Saturday, December 12, 2009

Call for Inquest into Bogus UK Investigation Into David Kelly's "Suicide"

According to an article in the Daily Mail, six UK doctors will release a report sharply criticizing the Hutton Inquiry investigation into the supposed suicide of British scientist and weapons expert David Kelly in 2003.

Kelly was reportedly believed to be behind a leak to "the source of a [BBC] story that Tony Blair's government 'sexed-up' its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq." According to the Daily Mail, Kelly predicted he might be killed. Yet the coroner's investigation into his death was halted by the British government, which declared an inquiry by cronies of British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be sufficient. After years of controversy, the protesting UK doctors are not only preparing release of a dissenting report, they are asking the British High Court to reopen the inquest into Kelly's death. The law firm of Leigh Day and Co. are assisting them.

From the Daily Mail article:
The six [doctors] are Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner; trauma surgeon David Halpin; Andrew Rouse, an epidemiologist who established that deaths from cutting the ulnar artery – as claimed in Dr Kelly's case – are extremely rare; Martin Birnstingl, another surgeon; plus Stephen Frost and Chris Burns-Cox.

Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing an ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers but he skated over the controversies about the causes of death....

Dr Kelly's death certificate states that he died of a haemorrhage, but the results of a post mortem examination have never been made public....

We have concentrated on the finding on the death certificate that the primary cause of death was a haemorrage. We are spelling out why he could not have died from a cut to the small ulnar artery.'

One of the doctors, who preferred not to be named, added: 'When the Romans committed suicide they would slit all four arteries in a warm bath, which keeps the blood flowing. The arteries would close up in the open air and you would not lose that much blood.'

A book on the unanswered questions surrounding the case by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker concluded that Dr Kelly may have been murdered by Iraqi exiles – but the finger has also been pointed at MI5 and the CIA.
H/T to The Anomaly at Daily Kos, whose diary on the UK proposed investigation is worth reading in full.

And I know, I've written a number of stories lately about suspicious suicides affecting key figures in the U.S. Global War on Terror. But I didn't invent the stories, and it certainly may have a lot more to do with U.S. and UK SOP in these affairs than it does with any morbidity on my part. Only one way to know for sure: let's open the investigations and expose truth to the light of day.

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