On murder that comes dressed as suicide

Around 800,000 people kill themselves every year worldwide. It is estimated that suicide attempts outnumber deaths from suicide by at least 20 to one. Around 5,000 people kill themselves every year in Britain, a country which records nearly 170,000 suicide attempts annually

When someone attempts suicide (now termed ‘deliberate self-harm’), that person is treated in the first instance for any physical ailment that the attempt may have caused and subsequently for possible mental ailments that may have prompted the action.

In the case of deaths where suicide is a possibility (murder being the other), it is normal for an investigation to be commissioned.

Sometimes, depending on how complex the circumstances are, such inquiry could take time, i.e. weeks or months, in which case the relevant officer (Inquirer into Sudden Deaths, for example) would give an open verdict upon initial examination.

Once final verdict is given all relevant information is made available to the public and the case is closed.

‘Fishy’ death

Now what would you make of a death which is deemed to be a suicide if you are told that medical records about the case will be kept ‘classified’ for 70 years? I would say ‘fishy’.

This is not hypothetical stuff, though. I am referring to the death (deemed ‘suicide’) of a man called Dr. David Kelly.

Kelly was Britain’s most senior weapons inspector in Iraq. It is now known that he was the source behind the BBC story accusing Tony Blair’s former communications chief, Alistair Campbell, of ‘sexing up’ the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ about Iraq possessing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which as we all know now helped justify the invasion of that country. Nick Clegg, now Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister has stated WHILE STANDING IN FOR HIS PRIME MINISTER that THE INVASION WAS ILLEGAL.

Anyway, our man Kelly was found dead in the woods near his home in Oxfordshire on July 17, 2003, just days after appearing before a parliamentary committee tasked to investigate the scandal regarding the dossier mentioned above.

Lord Hutton, who carried out the inquiry into the death (Kelly’s case was never subject to a full coroner’s inquiry), concluded that he had taken a non-lethal dose of painkillers, cut his left wrist and bled to death. He added, ‘death was hastened by the 29 pills he swallowed and coronary heart disease’.

Now, as Michael Howard of Britain’s Conservative Party calls for a fresh investigation, Dr Jeniffer Dyson, a retired pathologist cast has joined other experts to question the official finding that Kelly bled to death.

‘Suicide’ as a possibility

She argued it was more likely that the 59-year-old scientist suffered a heart attack due to the stress he had been placed under.

Dyson keeps ‘suicide’ as a possibility of course on account of the 29 pills ‘found’ inside his stomach, but troubling questions remain. Here’s a list sent by a friend:

‘An elbow injury had left David Kelly’s right arm too weak to cut his wrist. He had “difficulty swallowing pills” so he couldn’t have swallowed 29 tablets.

There were no fingerprints on the pruning knife said to have been used to cut his wrist. Doctors doubt the severed artery would have caused enough blood loss for him to have died of a haemorrhage.

The detective who found his body, Constable Graham Coe, said there wasn’t much blood, calling to question the verdict of blood-loss causing death. Two paramedics at the scene were skeptical that the wrist wound they saw could have caused his death.

There was no evidence he was depressed (as Dyson claims) for it is known that he was looking forward to his daughter’s wedding. The rectal temperature of the dead body was only recorded after 10 hours of finding the body, which might be deliberate to prevent revealing the probable time of death/killing.’

Full of holes

More damning about all this is the 70 year cap on medical records. What do the British authorities have to hide? Two possibilities: Kelly killed himself or was murdered. The suicide ‘story’ is full of holes.

Why should the authorities be worried about a murder, unless there was evidence of involvement by top people in the administration and unless he was killed to stop him spilling beans?

Dyson herself makes the relevant observation, even as she flirts with the suicide theory: ‘I don’t understand why Hutton chose to keep the papers under lock and key for 70 years.’

All this makes me want to write to another ‘doctor’, one Peter Hayes: ‘Tell us, darling, about Dr David Kelly, about weapons of mass destruction, about cover-ups, about murders dressed as suicides, about Nick Clegg’s assertion that the invasion of Iraq was illegal (you agree, right?), and when you are going to compensate the people of Iraq.

Heck, how about he people of Sri Lanka, where, long before Churchill ‘proceeded to systematically destroy houses, fill up wells, blow down towers, cut down shady trees, burned crops and broke reservoirs (in the Swat Valley of what is now Pakistan), his ancestors provided him with example of ‘punitive devastation’? Our ancestors didn’t swallow sedatives (although some of their progeny appear to have) and didn’t exactly slit their wrists, Dr Hayes would know.

For now, though, some preliminary observations on Dr. David Kelly would be most welcome. Who is Dr Hayes, did someone ask? Well, he has his office somewhere in Kollupitiya. Check him out, he’s worth a chat about murder-suicides, I am sure.

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