claimed that Blair on 8 July sanctioned a strategy designed to reveal Kelly's identity; Lord Hutton found that the decision was only to confirm that a civil servant had come forward, without giving a name, because there was uncertainty that Kelly was in fact Gilligan's source.
Kelly was extremely disturbed that the media had identified his role in the matter and arranged with a family friend to leave his home and visit Cornwall
with his wife. He was asked to appear as a witness before two committees of the House of Commons
that were investigating the situation in Iraq, and was further upset by the news that one of the appearances would be in public. He had been given a formal warning by the Ministry of Defence for an unauthorised meeting with a journalist, and had been made to understand that they might take more action if it turned out he had been lying to them.
, in particular, used a forceful tone in his cross-examination. For example, when asked to simply list the journalists that he met, Kelly declined to answer and requested that such a list be sought from the MoD, which triggered a response: "...This is the high court of Parliament and I want you to tell the Committee who you met... You are under an obligation to reply". The Chairman of the Committee (Donald Anderson
) underscored the validity of MacKinlay's question telling Kelly: "It is a proper question... If you have met journalists there is nothing sinister in itself about meeting journalists, save in an unauthorised way." Mackinlay offered his opinion that Kelly had been used by Gilligan telling Kelly: "I reckon you are chaff
; you have been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall-guy? You have been set up, have you not?"
Kelly was deeply upset by his treatment before the Committee and privately described MacKinlay as an 'utter bastard.' During the hearing, he was closely questioned about several quotes given to Susan Watts
, another BBC journalist working on Newsnight
, who had reported a similar story. It later emerged that Gilligan had himself told members of the committee that Watts' source was also Kelly. Kelly denied any knowledge of the quotes, and must have realised that he would have serious problems if the Ministry of Defence believed he had been the source of them. On the following day, (16 July 2003), Kelly gave evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee
. He told them that he liaised with Operation Rockingham
within the Defence Intelligence Staff.
. Media coverage of his public appearance two days before had led many of his friends to send him supportive emails, to which he was responding. One of the emails he sent that day was to New York Times journalist Judith Miller
, who had used Kelly as a source in a book on bioterrorism, and to whom Kelly had mentioned "many dark actors playing games." He also received an email from his superiors at the Ministry of Defence asking for more details of his contacts with journalists.
At about 15:00, Kelly told his wife that he was going for a walk, as he did every day. He appears to have gone directly to an area of woodlands known as Harrowdown Hill about a mile away from his home, where he ingested up to 29 tablets of painkillers, co-proxamol, an analgesic
drug and to have then cut his left wrist with a knife he had owned since his youth. His wife reported him missing shortly after midnight that night, and he was found early the next morning. Questioned on a flight to Hong Kong that day, Blair denied that anyone had been authorised to leak Kelly's identity.
would lead the judicial Hutton Inquiry into the events leading up to the death. The BBC shortly afterwards confirmed that Kelly had indeed been the single source for Andrew Gilligan's report. The inquiry took priority over an inquest
, which would normally be required into a suspicious death. The Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, considered the issue again in March 2004. After reviewing evidence not presented to the Hutton Inquiry, Gardiner decided there was no need for further investigation. This conclusion did not satisfy those who had raised doubts, but there has been no alternative official explanation for Kelly's death. The Hutton Inquiry reported on 28 January 2004 that Kelly had committed suicide. Lord Hutton wrote:
Hutton concluded that the Ministry of Defence was obliged to make Kelly's identity known once he came forward as a potential source, and had not acted in a duplicitous manner. Hutton criticised the MoD for not having alerted Kelly to the fact that his name had become known to the press.
During the inquiry, a British ambassador called David Broucher reported a conversation with Kelly at a Geneva
meeting in February 2003. Broucher related that Kelly said he had assured his Iraqi sources that there would be no war if they co-operated, and that a war would put him in an "ambiguous" moral position. Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, "I will probably be found dead in the woods." Broucher then quoted from an email he had sent just after Kelly's death: "I did not think much of this at the time, taking it to be a hint that the Iraqis might try to take revenge against him, something that did not seem at all fanciful then. I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines." According to an entry in one of Kelly’s diaries, discovered afterwards by his daughter Rachel at his home, this meeting did not take place in February 2003, but in February 2002. According to Kelly’s half-sister, Sarah Pape, the day after his daughter Ellen’s wedding on Saturday 22 February 2003, he flew out to New York. Pape told the inquiry, "he certainly did not mention he was going to be flying almost straight back to visit Geneva."
, reinforced by support from two other senior physicians in a later letter to the newspaper. These doctors argued that the autopsy
finding of a transected ulnar artery
could not have caused a degree of blood loss that would kill someone, particularly when outside in the cold (where vasoconstriction
would cause slow blood loss). Further, this conflicted with the minimal amount of blood found at the scene. They also contended that the amount of co-proxamol found was only about a third of what would normally be fatal. Dr Rouse, a British epidemiologist wrote to the British Medical Journal
offering his opinion that the act of committing suicide by severing wrist arteries is an extremely rare occurrence in a 59-year-old man with no previous psychiatric history. Nobody else died from that cause during the year.
In December 2010 The Times
reported that Dr Kelly had a rare abnormality in the arteries supplying his heart; the information had been disclosed by the head of the Academic Unit of Pathology at Sheffield University Medical School, Professor Paul Ince. Ince noted that the postmortem had found severe narrowing of the blood vessels, and said that heart disease was likely to have been a factor in Dr Kelly's death as the cut to the wrist artery would not itself have been fatal. Vice-President of the British Cardiovascular Society Ian Simpson said that Kelly's artery anomaly could have contributed to the scientist's death.
Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, the two paramedic
s who were called to the scene of Kelly's death, have since gone public with their opinion that there was not enough blood at the location to justify the belief that he had died from blood loss. Bartlett and Hunt told The Guardian that they had seen a small amount of blood on plants near Kelly's body and a patch of blood the size of a coin on his trousers. They said they would expect to find several pints of blood at the scene of a suicide involving an arterial cut. Two forensic pathologists, Chris Milroy of Sheffield University and Guy Rutty of Leicester University, dismissed the paramedics' claims, saying it is hard to judge blood loss from the scene of a death, as some blood may have seeped into the ground. Milroy also told The Guardian that Kelly's heart condition may have made it hard for him to sustain any significant degree of blood loss.
On 15 October 2007, it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the knife had no fingerprints on it.
broadcast a programme on Kelly on 25 February 2007 as part of the series The Conspiracy Files
; the network commissioned an opinion poll
to establish the views of the public on his death. 22.7% of those surveyed thought Kelly had not killed himself, 38.8% of people believed he had, and 38.5% said they did not know. On 19 May 2006 Norman Baker
, Liberal Democrat
MP for Lewes
, who had previously investigated the Hinduja affair, which led to the resignation of government minister Peter Mandelson, announced that he had been investigating "unanswered questions" from the official inquiry into Kelly's death. He later announced that he had uncovered evidence to show that Kelly did not die from natural causes. In July 2006, Baker claimed that his hard drive had been wiped remotely. Baker's book The Strange Death of David Kelly was serialised in the Daily Mail
before publication in November 2007. Family members of Kelly expressed their displeasure at the forthcoming publication, the husband of Kelly's sister Sarah saying, "It is just raking over old bones ... I can't speak for the whole family, but I've read it all [Baker's theories], every word, and I don't believe it." In his book Baker argued that Kelly did not commit suicide and examined the many unanswered questions he says surround the incident.
On 5 December 2009 six doctors began legal action to demand a formal inquest into the death, saying there was "insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt he killed himself." In January 2010, it was disclosed that Lord Hutton had requested that all files relating to his postmortem remain secret for 70 years. In the summer of 2010, Attorney General Dominic Grieve
was said to consider an inquiry to review the suicide finding. and Justice Secretary Ken Clarke considered a request from campaigning doctors to release medical files relating to Kelly's death.
In June 2010, The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday said they had found evidence of an alleged cover-up to hide a murder plot by persons unknown, for reasons unknown. Richard Spertzel, a UN weapons inspector, said Kelly was on a "hitlist" in the final years of his life. The former head of the UN Biological Section, who worked closely with Kelly in Iraq in the 1990s, wrote to Attorney General Grieve about "mysterious circumstances" surrounding Kelly's death. In July 2010 a former KGB agent Boris Karpichkov said he was told Kelly had been "exterminated" and his death made to look like suicide.
In early August, a group of nine experts, including former coroners and a professor of intensive-care medicine, wrote a letter to the British newspaper The Times questioning Lord Hutton's verdict. On 14 August 2010, Jennifer Dyson, a retired pathologist, amplified the criticism, saying that a coroner would probably have recorded an open verdict in the absence of absolute proof that suicide was intended. She cast further doubt on the circumstances surrounding the death of Kelly, and also criticized Hutton's handling of the inquiry. She joined other experts questioning the official finding that Kelly had bled to death and argued that it was more likely that he had suffered a heart attack due to the stress he had been placed under. This intervention came as Michael Howard
, the former Conservative Party leader, became the most prominent politician to call for a full inquest into Kelly's death.
Among prominent doctors who had raised doubts based just on published reports of the death, one physician, Dr Michael Powers QC, has not accepted the published postmortem and toxicology report and is continuing to maintain that questions remain about the amount of blood found at the scene and the number of pills taken.
Articles
Films and video
Miscellaneous
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
(14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a British scientist and expert on biological warfare
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
, employed by the British Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
, and formerly a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
weapons inspector in Iraq. He came to public attention in July 2003 when an unauthorised discussion he had off the record with a BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan is a British journalist best known for a 2003 report on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme in which he said a British government briefing paper on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been 'sexed up', a claim that ultimately led to a public inquiry that criticised Gilligan...
—about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
in Iraq—was cited by the journalist and led to a major controversy. Kelly's name became known to the media as Gilligan's source, and he was called to appear on 15 July before the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee, which was investigating the issues Gilligan had reported. Kelly was questioned aggressively about his actions. He was found dead two days later.
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
's government set up the Hutton Inquiry
Hutton Inquiry
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee...
, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death. This determined that Kelly had committed suicide, the pathologist who conducted the postmortem examination giving the cause of death as "haemorrhage due to incised wounds of the left wrist" in combination with "coproxamol
Dextropropoxyphene
Dextropropoxyphene, manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company, is an analgesic in the opioid category. It is intended to treat mild pain and has, in addition, anti-tussive and local anesthetic effects. It has been taken off the market in Europe and the US due to concerns of fatal overdoses and...
ingestion and coronary artery atherosclerosis". Lord Hutton
Brian Hutton, Baron Hutton
James Brian Edward Hutton, Baron Hutton, PC, QC , is a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and British Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.- Background :...
also decided that evidence related to the death, including the post-mortem report and photographs of the body, should remain classified for 70 years. In October 2010, Hutton explained that he had done so to protect the wife and daughters of Kelly from the distress of further media reports about the death. "My request was not a concealment of evidence because every matter of relevance had been examined or was available for examination during the public inquiry. There was no secrecy surrounding the postmortem report because it had always been available for examination and questioning by counsel representing the interested parties during the inquiry."
In 2009 a group of British doctors who had not had access to the evidence—including Michael Powers, a physician, barrister, and former coroner challenged Hutton's verdict, offering their opinion based on published reports that the cause of death was untenable; they argued that the artery is small and difficult to access, and severing it would not have triggered sufficient blood loss to cause death. This opinion was challenged by several forensic pathologists, who told The Guardian that the combination of Kelly's heart disease and the overdose would have meant a smaller loss of blood could have killed him than would be needed to kill a healthier person. In August 2010 the former leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...
, called for a full inquest, and Dominic Grieve
Dominic Grieve
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve, QC MP is a British Conservative politician, barrister and Queen's Counsel.He is the Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield and the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland.-Early life:Grieve was born in Lambeth, the son of...
, the Attorney General for England and Wales
Attorney General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
, confirmed that he was considering re-opening it.
In October 2010, the postmortem—including the pathologist's 14-page report and the six-page toxicology report—was made public, confirming the conclusion of the Hutton report. Powers continues to maintain that questions remain about the amount of blood found at the scene and the number of pills taken.
The death of Kelly and preceding events has served as an inspiration for artistic tributes and dramatisations including Harrowdown Hill
Harrowdown Hill
"Harrowdown Hill" is a song by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and is the eighth track on his 2006 album The Eraser. The song was also released as a limited edition single in the United Kingdom on 21 August 2006, peaking at #23 in the UK Singles Chart...
by Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
and a painting titled Death of David Kelly (2008) by Dexter Dalwood
Dexter Dalwood
Dexter Dalwood is an artist based in London. He attended Humphry Davy School in his early life. Dalwood received his BA from Central St Martins College of Art, London, in 1985...
.
Biography
Kelly was born in RhonddaRhondda
Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...
, Wales. He graduated from the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
with a BSc, and subsequently obtained an MSc at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
. In 1971, he received his doctorate in microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
from Linacre College, Oxford
Linacre College, Oxford
Linacre College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the UK, currently offering graduate entry only. It is located on St Cross Road at the corner of St Cross Road and South Parks Road, next to the University Parks and opposite the Tinbergen Building, which is shared by...
. In 1984, he joined the civil service, working at what is now Dstl
Dstl
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is a trading fund of the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom. Responsibility for Dstl lies with the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology, currently Peter Luff....
Porton Down
Porton Down
Porton Down is a United Kingdom government and military science park. It is situated slightly northeast of Porton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. To the northwest lies the MoD Boscombe Down test range facility which is operated by QinetiQ...
, as head of the Defence Microbiology Division. He moved from there to work as an ad hoc advisor to the MoD and the Foreign Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
.
In 1989, Kelly was involved in investigations into the Soviet violations of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
Biological Weapons Convention
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the...
and was a key member of the inspection team visiting the former USSR on several occasions between 1991 and 1994. His experience with biological weapons at Porton Down led to his selection as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
following the end of the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
. Kelly's work as a member of the UNSCOM team led him to visit Iraq thirty-seven times and his success in uncovering Iraq's biological weapons programme led to Rolf Ekéus
Rolf Ekéus
Carl Rolf Ekéus is a Swedish diplomat. From 1978 to 1983, he was a representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, and he has worked on various other disarmament committees and commissions....
nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....
in 1996. Although he was never a member of the intelligence services, the Secret Intelligence Service
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
(MI6) regularly sought out his opinion on Iraq and other issues. David Kelly became a member of the Bahá'í Faith
Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....
around 1999. He was introduced to this faith by Mai Pederson, a US military linguist and intelligence operative.
WMD dossier
Kelly's career specialisation led to confusion about his actual job, as he was frequently seconded to other departments. His job description included liaising with the media and he regularly acted as a confidential source, although rarely going on the record or appearing on-camera. In 2002, he was working for the Defence Intelligence StaffDefence Intelligence Staff
Defence Intelligence is a key member of the United Kingdom Intelligence Community but differs from the agencies in that it is not a stand-alone organisation but is a constituent part of the Ministry of Defence . The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded...
at the time of the compilation of a dossier
September Dossier
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document...
by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq. The government had commissioned the dossier as an element of the preparation for what later became the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
.
Although he was not responsible for writing any part of the dossier, Kelly's experience of weapons inspections led to him being asked to proofread
Proofreading
Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or computer monitor to detect and correct production-errors of text or art. Proofreaders are expected to be consistently accurate by default because they occupy the last stage of typographic production before publication.-Traditional method:A proof is...
sections of the draft dossier on the history of inspections. Kelly was unhappy with some of the claims in the draft, particularly a claim, originating from August 2002, that Iraq was capable of firing battlefield biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them (known as "the 45-minute claim"). Kelly's colleagues queried the inclusion of the claim but their superiors were satisfied when they took it up with MI6 through the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections. After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes, and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003, when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation.
The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003, when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories
Mobile weapons laboratory
Mobile weapons laboratories are bioreactors and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle.-Iraqi Mobile weapons laboratories:...
as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said:
- They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.
It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry
Hutton Inquiry
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee...
that Kelly was the source of this quote.
Contact with Andrew Gilligan
On 22 May 2003, at the Charing Cross Hotel in London, Kelly met Andrew GilliganAndrew Gilligan
Andrew Paul Gilligan is a British journalist best known for a 2003 report on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme in which he said a British government briefing paper on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been 'sexed up', a claim that ultimately led to a public inquiry that criticised Gilligan...
, a BBC journalist who had spent some time writing about the war in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. Kelly was anxious to learn what had happened in Iraq, while Gilligan, who had discussed a very early draft of the dossier with Kelly, wished to ask him about it in light of the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction. They agreed to talk on an unattributable
Journalism sourcing
In journalism, a source is a person, publication, or other record or document that gives timely information. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as "news sources"...
basis, which allowed the BBC to report what was said, but not to identify the source. Kelly told Gilligan of his concerns over the 45-minute claim and allegedly ascribed its inclusion in the dossier to Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, having first started working for Blair in 1994...
, the director of communications for Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
.
Gilligan broadcast his report on 29 May 2003 on the Today programme
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
, in which he said that the 45-minute claim had been placed in the dossier by the government, even though it knew the claim was dubious. In a subsequent article in The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
newspaper, Gilligan directly identified Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, having first started working for Blair in 1994...
as the person responsible. The story caused a political storm, with the government denying any involvement in the intelligence content of the dossier. The government pressed the BBC to reveal the name of the source because it knew that any source who was not a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee would not have known who had a role in the preparation of the dossier.
As the political fight ensued, Kelly knew he had talked to the journalist involved but felt that he had not said exactly what was reported. He also told his friend and work colleague Olivia Bosch that his meeting with Andrew Gilligan had been "unauthorised" and therefore outside his terms of employment. On 30 June 2003, he wrote to his line manager at the Ministry of Defence to report his contact with Gilligan, though he added "I am convinced that I am not his primary source of information."
Kelly was interviewed twice by his employers, who concluded that they could not be sure he was Gilligan's only source. Eventually they took the decision to publicly acknowledge the fact that an employee had come forward who might be the source. The announcement contained sufficient clues for alert journalists to guess Kelly's identity and the Ministry of Defence confirmed the name when it was put to them. This was not an everyday procedure (it usually refuses to comment on such matters), and it was alleged by some critics of the government that the Ministry of Defence was implementing a government decision to reveal Kelly's name as part of a strategy to discredit Gilligan. Andrew Rawnsley
Andrew Rawnsley
Andrew Nicholas James Rawnsley is a British political journalist, notably for The Observer, and broadcaster.-Early life:...
has claimed that Blair on 8 July sanctioned a strategy designed to reveal Kelly's identity; Lord Hutton found that the decision was only to confirm that a civil servant had come forward, without giving a name, because there was uncertainty that Kelly was in fact Gilligan's source.
Kelly was extremely disturbed that the media had identified his role in the matter and arranged with a family friend to leave his home and visit Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
with his wife. He was asked to appear as a witness before two committees of the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
that were investigating the situation in Iraq, and was further upset by the news that one of the appearances would be in public. He had been given a formal warning by the Ministry of Defence for an unauthorised meeting with a journalist, and had been made to understand that they might take more action if it turned out he had been lying to them.
Appearance before House of Commons committees
When he appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on 15 July 2003, Kelly appeared to be under severe stress, which was probably increased by the televising of the proceedings. He spoke with a voice so soft that the air-conditioning equipment had to be turned off, even though it was one of the hottest days of the year. His evidence to the committee was that he had not said the things Gilligan had reported his source as saying, and members of the committee came to the conclusion that he had not been the source. Some of the questioning was very precise. The Labour MP Andrew MacKinlayAndrew MacKinlay
Andrew Stuart MacKinlay is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Thurrock from 1992 until he stepped down at the 2010 general election.-Early life:...
, in particular, used a forceful tone in his cross-examination. For example, when asked to simply list the journalists that he met, Kelly declined to answer and requested that such a list be sought from the MoD, which triggered a response: "...This is the high court of Parliament and I want you to tell the Committee who you met... You are under an obligation to reply". The Chairman of the Committee (Donald Anderson
Donald Anderson, Baron Anderson of Swansea
Donald Anderson, Baron Anderson of Swansea, PC, DL , is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament for Swansea East from 1966 to 1970 and from 1974 to 2005....
) underscored the validity of MacKinlay's question telling Kelly: "It is a proper question... If you have met journalists there is nothing sinister in itself about meeting journalists, save in an unauthorised way." Mackinlay offered his opinion that Kelly had been used by Gilligan telling Kelly: "I reckon you are chaff
Chaff (radar countermeasure)
Chaff, originally called Window by the British, and Düppel by the Second World War era German Luftwaffe , is a radar countermeasure in which aircraft or other targets spread a cloud of small, thin pieces of aluminium, metallized glass fibre or plastic, which either appears as a cluster of secondary...
; you have been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall-guy? You have been set up, have you not?"
Kelly was deeply upset by his treatment before the Committee and privately described MacKinlay as an 'utter bastard.' During the hearing, he was closely questioned about several quotes given to Susan Watts
Susan Watts
Susan Janet Watts is the science editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme, joining the programme in January 1995.-Early life:She went to Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Girls' School. She has a BSc in Physics from Imperial College London....
, another BBC journalist working on Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
, who had reported a similar story. It later emerged that Gilligan had himself told members of the committee that Watts' source was also Kelly. Kelly denied any knowledge of the quotes, and must have realised that he would have serious problems if the Ministry of Defence believed he had been the source of them. On the following day, (16 July 2003), Kelly gave evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee is a committee of parliamentarians appointed by the Prime Minister to oversee the work of the Intelligence machinery of the United Kingdom...
. He told them that he liaised with Operation Rockingham
Operation Rockingham
Operation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990-91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...
within the Defence Intelligence Staff.
Death
On the morning of 17 July 2003, Kelly was working as usual at home in OxfordshireOxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
. Media coverage of his public appearance two days before had led many of his friends to send him supportive emails, to which he was responding. One of the emails he sent that day was to New York Times journalist Judith Miller
Judith Miller (journalist)
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy...
, who had used Kelly as a source in a book on bioterrorism, and to whom Kelly had mentioned "many dark actors playing games." He also received an email from his superiors at the Ministry of Defence asking for more details of his contacts with journalists.
At about 15:00, Kelly told his wife that he was going for a walk, as he did every day. He appears to have gone directly to an area of woodlands known as Harrowdown Hill about a mile away from his home, where he ingested up to 29 tablets of painkillers, co-proxamol, an analgesic
Analgesic
An analgesic is any member of the group of drugs used to relieve pain . The word analgesic derives from Greek an- and algos ....
drug and to have then cut his left wrist with a knife he had owned since his youth. His wife reported him missing shortly after midnight that night, and he was found early the next morning. Questioned on a flight to Hong Kong that day, Blair denied that anyone had been authorised to leak Kelly's identity.
Hutton Inquiry
The government immediately announced that Lord HuttonBrian Hutton, Baron Hutton
James Brian Edward Hutton, Baron Hutton, PC, QC , is a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and British Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.- Background :...
would lead the judicial Hutton Inquiry into the events leading up to the death. The BBC shortly afterwards confirmed that Kelly had indeed been the single source for Andrew Gilligan's report. The inquiry took priority over an inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
, which would normally be required into a suspicious death. The Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, considered the issue again in March 2004. After reviewing evidence not presented to the Hutton Inquiry, Gardiner decided there was no need for further investigation. This conclusion did not satisfy those who had raised doubts, but there has been no alternative official explanation for Kelly's death. The Hutton Inquiry reported on 28 January 2004 that Kelly had committed suicide. Lord Hutton wrote:
I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Kelly might take his own life. I am further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Kelly might take his own life. Whatever pressures and strains Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realised or should have realised that those pressures and strains might drive him to take his own life or contribute to his decision to do so.
Hutton concluded that the Ministry of Defence was obliged to make Kelly's identity known once he came forward as a potential source, and had not acted in a duplicitous manner. Hutton criticised the MoD for not having alerted Kelly to the fact that his name had become known to the press.
During the inquiry, a British ambassador called David Broucher reported a conversation with Kelly at a Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
meeting in February 2003. Broucher related that Kelly said he had assured his Iraqi sources that there would be no war if they co-operated, and that a war would put him in an "ambiguous" moral position. Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, "I will probably be found dead in the woods." Broucher then quoted from an email he had sent just after Kelly's death: "I did not think much of this at the time, taking it to be a hint that the Iraqis might try to take revenge against him, something that did not seem at all fanciful then. I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines." According to an entry in one of Kelly’s diaries, discovered afterwards by his daughter Rachel at his home, this meeting did not take place in February 2003, but in February 2002. According to Kelly’s half-sister, Sarah Pape, the day after his daughter Ellen’s wedding on Saturday 22 February 2003, he flew out to New York. Pape told the inquiry, "he certainly did not mention he was going to be flying almost straight back to visit Geneva."
Fatality of ulnar artery cuts
Although suicide was officially accepted as the cause of death, some medical experts have raised doubts, suggesting that the evidence does not back this up. The most detailed objection was provided in a letter from three medical doctors published in The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, reinforced by support from two other senior physicians in a later letter to the newspaper. These doctors argued that the autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
finding of a transected ulnar artery
Ulnar artery
The ulnar artery is the main blood vessel, with oxygenated blood, of the medial aspect of the forearm. It arises from the brachial artery and terminates in the superficial palmar arch, which joins with the superficial branch of the radial artery...
could not have caused a degree of blood loss that would kill someone, particularly when outside in the cold (where vasoconstriction
Vasoconstriction
Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of the blood vessels resulting from contraction of the muscular wall of the vessels, particularly the large arteries, small arterioles and veins. The process is the opposite of vasodilation, the widening of blood vessels. The process is particularly important in...
would cause slow blood loss). Further, this conflicted with the minimal amount of blood found at the scene. They also contended that the amount of co-proxamol found was only about a third of what would normally be fatal. Dr Rouse, a British epidemiologist wrote to the British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
offering his opinion that the act of committing suicide by severing wrist arteries is an extremely rare occurrence in a 59-year-old man with no previous psychiatric history. Nobody else died from that cause during the year.
In December 2010 The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported that Dr Kelly had a rare abnormality in the arteries supplying his heart; the information had been disclosed by the head of the Academic Unit of Pathology at Sheffield University Medical School, Professor Paul Ince. Ince noted that the postmortem had found severe narrowing of the blood vessels, and said that heart disease was likely to have been a factor in Dr Kelly's death as the cut to the wrist artery would not itself have been fatal. Vice-President of the British Cardiovascular Society Ian Simpson said that Kelly's artery anomaly could have contributed to the scientist's death.
Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, the two paramedic
Paramedic
A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...
s who were called to the scene of Kelly's death, have since gone public with their opinion that there was not enough blood at the location to justify the belief that he had died from blood loss. Bartlett and Hunt told The Guardian that they had seen a small amount of blood on plants near Kelly's body and a patch of blood the size of a coin on his trousers. They said they would expect to find several pints of blood at the scene of a suicide involving an arterial cut. Two forensic pathologists, Chris Milroy of Sheffield University and Guy Rutty of Leicester University, dismissed the paramedics' claims, saying it is hard to judge blood loss from the scene of a death, as some blood may have seeped into the ground. Milroy also told The Guardian that Kelly's heart condition may have made it hard for him to sustain any significant degree of blood loss.
On 15 October 2007, it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the knife had no fingerprints on it.
Doubts about the suicide verdict, and alternative theories for Kelly's death
The BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
broadcast a programme on Kelly on 25 February 2007 as part of the series The Conspiracy Files
The Conspiracy Files
The Conspiracy Files is a British documentary television series broadcast on BBC Two, investigating various modern day conspiracy theories...
; the network commissioned an opinion poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
to establish the views of the public on his death. 22.7% of those surveyed thought Kelly had not killed himself, 38.8% of people believed he had, and 38.5% said they did not know. On 19 May 2006 Norman Baker
Norman Baker
Norman John Baker is a British Liberal Democrat politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Lewes in East Sussex since 1997. Since May 2010 he has been Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Department for Transport....
, Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
MP for Lewes
Lewes (UK Parliament constituency)
Lewes is a constituency located in East Sussex and centred on the town of Lewes. It is represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a safe Conservative seat until 1997, but the Liberal Democrats have gained a strong foothold.-Boundaries:The constituency is...
, who had previously investigated the Hinduja affair, which led to the resignation of government minister Peter Mandelson, announced that he had been investigating "unanswered questions" from the official inquiry into Kelly's death. He later announced that he had uncovered evidence to show that Kelly did not die from natural causes. In July 2006, Baker claimed that his hard drive had been wiped remotely. Baker's book The Strange Death of David Kelly was serialised in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
before publication in November 2007. Family members of Kelly expressed their displeasure at the forthcoming publication, the husband of Kelly's sister Sarah saying, "It is just raking over old bones ... I can't speak for the whole family, but I've read it all [Baker's theories], every word, and I don't believe it." In his book Baker argued that Kelly did not commit suicide and examined the many unanswered questions he says surround the incident.
On 5 December 2009 six doctors began legal action to demand a formal inquest into the death, saying there was "insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt he killed himself." In January 2010, it was disclosed that Lord Hutton had requested that all files relating to his postmortem remain secret for 70 years. In the summer of 2010, Attorney General Dominic Grieve
Dominic Grieve
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve, QC MP is a British Conservative politician, barrister and Queen's Counsel.He is the Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield and the Attorney General for England and Wales and the Advocate General for Northern Ireland.-Early life:Grieve was born in Lambeth, the son of...
was said to consider an inquiry to review the suicide finding. and Justice Secretary Ken Clarke considered a request from campaigning doctors to release medical files relating to Kelly's death.
In June 2010, The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday said they had found evidence of an alleged cover-up to hide a murder plot by persons unknown, for reasons unknown. Richard Spertzel, a UN weapons inspector, said Kelly was on a "hitlist" in the final years of his life. The former head of the UN Biological Section, who worked closely with Kelly in Iraq in the 1990s, wrote to Attorney General Grieve about "mysterious circumstances" surrounding Kelly's death. In July 2010 a former KGB agent Boris Karpichkov said he was told Kelly had been "exterminated" and his death made to look like suicide.
In early August, a group of nine experts, including former coroners and a professor of intensive-care medicine, wrote a letter to the British newspaper The Times questioning Lord Hutton's verdict. On 14 August 2010, Jennifer Dyson, a retired pathologist, amplified the criticism, saying that a coroner would probably have recorded an open verdict in the absence of absolute proof that suicide was intended. She cast further doubt on the circumstances surrounding the death of Kelly, and also criticized Hutton's handling of the inquiry. She joined other experts questioning the official finding that Kelly had bled to death and argued that it was more likely that he had suffered a heart attack due to the stress he had been placed under. This intervention came as Michael Howard
Michael Howard
Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, QC, PC is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005...
, the former Conservative Party leader, became the most prominent politician to call for a full inquest into Kelly's death.
Confirmation of Hutton's finding of suicide
In October 2010, the postmortem that Hutton had requested to be sealed for 70 years to protect the Kelly family was made public by the new government. The report confirmed all the findings in the Hutton Report and undermined the other theories about Kelly's death that had been advanced in previous years. The original postmortem report by Dr Nicholas Hunt matched those in Hutton's original report. Hunt's report stated: "It is my opinion that the main factor involved in bringing about the death of David Kelly is the bleeding from the incised wounds to his left wrist. Had this not occurred he may well not have died at this time. Furthermore, on the balance of probabilities, it is likely that the ingestion of an excess number of co-proxamol tablets coupled with apparently clinically silent coronary artery disease would both have played a part in bringing about death more certainly and more rapidly than would have otherwise been the case. Therefore I give as the cause of death: 1a. Haemorrhage; 1b. Incised wounds to the left wrist; 2. Co-proxamol ingestion and coronary artery atherosclerosis."Among prominent doctors who had raised doubts based just on published reports of the death, one physician, Dr Michael Powers QC, has not accepted the published postmortem and toxicology report and is continuing to maintain that questions remain about the amount of blood found at the scene and the number of pills taken.
See also
- September DossierSeptember DossierIraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document...
- Downing Street memoDowning Street memoThe "Downing Street memo" , sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", is the note of a secret 23 July 2002, meeting of senior British Labour government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified...
- Plame affairPlame affairThe Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
- Hussein Kamel al-Majid
- Niger uranium forgeries
- Hans BlixHans Blixis a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs . Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos...
- Iraq Dossier
- Office of Special PlansOffice of Special PlansThe Office of Special Plans , which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with...
- Mobile weapons laboratoryMobile weapons laboratoryMobile weapons laboratories are bioreactors and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle.-Iraqi Mobile weapons laboratories:...
- Iraqi aluminum tubes
Further reading
- The Hutton Inquiry, accessed 15 August 2010.
- "Iraq WMD Inquiry", evidence of David Kelly to the Intelligence and Security Committee, 16 July 2003, courtesy of The Hutton Inquiry, accessed 15 August 2010.
- "Memorial by Dr. Stephen Frost", disputing the post mortem evidence reports and calling for a full inquest, published on the Daily Mail website, 13 December 2010, accessed 21 December 2010.
Articles
- Beaumont, Peter and Barnett, Antony. "Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'", The Guardian, 8 June 2003.
- Beaumont, Peter; Barnett, Antony; and Hinsliff, Gaby. "Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds", The Guardian, 8 June 2003.
- Dodd, Vikram. New Kelly claims splits medical opinion", The Guardian, 13 December 2004.
- Newling, David. "Why I believe David Kelly's death may have been murder", Mail on Sunday, 23 July 2006.
- Preston, Richard. "The Demon in The Freezer", The New Yorker, 12 July 1999.
- Spertzel, Richard. "David Kelly: the interrogator", The Observer, 25 January 2004.
- Vallely, Paul. "The Kelly Affair: Anatomy of a conspiracy theory", The Independent, 21 August 2010.
Films and video
- The Government InspectorThe Government Inspector (television drama)The Government Inspector is a 2005 television drama based on the life of Dr. David Kelly and the lead-up to the Iraq War in the United Kingdom...
(2005) Television film, Directed by Peter Kosminsky, coproduction : ARTE FranceArteArte is a Franco-German TV network. It is a European culture channel and aims to promote quality programming especially in areas of culture and the arts...
, Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Mentorn. (L’Affaire David Kelly le prix de la vérité) - Dead In The Woods (2007) Investigative documentary that explores the links between Kelly's death and a global bio-weapons conspiracy. Scheduled for international theatrical release and broadcast in 2008.
- David Kelly: The Conspiracy FilesThe Conspiracy FilesThe Conspiracy Files is a British documentary television series broadcast on BBC Two, investigating various modern day conspiracy theories...
(2007) BBC Documentary exploring the death of Dr. Kelly and the conspiracy surrounding it. - MP Norman Baker investigation into the Death of Dr David Kelly - GMTV The Sunday Programme, 25 February 2007
- Norman Baker MP undertakes private investigation into the death of Dr Kelly - GMTV interview with Norman Baker
- 60 Minutes - report on former USSR's smallpox program, and David Kelly's role in investigating both Soviet and Iraqi smallpox labs (2001 Emmy winner)
- Government Inspector - Drama, based on reality, telling the story of the late Dr David Kelly, an expert caught in the crossfire between the government and the BBC over the war in Iraq.
Miscellaneous
- Baker, Norman. The Strange Death of David Kelly, normanbaker.com, accessed 15 August 2010.