Re-opening the suicide of Dr. Kelly

Around 3 pm on July 17, 2003 UN Weapons Inspector, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee David Christopher Kelly left home on his daily walk in the woodlands known as Harrowdown Hill. It was about a mile away from home. He didn’t return home as usual. In fact he never returned. His wife reported him missing shortly after midnight that night, and he was found dead the next morning.

The post-mortem has revealed that he has taken up to 29 tablets of painkillers, Co-proxamol, ananalgesic drug and to have then cut his left wrist with a knife he had owned since his youth.

David who was born in Wales graduated from the University of Leeds, University of Birmingham and received his doctorate in microbiology from Linacre College at the University of Oxford. In 1984 he joined the Defence Microbiology Division and became the head of the department. Thereafter he moved to the Ministry of Defence as an Advisor.

He was involved in many investigations of violation of 1972 Biological Weapons Convention by various countries including the Soviet Union. Then he joined as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq at the end of Gulf War. He visited Iraq 37 times and his success in uncovering Iraq’s biological weapons programme led to he being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. British secret service MI6 sought out his opinion on Iraq and on many other issues. He was a prominent figure in the cream of British Civil Service.

Weapons of mass destruction

He burnt his fingers by issuing statements to journalists about his findings of the Iraq biological weapons development. Judith Miller a New York based journalist who wrote a book on Bioterrorism published one of Dr. Kelly’s quotes; “Many dark actors playing games”, indicating there were many big players behind Iraq supporting and supplying the then regime. Once the book was published his superiors at the Ministry of Defence called for more details of Kelly’s contacts with journalists.

Political storm

At the time of Kelly’s inquiry into Iraq’s weapons affairs, it was alleged 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 had the belief that Iraq has retained some biological weapons after the Gulf War. He was invited to join the inspection team to find the weapons of mass destruction owned by Iraq. He made two attempts to visit Iraq once from Kuwait but denied entry as he had no proper documentation.

Although he was a member of the joint committee which compiled a dossier on the possession of the weapons of mass destruction by Iraq, Kelly did not believe that the '45 minutes claim' is practicable.

But the British 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 he was unhappy about the findings of the dossier. But Kelly's superiors were satisfied when they took it up with MI6 through the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Kelly went to Iraq to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. As Kelly was unhappy about accusing Iraq of owning weapons of mass destruction he spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on June 15, 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”.

Meantime, Kelly met Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist who had spent time in Iraq. 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. Kelly told Gilligan of his concerns over the 45 minute claim.

Gilligan broadcast his report on May 29, 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 doubtful. 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.

Kelly was facing enormous problems as the government’s finger of accusation was directed at him. He was interviewed twice by his employers, who concluded that they could not be sure he was Gilligan's only source. 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.

Clearly in distress

He was asked to appear before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on July 15, 2003. The proceedings were televised and Kelly was clearly in distress. He spoke in a very soft voice even the noise of the air conditioning was louder. Although it was a very hot day in the summer the air conditioning had to be turned off. Kelly refused to answer some questions but the committee was convinced that he was not the source of the leak. But he was not happy about the way he was treated at the committee.

Within six days of the inquiry Dr. Kelly was found dead. Verdict: suicide.

Legal action

The government immediately appointed Lord Hutton to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death. The inquiry took priority over an inquest, which would normally be required into a suspicious death. The Hutton Inquiry reported on January 28, 2004 that Kelly had committed suicide.

Although suicide was officially accepted as the cause of death, some medical experts raised doubts. There were suggestions that the evidence does not back the verdict. A set of three doctors who raised the doubt argued that the autopsy finding of a transected ulnar artery could not have been cause of a degree of blood loss that would kill someone, particularly when outside in the cold. They were also satisfied 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. Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, the two paramedics 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. Adding more to the drama, on October 15, 2007, it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the knife had no fingerprints on it.

On December 5, 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.

Murder plot

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. 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.

Now, after nine years of Kelly’s death, a set of doctors has come out requesting a fresh inquiry. They challenge the Hutton report and have already written to the Attorney General for his consideration.

The finger of accusation is directed at the then government, secret agencies and foreign spies. It is unlikely that a fresh inquiry will be authorised.