Str. Deaths II

Mysterious Deaths II

David Kelly Page

Uncovering the Truth about the Death of David Kelly

A Review Article

By Rowena Thursby

September 17, 2006

Dr David Kelly

In 2003 Dr David Kelly was found dead in the woods. Caught in a political vortex, Dr Kelly had been forced to appear before a televised government committee investigating whether he had accused British government figures of planting in a dossier the questionable claim that WMDs could be unleashed from Iraq in 45 minutes. The Hutton Inquiry concluded that Dr Kelly took his own life. But did he? The KELLY INVESTIGATION GROUP takes a closer look.... Contact: RowenaThursby@onetel.com

The Kelly Investigation Group (KIG) is a loose affiliation of professionals and lay people from all walks of life; it includes nine doctors, four of them surgeons, and a QC. Medical and legal expertise has ensured our objections to the the official line on Dr David Kelly’s death are taken seriously by the media and public, even if the authorities affect to ignore them. Our aim is to ensure agents of the state do not bury the truth, along with Dr Kelly.

SUSPICIONS FROM THE START

During 2002/3 it was obvious to many that the search for WMD in Iraq was a disingenuous ploy to secure regime change. Blair and his aides had claimed that it would take only 45 minutes for Saddam to launch a CBW attack on British bases, and that mobile laboratories found in Iraq were for the purpose of making chemical/biological weapons. In asides to journalists Dr David Kelly had shot both assertions down in flames. So when he was found ‘dead in the woods’ three days after being hauled before a televised government committee, many of us were highly suspicious.

Why were Thames Valley police labelling Dr Kelly’s death a ’suicide’ before his body had been examined? At the age of 72, judge and law lord Brian Hutton had never before chaired a public inquiry - so why did the prime minister’s old friend Charles Falconer appoint this safe establishment figure at such extraordinary speed*?

As the Hutton Inquiry got underway in August 2003, I pored over the transcripts in an attempt to understand exactly how Dr Kelly had died. I listed aspects of the case that did not add up, and joined an internet forum to correspond with others working in a similar vein. One was IT expert Garrett Cooke.

INITIAL PLEA TO THE CORONER

On 20th November 2003 Garrett and I wrote a letter to coroner Nicholas Gardiner explaining our concern that the inquest had been subsumed into the Hutton Inquiry. In particular, we listed the reasons why we felt a full inquest with powers to subpoena witnesses and hear evidence under oath should be held:

Dr Kelly’s body appeared to have been moved - twice
the knife, bottle of water, glasses, and cap reported beside the body by later witnesses, were not seen by the two volunteer searchers who first discovered it
DC Coe was with the body at the time its position changed from sitting to lying
DC Coe claimed he was with one other officer yet five witnesses said he was with two
the primary cause of death was given as haemorrhage from an incised wound to his left wrist, yet the amount of blood at the scene was, according to the paramedics, extremely sparse
vomit stains from the corners of his mouth to his ears suggested Dr Kelly had died on his back, yet his position when found was slumped against a tree
the puzzling nature of the wound: the severing of a single artery deeply embedded in the left wrist and total avoidance of the more superficial radial artery
We received no response.

‘SECTION 17A’ MISAPPLIED

Later we discovered that to avoid an inquest, Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer had invoked Section 17a of the Coroner’s Act of 1988, citing as his reason avoidance of duplication (having both an inquest and an inquiry) and consequent distress to the Kelly family.

However, Section 17a was introduced in 199 at his instigation to avoid unnecessary repetition (and mounting costs) in cases of multiple deaths with a single known cause, e.g. a train crash or a ferry disaster; Dr Kelly’s was a single, high profile death of unknown cause. In view of the political manoeuvres preceding this high-profile death, one suspects the avoidance of ‘distress’ to the family was a very British excuse masking the real reason: that the authorities did not want witnesses subpoenaed and giving evidence on oath.

Had the scientist’s close female friends, Mai Pederson, Gabriele Kraatz Wadsack and Judith Miller been subpoenaed we might have been provided with a much more intimate portrait of events leading up to his death.

BUILDING A MEDICAL CASE

Faced with the Coroner’s wall of silence, I decided to try to secure medical support. I started a blog listing a number of KIG concerns and wrote two articles for the internet entitled - ‘Dark Actors at the Scene of Dr Kelly’s Death’ (October 2003) and ‘The David Kelly Story: Turning Murder into Suicide‘ (28 November 2003.) The latter was a critique of the forensic pathologist’s evidence to the Hutton Inquiry; for to me, his reasoning seemed in places, quite farcical.

On 29 November 2003 Dr Searle Sennett, a specialist in anaesthesiology from Johannesburg, responded to these articles by e-mail as follows:

Dear Rowena

I have just read your piece at rense.com and also the one at propaganda matrix.com and I complement you on both of these articles but, more importantly, on your guts and preparedness to take on the Establishment. I am a retired specialist anaesthetist and I too, without knowing the details of the Kelly incident that you do, considered the whole “suicide” story to be phoney in the extreme. I am quite satisfied that cutting the ulnar artery in the manner described could not have been fatal.

He was clearly murdered in some other manner and, in my opinion, there are a variety of ways in which it could have been done.

You did mention the use of a chloroform-like substance, of which there are many, and I can assure you that the modern volatile anaesthetic agents are extremely potent. They would not necessarily kill but could certainly cause unconsciousness in less than a minute especially if applied in high concentration. The subject could then be asphyxiated by means of a plastic bag over his head which, in fact, could also contain the agent. To show this technique is distinctly feasible, I mention the incident where a potent anaesthetic agent was introduced into the air-conditioning system of a Moscow theatre and which incapacitated and, indeed, killed the Chechen terrorists and some of their hostages.

Injectible muscle relaxants which paralyse all muscles within seconds and stop the breathing of the subject receiving them. Although normally intravenous, the injection could, in fact, be given into any muscle or even under the hair of the scalp, or elsewhere, so as to avoid subsequent detection. Muscle relaxants are part of the lethal cocktail injection used in many US prisons to carry out the death sentence.

It will be very interesting to see what approach Lord Hutton takes concerning the inquest and whether he, too, attempts to cover up the obvious murder. Meanwhile, I am not surprised that Tony Blair is suffering from a variety of stress-related disorders!

Keep up the good work.

Your sincerely
Searle Sennett
Johannesburg

Anomalies continued to accumulate, but things were set alight when a friend sent me a letter published on 15 December 2003 in the Morning Star from orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, David Halpin. Here was a surgeon, a man with intimate knowledge of arteries, and how they behave, saying he did not see how Dr Kelly could have died of haemorrhage from transection of a single ulnar artery:

I write to enquire as to the status of the coroner’s inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly. I hope that it has not been subsumed within the Hutton Inquiry.

He had been put through the psychological mincing machine of the elite running this country and it is easy to imagine his sense of failure as well as betrayal in both directions. We have been told that he died from a cut wrist and that he had non-lethal levels of an analgesic in his blood.

As a past trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, I cannot easily accept that even the deepest cut into one wrist would cause such exsanguinations that death resulted.

This one point was key: the primary cause of death could not have been haemorrhage because it is virtually impossible to bleed to death from severing a single ulnar artery. Over the ensuing weeks we honed and refined our case to include arguments against the second and third causes of death cited - poisoning by co-proxamol and atherosclerosis. With Dr Sennett and David Halpin’s continued input and support, the KIG was able to develop a strong medical case against suicide.

Around this time we were joined by Jim Rarey, an ex-newspaper editor from the US, who wrote seven articles for the internet on a number of aspects of Dr Kelly’s death.

KELLY’S DEATH A PHENOMENON ACCORDING TO STATISTICS

In January 2004 we were contacted by Dr Andrew Rouse, Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Dr Yaser Adi, from the Dept of Public Health & Epidemiology at the University of Birmingham, who three months earlier had submitted a letter to national newspapers:

IS DR KELLY A STATISTIC OR A PHENOMENON?

The pathologist who performed Dr Kelly’s autopsy reported that “The features… of Dr Kelly’s wounds… were quite typical of self-inflicted illness”. Unfortunately he did not report that it is almost unheard of for such wounds to result in death.

Suicide associated with wrist-slashing is extremely rare - so rare that the Office of National Statistics does not report wrist slashing as a specific cause of death; it groups such deaths with other uncommon suicide methods such as belly and abdomen stabbings and throat cuttings (see table)

This table shows that fewer than five 55-50 year old men use cutting and piercing instruments to commit suicide annually. This statistical evidence, combined with the fact that even after searching the medical literature and speaking to medical and surgical colleagues we have not been able to document that wrist slashing can lead to successful suicide, suggests that for all practical purposes wrist slashing suicide does not exist in Britain.

Suicide and self inflicted injury by cutting and piercing instruments amongst males in England and Wales

Year 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69
1991 2 4 9 8
1992 5 6 4 1
1993 7 4 6 4
1994 2 3 3 6
1995 6 5 3 5
1996 6 4 4 5
1997 8 4 3 1
1998 7 7 2 8
1999 5 4 5 3
2000 9 3 2 4
Av 5.5 4.4 4.1 4.5

Data from: Twentieth Century Mortality, Office of National Statistics, London 2003

We must also remember that Dr Kelly was a first rate researcher. As such, before making a suicide attempt, he would surely have done an internet or library search into the success of various suicide methods. He would have learnt that - since it invariably fails - wrist slashing is not a recommended suicide method. There fore why would Dr Kelly slash his wrist in the first place and against, all odds, actually die?

MORE DOCTORS CHALLENGE OFFICIAL SUICIDE RULING

As the medical case challenging suicide became stronger, we were happy to welcome in a new doctor - Chris Burns-Cox, and two more surgeons - Martin Birnstingl and William McQuillan. Birnstingl, a retired specialist in vascular surgery from London responded enthusiastically to a Kelly article with “Count me in”. He was a foundation member of the Vascular Surgical Association of GB and Ireland and President in 1986. In private e-mails he wrote:

Vascular surgeons deal with vessels of all sizes but I have never seen or heard of anybody dying from a cut wrist artery even when both ulnar and redial have been cut

Dr Kelly did not “slit his wrists” as suggested by Professor Milroy. The evidence is that one wrist was cut, dividing only one of the four main wrist arteries, which is very unlikely to have been fatal.

During 2004 I made contact with a Dr C Stephen Frost who had written a list of 35 questions about Dr Kelly’s death on the Independent internet forum . Working together, and liaising with the rest of the medico-legal team, we managed to get five letters published in the Guardian:

1. OUR DOUBTS ABOUT DR KELLY’S SUICIDE 27 January 2004 signed by David Halpin, C Stephen Frost, Searle Sennett

2. MEDICAL EVIDENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT SUICIDE BY KELLY 12 February 2004 signed by Andrew Rouse, Searle Sennett, David Halpin, C Stephen Frost, Peter Fletcher, Martin Birnstingl
Our arguments met with a blustering emotional response from Professor Chris Milroy in a letter entitled:

FANTASISTS & DR KELLY14 February 2004

3. QUESTIONS STILL UNANSWERED OVER DR KELLY’S DEATH 19 February 2004 signed by Andrew Rouse, Searle Sennett, David Halpin, C Stephen Frost, Peter Fletcher, Martin Birnstingl

4. NEW DOUBTS OVER KELLY 28 September 2004 signed by C Stephen Frost, David Halpin, William McQuillan, Searle Sennett

5. QUESTIONS OVER KELLY 28 December 2004 signed by Dr Michael Powers QC, Martin Birnstingl, Chris Burns-Cox, C Stephen Frost, David Halpin, William McQuillan, Andrew Rouse, John Henry Scurr, Searle Sennett

The first letter, published on 27 January to coincide with the publication of the Hutton Report, caused a media storm, and we were inundated with requests for radio and TV appearances. David Halpin appeared on TV and radio in the UK, and Dr Sennett gave newspaper interviews from his home in Johannesburg. The Evening Standard ran a headline on the evening prior to the publication of the Hutton Report: “Was Kelly Murdered?” But since ‘The Sun’ chose to leak the Hutton Report a day ahead of publication - and we think this may have been a deliberate tactic - the angle of possible murder was not pursued in the media the following day.

On 21 January 2004 five of us - David Halpin, Dr Searle Sennett, Dr C Stephen Frost, Garrett Cooke and myself - wrote an eleven-page letter to the Coroner setting out our concerns in detail. He failed to respond. A month later I phoned him to ask if he had received the letter - he said he had noted the contents but did not think these were sufficient grounds for concern. He had seen a police report and was satisfied everything was in order.

On 31 January highly qualified pathologist Dr Peter Fletcher wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph:

Sir,

As a retired pathologist, I have been dismayed by the lack of information on the precise circumstances of the discovery of Dr David Kelly’s body. It is claimed that the major cause of death was blood loss from a severed wrist artery, possibly complicated by the ingestion of an unstated number of co-proximal tablets. An adult human body contains about 10 pints of blood, of which about half has to be lost to cause death. Anybody who has seen five pints of blood spurted forcefully out of a severed artery will know that there is one hell of a mess. The two searchers who found the body did not even notice that Kelly had incised his wrist with a knife. The two paramedics who arrived at the scene later apparently stated that there was remarkably little blood around the body.

Something, somewhere is seriously wrong. Either Dr Kelly did not die of blood loss or it occurred at some place distant from where the body was found. It is, of course, possible that blood was spattered everywhere, which four witnesses failed to notice.
A coroner has the power of subpoena, witnesses give testimony under oath and a jury is usually involved. Lord Hutton was denied these requirements for his inquiry.

Dr A Peter Fletcher, Pathologist, Halstead, Essex

I contacted him and he too agreed to lend his support to the KIG.

I was put in touch with lawyer Michael Shrimpton by an e-mail correspondent and he joined the cause on 29 January 2004. The following month he was invited onto the Alex Jones Show, one of the top conspiracy radio programmes in the US. Unfortunately the slant he put on Kelly’s death - that it was a ‘hit’ performed by the French DGSE - was not one shared by the rest of the KIG; although allegedly received from intelligence sources, there was no way of corroborating it. We were frankly uneasy with his strong bias towards the US’s ‘neocon’ administration.

On 8 February 2004 Andrew Rouse and Yaser Adi submitted an adapted version of their original letter entitled ‘Hutton, Kelly and the missing Epidemiology’’to the British Medical Journal. They called for readers to send in details of any 55-65 year old males who had committed suicide by slashing their wrist, during the previous 10 years.

Professor Milroy responded to their report by saying, 'The problem with use of statistics in any single case is that unlikely does not make it impossible.’ In his view the combination of all three causes on the death certificate was sufficient to account for Dr Kelly’s death. This had been the key tactic of KIG opponents: not to examine one cause of death at a time, but if one cause did not stand up, hop on to the next one, or even cite all three as ’somehow’ working together -- hardly a scientific way to proceed.

Another surgeon - John Scurr - was quoted in a Washington Post report, 21 February 2004.

I looked up his details and found him to be a practising vascular surgeon, also London-based. David Halpin wrote to him and he too become a willing participant in the KIG. He has since appeared on Channel 4 News and in a US documentary to be screened in 2007 - in both cases explaining in his professional capacity why Dr Kelly is highly unlikely to have bled to death from a single transected ulnar artery. He put us on to his friend and lawyer, QC Michael Powers. Once he had reviewed all evidence accumulated by the KIG, it was his view that there should have been a full inquest into Dr Kelly’s death.

On 29 February 2004 Renan Talieva, an e-mail correspondent from the US, wrote a long and detailed article derived from KIG discussions and her own assiduous research entitled “The Strange Suicide of David Kelly.”

CORONER SHUTS THE DOOR

Before the Coroner returned to court after reviewing The Hutton Report, a letter from Michael Powers was published by ‘The Times’ declaring:

Suicide cannot be presumed. Even evidence pointing to the likelihood that Dr Kelly took his own life is not sufficient. Suicide has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

After reviewing the Hutton Report, coroner Nicholas Gardiner returned to court on 16th March 2004 to announce his decision on whether to re-open the inquest into Dr Kelly’s death.

The same day David Halpin was interviewed by the Today programme, and when Gardiner declared his satisfaction with the Hutton Inquiry‘s ruling of suicide, was asked to comment.

Around this time, practising vascular surgeon John Scurr and QC Michael Powers made separate appearances on Channel 4 News. Mr Scurr explained why, in his view, one cannot bleed to death from full transection of a single ulnar artery while Michael Powers stated that by law, suicide must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and an inquest was the only forum equipped to provide this degree of rigour. In his view the medical evidence provided since the Hutton Inquiry was sufficient to warrant a full inquest. When phoned by the Channel 4 News team, Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist to the Hutton Inquiry, said that he too would be ‘more comfortable’ with a full inquest.

On 13 May 2004 Renan Talieva answered the Coroner’s refusal to reopen the inquest with an excellent and thoroughly researched critique of the coroner’s actions in “The Coroner and David Kelly”.

In response to the KIG’s medical arguments, Professor Robert Forrest, forensic toxicologist at Sheffield University, set up the ‘International Toxicology Advisory Group’ and on 18 September 2004 had an article published in the BMJ entitled ‘Forensic science in the dock’. The Hutton Inquiry had conveyed the impression that Dr Kelly may indeed have taken the 29 tablets missing from the blister packs in his pocket, even though the toxicologist stated that the amount he measured was only a third a what is normally a fatal amount. But in this article Forrest et al listed reasons why forensic science was unable to specify the amount of drug a person had taken prior to their death.

“Post-mortem measurements of drug concentration in blood have scant meaning except in the context of medical history, the sequence and circumstances surrounding death, and necropsy findings. The paucity of evidence based science, coupled with the pretence that such science exists in regard to post-mortem toxicology, leads to the abuse of process…’

In December 2004, in a 'Daily Mail' article entitled ‘Specialists demand a new Kelly inquiry’ it was reported that medical and legal experts in the KIG were arguing that it was vital to have an inquest. Michael Powers called for backers to help him fund a legal challenge against the coroner’s decision not to reopen the inquest. It was discovered however, that without a ‘properly interested person’ to call for a judicial review of the coroner’s decision, the KIG could not proceed.

A ‘properly interested person’ is a legal term for what in Coroner’s Law has to be someone who stands to gain or lose by the death in question. In practise, that could only have been Mrs Kelly, and she made it clear in a private phone call that she did not want the inquest re-opened because she was convinced her husband had committed suicide. She claimed to have studied the KIG’s doubts about the official reason for her husband’s death, but gave few reasons for her thinking it was suicide other than her husband’s anguish at the time. This was a blow which appeared to shut the door on further progress. However we persevered.

PARAMEDICS UNHAPPY WITH OFFICIAL CAUSE OF DEATH

I contacted the two paramedics who had attended the scene of Dr Kelly’s death and put them in touch with Antony Barnett of the Observer. They arranged to meet Barnett in the presence of their solicitor and gave him the material for his 12 December 2004 article, ‘Kelly Death Paramedics Query Verdict’ where their shock at the general absence of blood at the scene and scepticism over the official cause of death was described in detail. When the press arrived on their doorsteps, they gave a televised press conference.

MP NORMAN BAKER BEGINS HIS PRIVATE KELLY INVESTIGATION

it was not until MP Norman Baker came forward this year (2006) to announce that he had resigned his seat on the front bench to pursue a private investigation into Dr Kelly’s death that the case was injected with new life. According to a Guardian report:

Mr Baker said he wanted to return to the issue because the 2003 Hutton inquiry had "blatantly failed” to get to the bottom of matters. He vowed to question ministers and to unearth new facts in a bid to establish the "truth" of the case.

After a few months on the case he wrote a major article for the ‘Mail on Sunday’ vowing to prove Dr Kelly’s death was not suicide. His new finding was that the Coroner had irregular and clandestine meetings with Department of Constitutional Affairs officials and representatives of the forensic staff just prior to the issuing of a full death certificate - before Lord Hutton had even started to examine the details of Dr Kelly’s death. Normally a temporary death certificate is issued pending a full inquiry. In this case it seems, the rules were bent.

In 2006 the KIG launched a NEW DR DAVID KELLY BLOG and is now working in conjunction with Mr Baker. Significant progress is being made. Watch this space….

Dr Kelly was found dead on 18th July 2003; Lord Hutton was appointed only a few days later - on 22nd July.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

To become a Member of Global Research

The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title are not modified. The source must be acknowledged and an active URL hyperlink address to the original CRG article must be indicated. The author's copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com

© Copyright Rowena Thursby, Global Research, 2006

The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=3249

    THE MURDER OF DAVID KELLY
          By Jim Rarey
         October 14, 2003

(This first part lays out the case from the evidence presented in the Hutton inquiry why the death of Dr. David Kelly was not by suicide. Part two will show the reasons, in this writer’s opinion, Dr. Kelly was killed.)

On Thursday, July 17^th sometime between 3 and 3:30pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill. Kelly, the U.K.’s premier microbiologist, was in the center of a political maelstrom having been identified as the “leak” in information about the “dossier” Prime Minister Tony Blair had used to justify the war against Iraq.

While the Hutton inquiry appears set to declare Kelly’s death a suicide and the national media are already treating it as a given, there are numerous red flags raised in the testimony and evidence at the inquiry itself.

Kelly’s body was likely moved from where he died to the site where two search volunteers with a search dog found it. The body was propped up against a tree according to the testimony of both volunteers. The volunteers reported the find to police headquarters, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and then left the scene. On their way back to their car, they met three “police” officers, one of them named Detective Constable Graham Peter Coe.

Coe and his men were alone at the site for 25-30 minutes before the first police actually assigned to search the area arrived (Police Constables Sawyer and Franklin) and took charge of the scene from Coe. They found the body flat on its back a short distance from the tree, as did all subsequent witnesses.

A logical explanation is that Dr. Kelly died at a different site and the body was transported to the place it was found. This is buttressed by the medical findings of livor mortis (post mortem lividity), which indicates that Kelly died on his back, or at least was moved to that position shortly after his death. Propping the body against the tree was a mistake that had to be rectified.

The search dog and its handler must have interrupted whoever was assigned to go back and move the body to its back before it was done. After the volunteers left the scene the body was moved to its back while DC Coe was at the scene.

Five witnesses said in their testimony that two men accompanied Coe. Yet, in his testimony, Coe maintained there was only one other beside himself. He was not questioned about the discrepancy.

Researchers, including this writer, assume the presence of the “third man” could not be satisfactorily explained and so was being denied.

Additionally, Coe’s explanation of why he was in the area is unsubstantiated. To the contrary, when PC Franklin was asked if Coe was part of the search team he responded, “No. He was at the scene. I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived.”

Franklin was responsible for coordinating the search with the chief investigating officer and then turning it over to Sawyer to assemble the search team and take them to the assigned area. They were just starting to leave the station (about 9am on the 18^th) to be the first search team on the ground (excepting the volunteers with the search dog) when they got word the body had been found.

A second red flag is the nature of the wounds on Kelly’s wrist. Dr. Nicholas Hunt, who performed the autopsy, testified there were several superficial “scratches” or cuts on the wrist and one deep wound that severed the ulnar artery but not the radial artery.

The fact that the ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery, strongly suggests that the knife wound was inflicted drawing the blade from the inside of the wrist (the little finger side closest to the body) to the outside where the radial artery is located much closer to the surface of the skin than is the ulnar artery. For those familiar with first aid, the radial artery is the one used to determine the pulse rate.

Just hold your left arm out with the palm up and see how difficult it would be to slash across the wrist avoiding the radial artery while severing the ulnar artery. However, a second person situated to the left of Kelly who held or picked up the arm and slashed across the wrist would start on the inside of the wrist severing the ulnar artery first.

A reasonably competent medical examiner or forensic pathologist would certainly be able to determine in which direction the knife was drawn across the wrist. That question was never asked nor the answer volunteered. In fact, a complete autopsy report would state in which direction the wounds were inflicted. The coroner’s inquest was never completed as it was preempted by the Hutton inquiry and the autopsy report will not be made public. Neither will the toxicology report.

Two paramedics who arrived by ambulance at the same time as Franklin and Sawyer (some time after 9am) and accompanied them to where the body was located. After checking the eyes and signs of a pulse or breathing, they attached four electro-cardiogram pads to Kelly’s chest and hooked them up to a portable electro-cardiograph. When no signs of heart activity were found they unofficially confirmed death. One paramedic (Vanessa Hunt) said the Police asked them to leave the pads on the body. The other paramedic (David Bartlett) said they always left the pads on the body.

Both paramedics testified that DC Coe had two men with him. Curiously, both also volunteered that there was a surprisingly small amount of blood at the scene for an artery having been severed.

When the forensic pathologist (Dr. Nicholas Hunt) who performed the autopsy testified, he described copious amounts of blood at the scene. He also described scratches and bruises that Kelly “stumbling around” in the heavy underbrush may have caused. He said there was no indication of a struggle or Kelly having been forcibly restrained.

However, the police made an extensive search of the area and found no indication of anyone, including Kelly, having been in the heavy underbrush.

Strangely, none of the witnesses mentioned anything about rigor mortis (stiffening of the body) which is useful in setting the approximate time of death. Even Dr. Hunt, when was asked directly what changes on the body he observed that would have happened after death, failed to mention rigor mortis. He only named livor mortis. Hunt set the time of death within a range of 4:15pm on the 17^th to 1:15am the next morning. He based the estimate on body temperature which he did not take until 7:15pm on the 19^th, some seven hours after he arrived on the scene.

A forensic biologist (Roy James Green) had been asked to examine the scene. He said the amount of blood he saw was consistent with a severed artery. Green works for the same private company (Forensic Alliance) as Dr. Hunt. A majority of the company’s work is done for police organizations.

The afternoon of the 18^th DC Coe turned up at the Kelly residence accompanied by a man identified only as “an attachment,” who acted as an “exhibits officer” presumably collecting documents in behalf of some other government agency.

Detective Constable Coe and those accompanying him are somewhat of a mystery. There are no corroborating witnesses to any of his actions to which he testified (other than “just being there” at the scene where the body was found).

However, on a listing of evidence provided to the Hutton inquiry by Thames Valley Police is a reference to a document described thusly, “TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book…Between 1430 17.07.03 and 930 18.07.03. DCI Alan Young. It is labeled “not for release – Police operational information.” Many of the exhibits are labeled that way or are not to be released as personal information.

The police took over 300 statements from witnesses but less than 70 were forwarded to the Hutton inquiry. Witness statements were not to be released (even to the inquiry) unless the witness signed an authorization permitting it. TVP also withheld witness interviews they did not consider “relevant” to the inquiry. Witnesses were not put under oath so it is impossible for the public to know if their public statements are at variance with what they told police. The ‘tactical support” document must have been considered relevant to the inquiry on Kelly’s death or it wouldn’t have been forwarded.

So this “tactical support” began at 2:30pm on the 17^th, about one hour before Dr. Kelly left the house on his final walk. It ended at 9:30am the following morning about the time DC Coe and his men left the death scene. The obvious question is, to what was TVP giving tactical support? The name given the effort was “Operation Mason.”

THE MURDER OF DAVID KELLY

[Part two of three]

By Jim Rarey
October 19, 2003

(In part one of this report we examined evidence ignored by the national media, both in the U.S. and U.K., that shows fairly conclusively (at least to this writer) that Dr. David Kelly did not commit suicide. * (For an expanded, detailed report of more evidence see the URL in the footnote below.) In this last part, we will look at Kelly’s involvement in and/or knowledge of the secrets of several governments so explosive that once he was adjudged “unreliable” he had to be eliminated.)

In 1984 Dr. Kelly was invited by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) to take the position of chief microbiologist at its secret facility at Porton Down. Kelly had been working in the NERC Institute of Virology in Oxford. He brought a number of scientists with him from there to Porton Down.

At the Hutton inquiry, Brian Jones testified as to Kelly’s involvement, with the highest security clearance, in analyzing top-secret information regarding biological weapons of the U.K. and other governments. Jones was director of a department on the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). That involvement, beginning in 1987, presumably continued until his death and through his several other jobs as weapons “inspector” in Russia and (for UNSCOM) in Iraq.

It was before and during Kelly’s tenure at Porton Down that it became involved with South Africa’s bioweapon program named Project Coast. A cardiologist named Wouter Basson who was the personal physician of South African Prime Minister Botha headed the project.

After the apartheid government fell, there was a nearly two-year trial of Basson who was charged with numerous crimes including murder and misappropriation of project funds. During the trial several astounding revelations came out. (Basson was acquitted of all charges by a judge who would not let him take the fall for an official government program.)

Basson was said to have had entrée not only to Porton Down but the U.S. Army facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland (the U.S. counterpart of Porton Down). The two main thrusts of Project Coast were developing genetically altered diseases that would affect only groups with similar DNA characteristics, e.g. blacks, and weapons to be used in assassination of individuals. Two (as yet unidentified) scientists working at Porton Down were also paid consultants to Basson’s projects.

The CIA in the U.S. contributed to Basson’s efforts through Dr. Larry Ford. Ford was set up as co-president of a laboratory supposedly developing a feminine birth control device that would also protect against AIDS. The company never had a product or any sales.

According to an undercover FBI informant, Ford did develop an “anti-black” product he delivered to an attaché of the South African government in California. Ford was later killed by a shotgun blast that was ruled a suicide. At the time he was under suspicion of involvement in the attempted assassination of his partner in the CIA front. Ford had made several trips to South Africa in connection with Project Coast.

In 1989, Vladimir Pasechnik, head of the Soviet bioweapons program at its Biopreparat facility, defected to the U.K. His revelations of Soviet activity created a diplomatic uproar over violations of the 1972 treaty banning such activity that had been pushed and signed by the U.K., U.S. and USSR.

Dr. Kelly and Christopher Davis of the U.K and U.S. microbiology experts debriefed Pasechnik. Davis, who comes out of MoD Intelligence, was at the time an employee of Veridian Corp., which has an interesting history.

According to mind control researcher David Hoffman, in 1946 Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory was founded including the “Fund for the Study of Human Ecology.” The “fund” was a CIA financing conduit for mind control experiments by émigré Nazi scientists and others under the direction of CIA doctors Sidney Gotttlieb, Ewen Cameron and Louis Jolyn West. Gottlieb, of course was the director of the CIA’s infamous MK-ULTRA mind control program.

Cornell was later absorbed into Calspan Advanced Technology Center in Buffalo, NY. The company continued experiments in mind control and artificial intelligence. In 1997 Calspan was in turn absorbed by Veridian Corp. Veridian (Calspan) is deeply involved in artificial intelligence. In August of this year giant defense contractor General Dynamics acquired Veridian-Calspan.

Here is a strange “coincidence.” After Timothy McVeigh left the army, he joined the Army National Guard in Buffalo. He landed a job with Burns International Security and was assigned to guard the premises of (you guessed it) Calspan. McVeigh had told friends the army had implanted a microchip in him during the Gulf war. (We now know that a number of soldiers were implanted with microchips explained as an experiment to keep track of their locations during battle.) The CIA doctors at Calspan were experimenting with merging brain cells with microchips.

Pasechnik was put to work at Porton Down where he remained until set up with his own company. Three weeks after the mailed anthrax attacks in the U.S., He died, “apparently” of a stroke. Strangely, the death was announced by Christopher Davis. His death began a string of mysterious deaths and obvious murders of world-class microbiologists, which continues to this day. Dr. Kelly’s death is one of those but not the latest.

One of the most disturbing deaths is that of Harvard scientist Don C. Wiley. Wiley was one of America’s preeminent researchers into infectious diseases and HIV in particular. After years of meticulous research, Wiley had just scored a breakthrough by identifying the properties of the HIV virus that make it infectious and how it avoids destruction by the antigens in the human immune system.

In theory, the discovery has application to other viruses that cause diseases. Viruses, as opposed to bacteria, seem to be immune to treatment by antibiotics.

The dark side of the discovery, as Wiley himself discussed, is that the same information could be used to change relatively benign viruses into killers. **(See footnote on this author’s three-part series on “Anthrax, GOCO’s and Designer Germs.”)

In 1991, a team of U.S. and U.K scientists, including Kelly and Davis, made a trip to the USSR to inspect Biopreparat facilities at four locations. Their host was deputy chief of the program, Kanatjan Alibekov, who would later “defect” to the U.S. and change his name to Ken Alibek. Kelly made several inspection trips to Russia.

Dr. Kelly was described by his contemporaries as an iron-willed individual who did not hesitate to challenge Russian and Iraqi authorities and scientists. However, he may have been a bit naïve concerning three individuals with whom he had extensive communications, all three women.

Judith Miller of the New York Times (NYT) exchanged numerous e-mails with Kelly. The Pulitzer Prize winner is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and through her articles in the paper the most prominent of those warning of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The second “confidant” of Kelly’s was Olivia Bosch, a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). The RIIA, also known as Chatham House, is the U.K counterpart of the CFR. Both organizations were set up by the financial elite to work for a one-world government. Both wield inordinate influence on the governments in their respective countries. Kelly had recently joined the RIIA.

The third woman is a real-life Mata Hari. Mai Pederson met Kelly in Iraq where her cover was as a translator. She is a U.S. Army intelligence agent. Mai was instrumental in Kelly’s conversion to the Baha’i faith.

The first inspection trip was dramatized in a Frontline production in 1998 entitled “Plague War” shown on PBS in the U.S. and BBC in the U.K. Its main theme was that only Russia had violated the 1972 treaty but the U.S. and U.K. had abated their programs. Co-author of the script for the program was Tom Mangold, a sometime author and until very recently a BBC employee (propagandist?). Mangold was one of the earliest writers to proclaim Kelly’s death as a suicide and has written articles “explaining” why Kelly killed himself. He bills himself as a “best friend” of Kelly but had to admit to the Hutton inquiry that his contacts with Kelly had been relatively few and mostly by e-mail.

When Alibek defected to the U.S. in 1992 he underwent extensive debriefing by, among others, Davis and William Patrick (“father” of the U.S. bioweapons program and a CIA consultant). He was then rewarded with a job at BMI and became a CIA consultant. He is currently president of a subsidiary of Hadron, the defense contractor that peddled the PROMIS software to various governments (with a backdoor in the software) that resulted in an intelligence bonanza for the U.S.

According to author Gordon Thomas, Kelly maintained close communications with Alibek, Patrick and other scientists in the U.S. Thomas reports that Kelly had contacts only weeks before two of the scientists died violent deaths. One was Dr. Don Wiley.

In the months before his death, Dr. Kelly became embroiled in a shouting match between the British government and BBC. Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for BBC claimed that Kelly had given him and other reporters information that proved the government had exaggerated the Iraqi danger in its “dossier” justifying the war against Iraq and that Kelly had not been completely honest in telling his MoD superiors what he had disclosed to them. Writer Tom Mangold (it’s not clear when he left the employ of BBC) used this to reason that Kelly’s loss of integrity at being exposed as a “liar” was what led him to suicide.

Mangold was not the only one to push the suicide angle. After Kelly’s death, Foreign Office diplomat David Broucher made headlines around the world when he claimed Kelly had said if Iraq was attacked he might be “found dead in the woods.” Broucher testified the remark was made at the end of a meeting he had with Kelly in February of this year in Geneva where they discussed the WMD “dossier.” He said he didn’t think much of it at the time but in retrospect Kelly may have been considering suicide then.

When Kelly’s daughter Rachel testified at the inquiry, she proved through her father’s diaries that the only time he had been in Geneva, and the only time he ever met Broucher, was a year earlier in February of 2002. There was not even a draft of the “dossier” in existence at that time suggesting that Broucher’s story was fiction.

Actually, the opposite of the Mangold thesis appears to be the truth. Kelly was treated badly by MoD over the last three years of his life. He had not had a salary increase in three years as he approached retirement where his pension would be a function of salary. At one time he was told there would be reorganization within the intelligence operation and he would get a sizeable increase in salary. That didn’t happen. Kelly had written several letters about his position and, according to his widow, was quite upset and frustrated about it (not despondent and suicidal).

Kelly had voluntarily disclosed to MoD his contacts with the media. To his dying day, he maintained that he had not provided all the information Gilligan attributed to him. Nevertheless, Kelly was hauled before the Joint Intelligence Committee for a grilling.

The final affront came in a mandated one-on-one session with MoD Personnel Director Richard Hatfield. MoD, with the approval of Tony Blair, had devised an orchestrated charade to “out” Kelly as the source of the “leak. Hatfield, head of the department that had been jerking Kelly around for three years, was supposed to get Kelly’s acquiescence in the plan. Somehow, he never got around to the subject.

Subsequently, at an MoD press conference, through a series of disclosures to the press, the MoD confirmed Kelly as the leak (as previously planned) when a reporter asked if Kelly was the one.

Understandably, this treatment would have made Kelly a resentful employee. In intelligence circles, resentful employees are considered “unstable” and security risks. Kelly had for years maintained his silence about his extensive knowledge of the bio-warfare weapons of at least four countries. Had it become imperative that the silence be made permanent?

Footnotes:

*See Dark Actors at the Scene of David Kelly's Death

DAVID KELLY AND VICTORIA’S SECRET

By Jim Rarey
November 12, 2003

No, it’s not the Victoria’s Secret of the soft porn lingerie ads. This is a different Victoria who may have innocently provided the final impetus for the assassination of David Kelly.

In Part I of this writer’s *article, “the Murder of David Kelly” we detailed the numerous red flags in the evidence and testimony submitted at the Hutton inquiry into Kelly’s death that showed conclusively that his death was not a suicide. One of the more important “clues” was evidence that his body had been moved after he died to the scene in which it was found. Other testimony showed it to be very doubtful that Kelly had inflicted the knife wounds on his left wrist that severed an unlikely artery but left the most easily reached artery untouched.

In Part II of the article, we detailed Kelly’s extensive involvement with and/or knowledge of the bio/chemical weapons programs of the U.K., U.S. and Russia. One author reports Kelly also had visited the Israeli bio/chemical weapons facility. Kelly almost certainly would have been aware of the involvement of two U.K. scientists at Porton Down simultaneously as paid consultants to South Africa’s notorious bioweapons program. He had also served as an inspector in Iraq of that country’s WMD programs.

We also recited the deplorable treatment Kelly had been subjected to by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Personnel Department in withholding any pay increase over a three-year period as Kelly approached retirement.

However the public perception of Kelly was as the “single source” of statements made by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to the effect that the government had “sexed up” the dossier used to justify the war against Iraq. Kelly had voluntarily disclosed to his MoD superiors he had met with Gilligan but denied he made the statements Gilligan attributed to his source.

In a July 9th press conference, the MoD confirmed that Dr. Kelly was Gilligan’s source. Kelly was hauled before the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for a grilling but convinced committee members he had not provided statements ascribed to him by Gilligan. The committee chairman, MP Donald Anderson wrote a letter to Secretary of State Jack Straw confirming the committee’s judgment and adding their view that, “Dr. Kelly had been poorly treated by his government..”

Kelly told his wife he felt he had been betrayed. We did not understand the depth and duplicitous nature of that betrayal until further reviewing testimony at the Hutton inquiry, particularly that of Richard Hatfield, Director of MoD Personnel.

Hatfield had no personnel management experience when he was appointed to that job in June of 2001. He had been Policy Director of MoD and a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee. On July 7th Hatfield met with Kelly to review (and get Kelly’s approval) of a clarification the MoD intended to issue to clarify inaccurate information in Gilligan’s report without naming Kelly. What Hatfield knew, but did not tell Kelly, was that MoD intended to confirm Kelly’s name as the source to the press if any reporter mentioned his name after the charade of a “Q & A” session designed to lead to Kelly.

When Kelly learned of this deception it must have infuriated him. Indeed, if it had been Hatfield’s body that was “found dead in the woods” Dr. Kelly might have been a prime suspect in the death.

Another BBC reporter, Susan Watts, claimed on the evening program Newsnight, that Kelly made statements to her indicating he had lied to the MoD about statements he made to reporters. Later, after Kelly’s death, Watts had to back off from that allegation when the inquiry reviewed transcripts of a taped conversation Watts had with Kelly (without Kelly knowing it was being taped) and hearing an enhanced version of the tape recording.

However, in the interim the media, led by Tom Mangold who claimed to be “Kelly’s best friend” and until very recently was himself a BBC reporter, claimed Kelly was so shamed by being branded a liar that he killed himself.

However, that was belied by Kelly’s actions and communications right up to the morning of the day he disappeared (July 17th). He did not at all appear to be depressed and was looking forward to returning to Iraq to continue the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

However, he did communicate in an e-mail the day before his death that there were “many dark actors playing games.” Ironically, that e-mail was to Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter and CFR stalwart who probably was one of those dark actors. Miller, along with two other women was a close confidante of Kelly’s. The second was Olivia Bosch, a long-time functionary of the CFR’s sister organization in the U.K. the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). The third was a U.S. Army intelligence agent named Mai Pederson.

In part two of the article, we suggested that Kelly’s mistreatment by MoD had made him a resentful employee and, with all his dangerous knowledge, a prime candidate for elimination.

However, information new to this writer since that article provides a much stronger motive for the assassination of Dr. Kelly.

For several months, Kelly had been communicating with Victoria Roddam, a commissioning editor for Oneworld Publications based in Oxford. One week before Kelly’s death, she had sent him an e-mail that said in part, “I think the time is ripe now more than ever for a title which addresses the relationship between government, policy and war - I’m sure you would agree.” They had been discussing Kelly authoring a book to be published by Victoria’s company.

Another document found among Kelly’s effects at his home and removed by police was an undated hand-written note from Roddam with a list of suggested topics to be included in the book, any one of which would have sent the elite in several countries into a containment mode.

One such topic was the ethics of biological warfare, a sticking point that could be responsible for a string of deaths of world-class microbiologists in various countries.

A second one was the involvement of corporations in biological warfare.

A third was the role of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries in biowarfare as well as prevention and containment.

Yet another was the connection between Russia and Iraq with WMD.

Victoria had also listed a look at the proliferation in the arms trade as well a look into the Royal United Services Institute-Whitehall.

Finally, in the document there was a cryptic one-line reference to the rules of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA).

Recall Kelly was a neophyte member of the RIIA and likely would not have known what rules, if any, the organization had on members authoring books on sensitive subjects. He probably would have inquired disclosing his intentions. He also may have discussed it with his fellow member and confidante, Olivia Bosch.

It would have been in character for him to discuss the project with Judith Miller and perhaps seek her advice as she had authored several books on topic. He may even have discussed it with his spiritual advisor Mai Pederson.

At any rate, Kelly’s and Victoria’s project was no longer a secret (if it ever was). And now David Kelly has joined the growing list of world-class microbiologists who have met mysterious deaths and/or been murdered.

DAVID KELLY, THE BAHA’I AND MASONS

By Jim Rarey
December 14, 2003

Ask any bartender and he will tell you religion and politics are two subjects that should not be discussed while drinking. Mix the two and an altercation is almost sure to develop. With that caveat in mind, readers are cautioned not to imbibe in alcoholic beverages while discussing this article with friends, acquaintances and certainly not strangers.

In previous articles we have detailed the knowledge and/or involvement microbiologist David Kelly had in the biowarfare programs of several nations including the UK, US, Russia, South Africa, Israel and Iraq. He was privy to, and an analyst of, much of the information British intelligence gathered around the world pertaining to chemical and biological warfare.

We also discussed Kelly’s disgraceful treatment by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), the resentment that must have fostered making him (in some persons’ eyes) a security risk. This was exacerbated by Kelly’s discussions with commissioning agent Victoria Roddam about writing a book, or at least contributing to an anthology of the many facets of government and industry involvement in biowarfare programs. It could only have heightened concerns in some quarters that Roddam’s publishing company (Oneworld Publications) specializes in works of Islamic scholars and authors.

Kelly, some four years earlier, had converted to the Baha’i faith (a minority branch of Islam) apparently under the influence of Mai Pederson, a U.S. Army linguist and intelligence operative. Pederson was one of several women Kelly evidently considered confidants as he had extensive correspondence with them.

Another was Olivia Bosch, a senior researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (more commonly known as Chatham House or RIIA). A third was Judith Miller, star reporter for the New York Times and a long-time member of the RIIA’s sister organization the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Bosch testified at the Hutton inquiry in to Kelly’s death. Police evidently obtained witness statements from both Miller and Pederson, which have not been made available to the inquiry. The MoD told police that witnesses could opt not to have their statements given to the Hutton “probe.” At the hearings witnesses were not put under oath.

Pederson has since, as the British say, “gone to ground” or disappeared from public view. However she has hired (or had provided for her) a very high profile spokesperson, a lawyer named Mark Zaid. The attorney often represents former/current government employees, intelligence officers and others. He is currently representing the father of Dodi Fayed (who died with Princess Diana in a controversial car accident) in obtaining alleged FBI and CIA documents said to relate to those deaths.

However, in previous articles we might have slighted one of Kelly’s colleagues who may have been closer to him than any of the other three.

Was in Iraq from 1995 to 1998 - Gabriele Kraatz Wadsack

Gabriele Kraatz Wadsack (pictured right) worked with Kelly in Iraq. She is one of Germany’s top biowarfare experts and is a former head of Unscom’s biological weapons program. She is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the German Army.

Wadsack and Kelly had traveled around the world giving joint presentations to scientists on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Just weeks before Kelly’s death, he was gone for a week in Baltimore, Maryland giving a presentation according to testimony of Mrs. Kelly before the Hutton inquiry.

Upon returning home Kelly sent an e-mail to Gabriele that said in part, “Thanks for a great week. I had a lot on my mind so I know that I was a little subdued. – thanks for being just you!”

Police found a two-page handwritten note in Kelly’s briefcase titled “Gabriele’s concerns.” They say it appears to relate to Iraq and WMD.” However it is being withheld on grounds of personal ”privacy.” Once a regular panelist on TV, Wadsack is refusing interviews and is said to be working at the German Army’s biological weapons facility in Munich.

While Kelly was definitely “plugged in” to the biowarfare scene, there is an undercurrent of possible religious influence on his actions and secret society involvement in his death that may yet generate the biggest controversy.

According to news reports and former members, the national (UK) and international leadership of the Baha’i branch of Islam were solidly behind the removal of Saddam in Iraq, but for their own reasons. Islamic religionists were frozen out of Saddam’s secular Baath socialist government. The Baha’i leadership saw the removal of Saddam as an opportunity to expand their worldwide membership of over three million. It is not clear what the Baha’i attitude is toward the occupation of Iraq now that Saddam is gone and the Baath Party has been outlawed.

One of the minor controversies raised during the course of the Hutton inquiry was the allegation that Kelly had made disparaging remarks about the “dossier” at a private meeting in the home of a fellow member of the Baha’i, Roger Kingdon. About thirty invited members of the Baha’i were present. Kelly had given a slide presentation on Iraq WMD, but the alleged remarks were made during a question and answer portion of the meeting.

However, potentially the most controversial item to come out of the Hutton inquiry is a little noted piece of “evidence” submitted by the Thames Valley Police (TCP). Listed among the items submitted by the TVP is an exhibit titled “TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book.” The name given to the effort is Operation Mason.

In 1997, Tony Blair’s election manifesto promised to compile a register of freemasons in public life. In February 1998 Blair’s new government (put out by then Home Secretary Jack Straw) required all new appointments to the judiciary, police, legally qualified staff of the Crown Prosecution Service and probation and prison services to declare membership in Masonic organizations. Existing government employees in those categories were encouraged to voluntarily announce such membership. Few have come forward.

The government’s action was the culmination of anti-Masonic fervor dating back as far as 1869 when Rev. C.G. Finney in his book, “The Character, Claims and Practical Workings of Freemasonry” inveighed against the Masons with the following:

“Can a man who has taken and still adheres to the oath of the Royal Arch degree be trusted in office? He swears to espouse the cause of a companion of this degree when involved in any difficulty, so far as to extricate him from the same, whether he be right or wrong. He swears to conceal his crimes, murder and treason not excepted. He swears to give a companion of this degree timely notice of any approaching danger that may be known to him. Now is a man bound fast by such an oath to be entrusted with office? Ought he to be accepted as a witness, a juror--when a Freemason is a party, in any case--a sheriff, constable, or marshal; ought he to be trusted with the office of judge or justice of the peace? Gentlemen, you know he ought not, and you would despise me should I not be faithful in warning the public against entrusting such men with office.”

Another author, Anthony Beevor, was told by a leading Mason that all thirteen members of the Army Management Board were Masons (in 1991). The board comprises a mix of politicians and top army officers. It exercises authority over all forms of appointments, ranking and promotion in the army.

The chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, Chris Mullin, is said to have been considering legislation to mandate that members of the criminal justice system be required to reveal if they are freemasons.

However, that proposal was dropped (at least temporarily) after 5,000 Masons from London’s 1,585 lodges met to establish a new central organization. They were led by Prince Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick Windsor, Duke of Kent. He and his wife present the trophies at Wimbledon every year and is less well known in his position as head of the English Freemasonry movement. The Duke and Duchess, after selling their own home in Coppins, now live in two residences supplied by the Queen at Anmer Hall and St. James Palace.

At the meeting, the Masons protested the contemplated mandatory declarations as a violation of the 1998 Human Rights Act. There are an estimated 300,000 Masons in England and Wales.

An Italian government was brought down following a 1981 investigation of the (former) P2 Masonic lodge. Consecrated in 1895, the P2 lodge included elite members from the Italian government, military and intelligence services and bankers serving the Vatican and mafia. The P2 Grand Master, an Italian named Licio Gelli joined the CIA and worked in league with mafia banker Michele Sindona and president Roberto Calvi of the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in the Vatican banking scandal. Gelli himself was expelled from Masonry in 1976. As a result of the scandal, the Italian government banned secret societies.

Calvi, twenty years ago, was found hanging from a bridge over the Thames River in what was thought to be a suicide. However British authorities have reopened the case and are now calling it murder and may prosecute three men and a woman for the crime. The motives conjectured include his mishandling of mafia money and/or potentially blackmailing P2 members.

The timing of the reopening of the Calvi case could be more than a coincidence considering the civil trial due to begin next month against the Bank of England for its role in the supervision and closing of BCCI. The mafia, CIA, British intelligence, the Mossad an assorted terrorist and drug trafficking organizations used BCCI for laundering money.

However, Lord Hutton’s report on his inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of microbiologist David Kelly is due out in the same time frame. It undoubtedly will dominate news coverage as BBC and politicians try to blame each other for the supposed “suicide” of Kelly and the debate over the “dossier” justifying the war against Iraq. The capture yesterday of Saddam Hussein and its attendant publicity may be a wild card in the public relations battle.

It is not clear why the TVP named its tactical support Operation Mason. It could be a red herring or just a taunt to the anti-Masonic movement. It possibly could be a straightforward reference to support of a Masonic operation. But what was that operation?

One thing this writer can confidently predict, the Hutton report will label Kelly’s death a suicide giving no credence to any of the evidence that points conclusively to murder.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.

HUTTON REPORT: TOO CLEVER BY HALF

By Jim Rarey
February 1, 2004

Some may wonder why an American writer would choose a purely British colloquialism as the title of his article. There simply could not be found a better description of Lord Hutton’s manipulation, distortion and omission of evidence in his report on the death of world-class microbiologist David Kelly. But Hutton may have outsmarted himself by providing information that will prove Kelly’s body was moved at least twice before police and forensic investigators saw it.

Come with us as we follow Hutton’s tortuous path trying to discount the testimony of Louise Holmes (and Paul Chapman), the volunteers who found Kelly’s body. Numbers enclosed in parentheses are references to items in Chapter 5 of the Hutton report where Hutton comments and (very) selectively presents testimony from published transcripts of testimony at his hearings and/or excerpts from witness statements and reports that are not available to the public.

In (130) Hutton correctly characterizes Louise Holmes’ testimony saying, “She saw the body of a man at the base of the tree with his head and shoulders slumped back against it.” (Keep this in mind because it becomes crucial in two aspects of where Kelly died.)

The two volunteers started down a path on Harrowdown Hill (where the body was found) to meet police who were being dispatched from Thames Valley Police (TVP) headquarters after being notified by Chapman over his mobile phone. On the way they met three uniformed police (not the ones being dispatched). Chapman took one of them, DC Coe back to where the body was. In (131) Hutton comments, ”Mr. Chapman showed Detective Constable Coe the body lying on its back…” Already, Hutton has moved the body to its back. Chapman had testified at his hearing that the body was “sitting up against a tree….”

All subsequent witnesses at the hearings (including DC Coe) said the body was lying on its back (but not in contact with the tree). In item (151) Hutton tries to finesse a reconciliation of these contradictory descriptions of the position of the body. He comments:

“In the evidence which I heard from those who saw Dr Kelly's body in the wood there were differences as to points of detail, such as the number of police officers at the scene and whether they were all in uniform, the amount of blood at the scene, and whether the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. I have seen a photograph of Dr Kelly's body in the wood which shows that most of his body was lying on the ground but that his head was slumped against the base of the tree (emphasis added)- therefore a witness could say either that the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. These differences do not cause me to doubt that no third party was involved in Dr Kelly's death.”

The photograph, to which Hutton refers, has never been seen by the public or media. Hutton is very careful not to say the back was on the ground (there is a reason) and neglects to say the shoulders, as well as the head, were slumped against the tree. This photograph could only have been taken by one of the volunteers who found the body and could be the “smoking gun” that unravels the whole suicide charade.

Hutton, in (131) skips very lightly over the activities and testimony of the two Police Constables (Franklin and Sawyer) dispatched from TVP headquarters in Abingdon who arrived about a half hour after Chapman’s call with the two paramedics (Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett) in tow. Although not included in Hutton’s report, all four testified Kelly’s body was lying on its back. Both Hunt and Bartlett said the feet were facing towards them. PC Sawyer said the body was “lying on its back with its head at the base of a tree….”

But most significantly, and also not disclosed in the report, is the fact that PC Sawyer took several photographs with his digital camera before, during and after the paramedics attended to the body. When Hutton and Sawyer at one of the hearings discussed the photographs, Hutton’s only interest was whether or not the photos showed Kelly’s shirt buttoned or unbuttoned!

A simple comparison of Sawyer’s photographs with the one Hutton referenced should prove whether his rationalization of the differences in testimony is valid or if the head and shoulders were against the tree as Holmes testified. If the photographs show different positions of the body, the implications are obvious. Kelly’s body was moved during the half-hour interval before the two constables and paramedics arrived. It may be necessary for all the pictures to be subpoenaed for that comparison to be made.

There is another reason Hutton has gone to such pains to make it appear the body was found laying on its back. Not discussed in the report is the portion of the testimony of Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, where he discloses discoloration on the back of the body (called hypostasis, livor mortis, or post-mortem lividity) indicates Dr. Kelly died while on his back. Hunt also says the body was found on its back. Of course Hunt did not arrive on the scene at Harrowdown Hill until about noon, a good three and a half hours after the body was found so he has no first-hand knowledge of the position in which the body was discovered. The discoloration appears on the lowest parts of the body after the heart stops pumping blood.

This is a further complication for Hutton in that if the body was found with its head and shoulders against the tree, that means it was moved to the tree after he had died and the blood had settled to the back and where Kelly died has not been established.

But where Kelly died is not the only thing in question. Dr. Hunt assigned the primary cause of the death as bleeding caused by self-inflicted knife injuries to the left wrist. He said one artery (the ulnar) had been completely cut through while the artery usually cut in suicide attempts, the radial (which is much easier to reach), had not been touched.

Several medical experts have come forward to challenge that finding. In a letter released to the media, three medical professionals, Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon David Halpin, Dr. Stephen Frost in Sweden who is a specialist in diagnostic radiology, and a retired anaethesiologist in South Africa, maintained that a completely severed artery would almost immediately retract and limit the bleeding while promoting clotting. They said they dispute that Dr. Kelly could have died from the bleeding.

Support came for that position Wednesday from Dr. Don MacKenchnie who is head of accident and emergency at Rochdale infirmary and chair of the British Medical Association’s accident and emergency medicine committee.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Dr. A. Peter Fletcher of Halstead, Essex (a retired pathologist) derided Hunt’s finding based on the blood evidence described in the hearings. He said about five pints of blood would have to have been lost to cause death. “Anybody who has seen five pints of blood spurted forcefully out of a severed artery will know that there is one hell of a mess.” He concludes that, “Either Kelly did not die of blood loss or it occurred at some place distant from where the body was found.”

Fletcher closed by remarking, “A coroner has the power of subpoena, witnesses give testimony under oath and a jury is usually involved. Lord Hutton was denied these requirements for his inquiry.”

Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner has said he will make a decision after a legally required 28-day period, whether to reopen the inquest that was cut short by appointment of the Hutton Inquiry. As this writer said in an earlier open letter to the public and media (published before the Hutton report was released) if Gardiner does not resume the inquest, color him part of the cover-up.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.

OFFICIAL DOUBTS IN KELLY DEATH?

By Jim Rarey
March 11, 2004

Oxfordshire Coroner Nicholas Gardiner has a problem. On March 16^th he is holding a hearing to determine if he should resume the inquest into the death of microbiologist David Kelly that was cut short with the appointment of Lord Hutton to head an inquiry.

Earlier, Gardiner had been quoted as saying he had seen no “fresh” evidence that would warrant reopening the inquest. The hearing was expected to be a pro forma announcement of that decision. However, Tuesday evening Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the Home Office pathologist on whose testimony Lord Hutton relied for his suicide verdict, dropped a bombshell in Gardiner’s lap during a Channel 4 news program.

Alex Thomson was airing film clips of interviews with medical specialists who challenged the medical evidence provided by Hunt (and toxicologist Allan) and were calling for resumption of the inquest. Thomson also showed clips from supporters of Hutton’s verdict.

During Thomson’s how, Dr. Hunt called the newsroom and told them he would, “feel more comfortable with a full coroner’s inquest.” Dr. Hunt would obviously be one of the main witnesses in a resumed inquest and apparently has some information he feels he was not allowed to give at the inquiry.

While many have serious doubts about the suicide verdict by Lord Hutton in the death of microbiologist David Kelly, a close reading of the testimony of the two key forensic experts, on whose testimony Hutton based his verdict, reveals they also had doubts.

The questioning of the forensic witnesses was aimed at eliciting only that information that would support a suicide verdict. The “questioning was replete with leading questions (suggesting the answer) and at times statement of “fact” with which witnesses were asked to agree. Indeed, at times it was not clear who was giving testimony, the witnesses or Lord Hutton and his Queen’s counsels. Statements and answers by witnesses that begged for follow-up questions were ignored or the subject was quickly changed.

For most of his time in the witness stand, Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the Home Office pathologist who performed the autopsy on David Kelly’s body, dutifully supplied the expected answers with two notable exceptions.

Evidently witnesses had been directed to suspend common sense and logic and stay within their fields of expertise in their testimony. When Hunt and Alexander Allan, the toxicologist on the case, were asked at the end of their stints on the witness stand “is there anything else which you know of which might have contributed to the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death?” Allan answered, “From a toxicological point of view, no.” To the same question, Dr. Hunt replied, “Nothing I could say as a pathologist, no.” Clearly both were implying they had other information that was “outside their expertise.”

Mr. Allan had testified that the level of coproxamol components he found in Kelly’s blood was only about one third of what he would consider a fatal level. He also said it was not possible to determine how many of the 29 tablets not accounted for had been ingested by Kelly. However, he said, “What I can say is that it is consistent with say 29/30 tablets but it could be consistent with other scenarios as well. Of course he was not asked what other scenarios.

During his testimony, Dr. Hunt refused to bail Lord Hutton out of a dilemma he faced. The two volunteers who found the body had described it as, “head and shoulders against a tree” and “sitting up against a tree” respectively. Yet all subsequent witnesses saw the body as flat on its back away from the tree. In item 151 of his report, Hutton said he had seen a photograph of the body with its head against the tree but the rest of the body on the ground. He reasoned there was no conflict in the various testimonies.

Hunt was asked if any part of Kelly’s body was in contact with the tree. He said no. He probably knew that was what photographs taken by Police Constable Sawyer a half hour after the volunteers left would show the body away from the tree. Thus Hutton had actually furnished proof that Kelly’s body had been moved at least twice after he died. Once to the tree and second to the position on its back to conform to the livor mortis evidence that showed Kelly was on his back when he died.

This may have been one of the things to which Hunt was referring in his answer when asked if he could rule out any third party involvement in Kelly’s death. His reply to that question was, “No, there was no pathological evidence to indicate the involvement of a third party in Dr Kelly's death. Rather, the features are quite typical, I would say, of self-inflicted injury if one ignores all the other features of the case.”

The subject was quickly changed and no mention of this startling reservation appeared in the media and no one commented on the lack of follow through. With a few exceptions, the media, which has excoriated Hutton for his treatment of BBC in his report (and exoneration of the government from any wrong doing), has been strangely silent about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the testimony about the death. That is, until two days ago. However, the print media has yet to pick up on them or on Dr. Hunt’s courageous call to resume the inquest.

Stay tuned.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.

TVP’S SUPER PSYCHIC

By Jim Rarey
March 24, 2004

Many police organizations avail themselves of the services of psychics to find missing persons, track criminals and other tasks involving extra sensory perception (ESP). However, few are willing to admit it because of public skepticism.

In the death of microbiologist David Kelly, the Thames Valley Police (TVP) must have employed an extraordinary psychic whose talents included precognition (foretelling future events), a power some claim for “remote viewing.”

That the TVP had advance information about the disappearance of Kelly, and possibly his impending death, is beyond dispute. In the evidence on the Hutton inquiry website there is a transmittal cover sheet to the Hutton inquiry of a report described thusly, “TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book…Between 1430 17.07.03 and 930 18.07.03. DCI Alan Young. It is labeled “not for release – Police operational information.” The TVP told Daily Mail reporter Sue Reid that the Operation Mason file details their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death.

Operation Mason began at 2:30pm on July 17th an hour before Kelly left his home for his final walk followed by his disappearance and subsequent discovery of his body the following morning at HarrowDown Hill. This was a full nine hours before Mrs. Kelly notified police that Dr. Kelly was missing. However, this foreknowledge did not enable the TVP to save Kelly’s life, if that was the objective.

Despite the pronouncements of Lord Hutton and coroner Nicholas Gardiner, there is a controversy over what caused David Kelly’s death with a preponderance of medical experts saying it is highly unlikely, nearly impossible, for Kelly to have died from the causes attributed by the forensic pathologist Nicholas Hunt who performed the autopsy on Kelly’s body.

But there is another mystery the TVP’s psychic (if it used one) might be asked to solve. That is where did Dr. Kelly die since it is almost certain he did not die on HarrowDown Hill where his body was found.

Dr. Hunt estimated a nine-hour time span in which Kelly died with death occurring no later than 1:15am in the morning of July 18th. This was calculated using a formula based on body temperature.

Hunt also found hypostasis or livor mortis on Kelly’s back meaning Kelly’s body was on its back for several hours after he died as the blood settled to his back to form the discoloration called livor mortis.

When the two search volunteers found Kelly’s body it was slumped up against a tree in a wooded copse on Harrowdown Hill. This was at about 8:30am the morning of the 18th. After the volunteers reported the find they left. During the following half hour, the body was moved away from the tree to its back. This occurred while the scene was under the control of TVP detective constable Coe.

Obviously, the livor mortis had formed before the body was propped up against the tree. In order to say that Kelly died at the Harrowdown location, one would have to claim he was on his back when he died and remained there for several hours. Then was moved to the tree and a second time returned to its back. That defies all logic. It is much more likely that Kelly died at some other location and was later moved to Harrowdown against the tree to arrange what looked like a suicide scene. The body was returned to its back when someone realized the livor mortis would prove that was the position in which he died.

These aspects of the case should have been explored at the Hutton inquiry, but weren’t. In a proper inquest they would have been which may be one powerful reason Nicholas Gardiner refused to reconvene the inquest that was cut short by the Hutton inquiry.

Even Dr. Hunt, when asked if his autopsy findings could rule out third party involvement in Kelly’s death, replied, “only if one ignores all the other features of the case.”

Serious researchers of David Kelly’s death have justifiably concluded that there was ”third part involvement.” Authorities try to dismiss them as “conspiracy theorists.” But the evidence is there for any who care enough to look at it.

The TVP should be required to publicly disclose how they knew in advance that Kelly would go missing to mount Operation Mason and to whom they were providing “tactical support.”

The media also has a responsibility to raise these questions instead of supinely accepting the flawed rationales of the authorities.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.

The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.

If you would like to receive Medium Rare articles directly, please contact us at jimrarey@comcast.net. Although not necessary, we would appreciate an indication of the city and/or state or country (If outside the USA) in which you are located to give us an idea as to where our articles are being received.

Visit Medium Rare Archives

Dark Actors at the Scene of David Kelly's Death

Rowena Thursby

www.propagandamatrix.com

Entering the witness box at the Hutton Inquiry on 16th September 2003, one key figure stands out in the events surrounding Dr David Kelly's death. The fact that his testimony contradicts that of five previous witnesses has received no attention in the mainstream press and has failed to be brought out in the Inquiry itself. Moreover, the position of David Kelly's body prior to his arrival is different from its position when he leaves. This man is a British policeman: his name, Detective Constable Coe.

In his testimony before Lord Hutton, DC Coe, the third witness to Kelly's dead body, relates how he is called out at 6.00am on 18th July to Abingdon police station. Here he is instructed (we are not told who by) to make house-to-house enquiries in the village of Longworth, about a mile from Kelly's house. He does not follow these instructions. He heads instead to Southmoor, Kelly's home village. Here he visits Ruth Absalom, one of Kelly's neighbours, who was the last person to speak to the scientist the previous afternoon. From here, rather than make house-to-house enquiries, Coe sets off to the area where Ruth Absalom last sees Kelly to make what he describes to the Inquiry as "a sort of search towards the river".

Perjury?

The next section of DC Coe's testimony contains one of the most blatant discrepancies in the whole of the Hutton Inquiry. While it is clear from his own and other testimonies that he is not alone while in the region of Harrowdown Hill, a serious question mark hangs over the number of people who are with him.

In the witness box Coe claims that he is with only one other officer. But five previous witnesses - the dog-handler/searcher, Louise Holmes, the two official search officers, PCs Franklin and Saunders, and the two paramedics, Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett - clearly state he is with two others.

In front of Lord Hutton DC Coe relates how he and "a colleague" go to the area where Ruth Absalom has last seen Kelly. He names this "colleague" as one "DC Shields":

DC Coe: We spoke to a witness who lived more or less opposite, 4 who had seen Dr Kelly on the afternoon, the Thursday 5 afternoon, and myself and a colleague went to the area 6 where she had last seen him and made a sort of search 7 towards the river.

Under further questioning from Knox, one of the Hutton barristers, Coe reiterates that on the morning of 18th July he is with only one other person:

Knox: "Who were you with at this time?" DC Coe: "Detective Constable Shields". Knox: "It is just the two of you?" DC Coe: "Yes."

Nowhere in Coe's testimony is mention made of a third officer. Nor, despite the statements from the five witnesses who state he was with two other officers, is Coe asked about a third officer. Why does Coe not mention his other companion? And why does the barrister, Knox, allow this crucial point to slip by?

DC Coe Unrecognised by Police Search Team

DC Coe arrives on the scene independently of other police officers - indeed they are not notified that he is to be on the scene at all.

PC Franklin, the officer responsible for the police search, is given to understand that on Friday 18th July only he and his search team leader, PC Sawyer and "6 other officers" are to conduct the search, which is (after conferring with Sergeant Woods on Kelly's oft-frequented routes) set to begin at Harrowdown Hill, the site where Kelly's body is ultimately found. "PC Sawyer and I were going to be the first", said Franklin.

Yet on arriving at the scene they meet Paul Chapman, the volunteer searcher, who directs them to "two uniformed police officers and DC Coe".

"Q: You mentioned DC Coe. Was he part of your search team? A: No. Q: What was he doing: A: He was at the scene. I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived."

Coe at the Death Scene

DC Coe goes on to describe how, on their way to the river, he and DC Shields encounter Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman (the other volunteer searcher). Louise and Paul explain how they have already found the body, and Paul Chapman leads the three (note, three, according to Chapman's testimony) officers to it. According to the testimony of other witnesses, we are given to understand that Coe's two (note, two) companions wait and guard the scene from the path while DC Coe visits the body alone.

When asked about Kelly's body-position Coe twice states that it is laying on its back:

"It was laying on its back - the body was laying on its back by a large tree...".

The way he repeats the phrase it is almost as if he is trying to prompt himself to remember to say, "laying on its back". Yet Louise Holmes and Paul Chapman, the first two body-witnesses, have said the body is slumped AGAINST, i.e. touching, the tree.

Did Louise and Paul get it so wrong? Why would they? The sight of a dead body is not easy to forget. Or did Coe and his accomplices MOVE the body from a sitting to a lying position? And if they did, what might have been the reason?

As to Coe's powers of observation, it is curious that, while none of the other witnesses are able to say much about the jacket, DC Coe manages to name it as a "Barbour jacket". But when asked about the cap, he is unable to say for sure if this cap was on the head or "apart from the body" - despite the fact that, according to his own account, he has been standing "guarding" the body at a distance of only 7-8 feet for "in the region of about 25 or 30 minutes".

Perhaps the Barbour jacket holds some particular significance for Coe. And his confusion over whether the cap is on or off could be because actually he is not standing guarding the scene as he claims, but, during the half an hour he is there, actively re-arranging it.

DC Coe & the "Men in Black

On 23 September 2003 Assistant Chief Constable Page of Abingdon police station tells the Hutton Inquiry that a "gentleman" has contacted both the police and the Inquiry to express his concern over his sighting of "three individuals.... in dark or black clothing" near the scene where Dr David Kelly's body was found early on the morning of 18th July.

Page attempts to explain away the sighting, testifying how,

"...we undertook some fairly extensive work. We got 3 statements from all our officers who were at the scene 4 and that was in excess of 50. We plotted their 5 movements on a map and eventually were able to 6 triangulate where the writer was talking about and 7 identify three of our officers, so I am satisfied that 8 I am aware of the identity of these three individuals..."

But why do the police feel the need to undertake "some fairly extensive work"? Why do they take "in excess of 50" statements"? For extensive work by the police to be deemed necessary, the "gentleman" who witnesses the incident must have described something about these three individuals which did not fit the pattern of mere search officers.

Vanessa Hunt, the paramedic and fourth body-witness, in her testimony to the Hutton Inquiry, describes PCs Franklin and Sawyer as wearing "dark polo shirts" and "combat trousers", so presumably this must be the standard attire for police search officers - pretty much "dark clothing".

So what is it about the man's sighting of these particular three individuals which sets them apart from regular search officers and is unusual enough to prompt such a line of inquiry? If their clothing is similar to that of search officers, then it is possibly their behaviour that is odd in some way. Are they indeed "officers"? Are these three individuals DC Coe and his two"uniformed officers". And are they behaving oddly?

Page claims in his September 23rd testimony that the triangulation shows that the three are police officers and satisfactorily accounted for. Yet this does not add up, because PC Franklin says, when asked how many other people are out searching at this time:

"I believe it was only the 2 volunteers out searching at that time".

And PC Franklin should know, because he is the POLICE SEARCH ADVISOR.

PC Sawyer, the SEARCH TEAM LEADER, explains the search arrangements in his testimony as follows:

11 A. I am a search team leader, which means I have done 12 a further course which enables me to actually run 13 a search. Police Constable Franklin, being the police 14 search adviser, will liaise with the senior 15 investigating officer. They will decide on the 16 parameters of the search, what they want searched. It 17 is then turned over to me to organise the logistics of 18 it, to plan the search, do the cordons, to set the 19 searchers going and supervise them while they are 20 searching.

How is it then, that statements are taken from 50 police officers if there is not a single search officer on the scene between 8.30 and 9.30am on 18th July - the time given for the "men in black" sighting? The timing is crucial. It is true that Page has arranged for a much larger police search contingent, to number in the region of 40 officers. But according to the police search advisor's testimony, this force has not, at this time, been assembled on the ground, and not a single regular police search officer was present on Harrowdown Hill at that time.

So how do we account for the three individuals in dark clothing? If there are no other police searching the area at the time they are sighted, then either these three are DC Coe and his two companions - or three other, entirely unknown, mystery individuals, possibly an SAS-style assassination or clean-up team.

Is there a reason for Coe's "sort of search towards the river"?

As they are searching, Louise and Paul Chapman come across some riverboat people who say they have seen a helicopter up the night before and some police officers "at some point previously". Are these DC Coe and DC Shields? Have they circled round perhaps? It is just conceivable that the riverboat is not innocent, that the people on it are not holiday-makers, and that the boat itself is the designated hide-out & get-away method for an assassination team?

No Cooroboration of Coe's Story

Nowhere in DC Coe's testimony are we given the names of anyone - other than DC Shields - who can corroborate any part of his story. We have no word but Coe's that he appeared at Abingdon police station, that he was assigned to make house-to-house enquiries in Longworth, or that he ever talked to Ruth Absalom about Kelly's route. In contrast, PCs Franklin and Sawyer, cited a "Sergeant Woods" as the person able to verify their attendance at Abingdon. The Thames Valley Police search team leaders, PCs Franklin and Sawyer, said that they had "no idea" what DC Coe and his companions (either one, according to Coe, or two, according to them) were doing there.

The one individual who could have corroborated Coe's testimony - DC Shields - was never called before the Inquiry. Why not?

No Legal Inquisition

One feature of the Hutton Inquiry that is truly stunning is why there has been so little cross-examination of witnesses.

Almost nothing is cross-checked in relation to the discovery of the body - e.g. the Hutton legal counsel, Mr Dingemans, could have said to PC Franklin, the body-witness who followed DC Coe:

"You say that the body was found flat on its back, yet Louise Holmes says it was slumped against a large tree - can you explain that?"

Similarly DC Coe's evidence is neither questioned, nor compared with evidence from previous witnesses.

He should have been asked:

- whom did you see at Abingdon police station?

- who instructed you to make a house to house search?

- who told you about Ruth Absalom?

- why were you making a search towards the river?

- whom were you with at the time?

And finally, to force an explanation it should have been put to him:

"You say you with one other person - DC Shields - yet five previous witnesses have stated you were with two people - how do you account for that?"

As this type of questioning did not take place, one cannot help but gain the impression that DC Coe in particular was let off a very uncomfortable hook.

The fact that witnesses were not cross-examined on the physical circumstances surrounding the search for/discovery of Dr Kelly's body clearly suggests a cover-up.

DC Coe was due to testify on 2nd September but for some reason, did not appear. Counsel to the Inquiry, Mr Dingemans merely states: "we have not been able to get him here this morning." Is that because he was waiting for all other "body-discovery testimonies" to have taken place so that none that followed would contradict what he had said? If DC Coe was not to be cross-examined subsequently, then his testimony would not be analysed under the public glare.

Those watching the hearings would be left a little confused by Coe's contradiction of previous witnesses as to how many officers were with him, but reassured by his being a senior British policeman - a detective constable. A detective constable would surely be accurate about who he was with and what he was doing - senior policemen can always be relied upon - or can they?

Recall that DC Coe departs from the instructions he receives at Abingdon police station. Recall that he almost certainly lied about the number of individuals with him. Recall the body is reported as "sitting up" or "slumped" against a tree before his arrival, and "flat on its back" after he leaves the scene. This being the case, how far can his testimony be trusted?

Jim Rarey, in his recent article, "The Murder of David Kelly"(1) has pointed out that a Thames Valley Police operation, listed on the Hutton Inquiry website as a "TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book", actually commenced at 2.30pm on 17th July - many hours prior to David Kelly's body being reported missing at 11.40pm on that day - and finished at 9.30am on 18th July, around the time the "three individuals dressed in black or dark clothing" were sighted and DC Coe left the scene. The name of this operation? "Operation Mason". The evidence suggests that DC Coe's testimony - emanating from a figure in authority though it does - cannot, in fact, be trusted. However, it may be unfair to focus on DC Coe alone. He may have been but one link in a chain - a chain that was long, complex, and which involved many "dark actors".

For further investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly please visit: www.deadscientists.blogspot.com

(1) The Murder of Dr David Kelly www.rense.com/general43/kelly.htm

See also: Kelly: ‘I’ll probably be found Dead in the Woods’ http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1023 Dr David Kelly, Sex Education and the BBC http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=921

Dead Scientists

Saturday, February 28, 2004

THE STRANGE "SUICIDE" OF DAVID KELLY:
Questions for the coroner's inquest

by Renan Talieva

With the release of his report last month, Lord Brian Hutton pronounced the death of scientist David Kelly a suicide. But the evidence given at the inquiry does not substantiate the finding. It is not yet known exactly how he died.

Members of the medical community and the general public are beginning to express growing skepticism about the stated cause of death. In response to their concerns, Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner will hold a hearing in March to determine if 'exceptional reasons' compel him to reopen the original inquest. [1]

There is more than adequate cause to question the current interpretation of the scientist's demise, as set forth by the Hutton report (HR) and the public record of the Hutton inquiry (HI). The official version can be summarized as follows.

Between 3.00 and 3.20 pm on 17 July 2003, Dr Kelly left his Oxfordshire residence after telling his wife he was going for his regular walk. At about 9.20 am on 18 July, his body was found by volunteer searchers in a wooded area on Harrowdown Hill. On the body was a mobile telephone, glasses, key fob, and three 10-tablet blister packs of coproxamol with 1 tablet remaining. Near the body was a Barbour cap, wristwatch, Sandvig knife, and half-litre bottle of water.

From this it was concluded that although he suffered from no significant mental illness, by the afternoon of 17 July Dr Kelly was feeling isolated and hopeless. When he left the house he took with him several packets of his wife's prescription pain medication, a gardening knife from his desk drawer, and a bottle of water.

He proceeded to one of his favorite haunts, a peaceful and secluded spot, where sometime between 4.15 pm and 1.15 am he removed his watch and glasses, swallowed over 20 pills, and repeatedly slashed at his left wrist, leaving the radial artery intact but completely severing the ulnar artery which caused him to bleed to death, most of the blood soaking into the detritus of the woodland floor.

In the process of stumbling or thrashing about in the undergrowth he possibly sustained minor abrasions to the scalp and lower lip, along with bruising to the lower legs and left side of chest. His demise was further hastened by a less than fatal but more than therapeutic blood level of dextropropoxyphene and paracetamol, and by clinically silent coronary artery disease.

It is an odd and illogical tale, notable for its abundance of conjecture and conflicting witness accounts. The ten questions below highlight some disturbing anomalies.

Did Kelly cut his own wrist?

Forensic pathologist Nicholas Hunt gave no evidence specifying the direction in which the wounds were made to support a conclusion of self-infliction. The presumed scenario is that Dr Kelly drew the knife with his right hand across his left wrist (thumb to little finger).

But the location of arteries in the wrist suggests that in so doing he would have more easily damaged the superficial radial artery on the lateral aspect. It is not likely he would have left the radial artery intact while exerting enough pressure to completely sever the deeper, better protected ulnar artery at the medial aspect. [2]

And forensic biologist Roy Green observed that finding a bloodstain on the right sleeve of Dr Kelly's jacket was 'slightly unusual' [HI] in view of the presumed scenario. The pathologist did not mention blood on the right sleeve in his evidence.

Dr Hunt also made the questionable inference that the apparent removal of the watch 'whilst blood was already flowing' [HI], along with the removal of the spectacles, pointed toward an act of self harm. It seems more likely Dr Kelly would have removed the watch before inflicting the wounds and left his glasses on to facilitate the effort.

Then there is the alleged weapon. If Dr Kelly's intention was to efficiently open an artery, his choice of an old, blunt* gardening knife seems highly unlikely. As does the horizontal incision of a single wrist.

*Bluntness is assumed from the pathologist's description of the wound's crushed edges.

Did Kelly bleed to death?

Medical specialists have questioned whether the incised wounds as described by Dr Hunt could have led to fatal haemorrhage. Only the small ulnar artery was cut which, having been completely transected, would have defensively retracted and clotted while blood pressure slowed, thereby greatly inhibiting the flow of blood. [3]

And if one were to accept a verdict of death by exsanguination, why was there not more blood found in the vicinity?

It has been estimated that for a person of Dr Kelly's size to die of haemorrhage, he would need to lose about five pints of blood. But witness accounts did not indicate anything near that amount at the scene.

Paramedic Vanessa Hunt volunteered the observation that there was 'no obvious arterial bleeding. There was no spraying of blood or huge blood loss or any obvious loss on the clothing. ... As to on the ground, I do not remember seeing a sort of huge puddle or anything like that.' [HI] This was seconded by ambulance technician David Bartlett, who commented 'we was surprised there was not more blood on the body if it was an arterial bleed.' [HI]

In rebuttal to these comments, the forensic biologist referred to 'a fair bit of blood' [HI] around the body and surmised that much of it had probably been absorbed by leaf litter covering the ground. He does not appear from the evidence to have tested the premise.

The pathologist's conclusion that '[t]he arterial injury had resulted in the loss of a significant volume of blood,' [HI] seemed to derive from the fact that the artery had been cut rather than from specific evidence at the scene or the post mortem examination. He did not offer an assessment of the amount of blood remaining in the heart and large vessels to support a conclusion of haemorrhage.

Did Kelly take an overdose of his wife's medication?

Although the secondary cause of death was determined to be coproxamol ingestion, forensic toxicologist Alexander Allan reported finding merely 67 milligrammes of paracetamol in the stomach contents (equivalent to one-fifth of one tablet of coproxamol), and blood level concentrations per millilitre of 97 microgrammes for paracetamol and 1.0 microgrammes for dextropropoxyphene (equivalent to approximately 20 tablets).

Dr Allan acknowledged this amount to be three to four times lower than the medically accepted level for fatal overdose. Dr Hunt offered no post mortem evidence of respiratory depression or heart failure consistent with dextropropoxyphene overdose, or of liver damage from paracetamol overdose.

Lord Hutton noted that according to Dr Allan, 'the only way in which paracetamol and dextropropoxyphene could be found in Dr Kelly's blood was by him taking tablets containing them which he would have to ingest.' [HR p 95] But acquaintance Mai Pederson reportedly told police that Dr Kelly had difficulty swallowing pills -- a condition which could be confirmed by family, friends or physician. If true, it is doubtful that he would have voluntarily chosen to ingest over 20 of them.

In addition, as a scientist and biowarfare specialist Dr Kelly would presumably have known how much coproxamol was required to induce overdose, and have had knowledge of and access to faster and more lethal substances.

Nor was it adequately demonstrated at the inquiry that the blister packs found in Dr Kelly's jacket were taken from his wife's prescription.

In his report, Lord Hutton deemed it 'probable that the Coproxamol tablets which Dr Kelly took just before his death came from a store of those tablets which Mrs Kelly, who suffered from arthritis, kept in their home.' [HR p 96] This despite evidence from Detective Constable Eldridge that their identical batch numbers were shared with 1.6 million other packets sold throughout the country.

And Mrs Kelly did not confirm that an equivalent number of tablets were missing from her store at the house.

Was Kelly suicidal?

In the expert opinion of psychiatrist Keith Hawton it was 'well nigh certain' [HI] that Dr Kelly had committed suicide, a conclusion based largely on circumstantial evidence: isolated location of the site, wounds to the wrist, apparent use of a familiar object, presence of several empty blister packs. Less attention was given to the numerous contraindicators of suicidal ideation.

Professor Hawton told the inquiry that Dr Kelly was 'an intensely private man' who kept his emotions bottled up and whose self-esteem was tied to his work. [HI] He theorized that in the wake of the parliamentary hearings, Dr Kelly had begun to see himself as publicly disgraced and to fear the loss of his job. Receiving additional parliamentary questions at about 9.28 am on 17 July possibly led to a perception that the problem was escalating and increased his sense of hopelessness.

But these suppositions are not borne out by witness accounts or by Dr Kelly's own behavior.

According to MoD colleague Wing Commander John Clark, Kelly had reporting being in good spirits when they spoke by telephone on 17 July. Clark and Kelly had agreed on 25 July as the date for him to fly to Iraq to work with the survey group, and the evidence indicated he was eager to resume that effort.

At about 11.18 am that morning, Dr Kelly sent several e-mails to friends and colleagues, most anticipating that it would 'all blow over by early next week' [HI] and indicating his expectation of returning to Baghdad the following Friday. The e-mail messages given as evidence are not indicative of depression, despair, or hopelessness.

Nor did Dr Kelly seem uncharacteristically distraught in encounters with two neighbors after leaving the house. Sometime around 3.00 pm he stopped and chatted amiably for a few minutes with neighbor Ruth Absalom, who described him as '[j]ust his normal self, no different to any other time when I have met him.' [HI] Farmer Paul Weaver also saw Kelly walking through farmland that afternoon, as reported by the 20 July Observer. Weaver commented that Kelly 'seemed happy enough' and had smiled at him. [4]

Professor Hawton in his evidence mentioned three possible factors that might have acted as deterrents against Dr Kelly's suicide.

One was faith. Dr Kelly was acknowledged to have been a practicing member of the Baha’i faith, which strongly condemns the act of suicide.

Another was family. He had arranged with his daughter Rachel the night of 16 July to join him at his home the next evening for a walk and to visit a nearby foal. He was also looking forward to his daughter's wedding in October.

A third was the effect of a previous suicide by a family member, which may decrease the likelihood of the survivor choosing a similar course. Dr Kelly has been quoted by Mai Pederson as saying in regard to his mother's suicide, 'Good God no, I couldn’t imagine ever doing that ... I would never do it.' [5]

These mitigating factors, coupled with Professor Hawton's observation that Dr Kelly's 'mood was predominantly reported as being quite upbeat in spite of all his difficulties' with no 'sense of a persistent depressive mood' [HI], and an historical lack of psychiatric problems, contrast sharply with Hawton's depiction of a man suddenly pushed over the edge by additional parliamentary questions and a terminal case of mortification.

Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page confirmed that 'based on early discussions with the inquiry it seemed entirely out of character' for Dr Kelly to have taken his own life. [HI]

Was Kelly's body moved?

Throughout the inquiry it was assumed that the body remained undisturbed until checked for vital signs by the ambulance crew. But there were marked discrepancies in descriptions of body position, particularly whether the body was lying flat or the head and shoulders rested against the tree, and whether the right arm was lying to the side of the body or across the chest.

By all accounts, the first person on the scene was Louise Holmes, a volunteer member of the search team who approached to within a few feet of the body. She stated: 'I could see a body slumped against the bottom of a tree. ... He was at the base of the tree with almost his head and his shoulders just slumped back against the tree. His legs were straight in front of him. His right arm was to the side of him. His left arm had a lot of blood on it and was bent back in a funny position.' [HI]

The second person to view the body was fellow searcher Paul Chapman. From a distance of 15 to 20 metres he saw: 'The body of a gentleman sitting up against a tree... He was sitting with his back up against a tree...' [HI]

Soon after, Detective Constable Graham Coe arrived at the scene. His description was quite different: 'It was laying on its back -- the body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.' [HI] He also reported seeing a knife, watch, and small water bottle near the body. Holmes and Chapman did not mention seeing other objects, nor were they questioned about them at the inquiry.

Lord Hutton chose not to quote Chapman directly in his report but related that, 'Mr Chapman then took one of the police officers, Detective Constable Coe, to show him where the body was. Mr Chapman showed Detective Constable Coe the body lying on its back...' [HR p 86] Hutton later commented, 'I have seen a photograph of Dr Kelly's body in the wood which shows that most of his body was lying on the ground but that his head was slumped against the base of the tree - therefore a witness could say either that the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree.' [HR p 100]

But Chapman twice used the term 'sitting' to denote body position, which is not to be confused with 'lying.' And subsequent witnesses did not use the term 'slumped' at all, nor did they indicate that any part of the body was resting against the tree.

Police Constables Dean Franklin and Martyn Sawyer were next on the scene. PC Franklin described the victim as 'lying on his back with his right hand to his side and his left hand was sort of inverted with the palm facing down (Indicates), facing up on his back.' [HI] PC Sawyer described the body as '[l]ying on its back with its head at the base of a tree, a large tree. The head was tilted to the left. The right arm was by the side. The left arm was palm down.' [HI]

The ambulance crew arrived soon after and waited while police photographs were taken before checking for vital signs. Hunt stated: 'There was a male on his back, feet towards us. On his left arm, which was outstretched to the left of him, there was some dry blood. ... The only part of the body we moved was Dr Kelly's right arm, which was over the chest, to facilitate us to place the fourth lead on to the chest.' [HI] Bartlett stated: 'They led us up to where the body was laid, feet facing us, laid on its back, left arm out to one side (indicates) and the right arm across the chest.' [HI]

It is possible the body was moved for some reason by police. But no one gave evidence to that effect. DC Coe in particular made a point of telling the inquiry he observed the scene but 'did not go over the body.' [HI] As related by Lord Hutton, Coe 'remained about seven or eight feet away from the body and stayed in that position for about 25 or 30 minutes until two other police officers arrived...' [HR p 86]

The position of the head at the time the body was found is significant in relation to what Bartlett described as stains going from the 'corners of the mouth' towards the 'bottom of the ears.' [HI] These were confirmed by pathologist Hunt to be vomit streaks. The direction of the streaks indicate the head would have been lying flat, not slightly raised. If the head was resting against the tree at the time, the streaks would have come forward down the chin. This raises the further possibility that the body was moved after death but prior to discovery by Holmes.

These disparities could possibly be resolved using the digital photographs taken by search team leader PC Sawyer, supposedly before the body and surrounding area were disturbed. It does not appear that searchers Holmes and Chapman or ambulance crew members Hunt and Bartlett were asked to verify whether the photos accurately reflected the position in which they found the body.

Is there reason to suspect foul play?

ACC Page's stated confidence that Dr Kelly 'met his death at his own hand' [HI] derived from the absence of contravening evidence. But as noted by the following items, there were some intimations of outside involvement. It is not apparent that these were seriously explored by the inquiry.

On the morning of the day he went missing, Dr Kelly sent an e-mail message to Judith Miller, a journalist acquaintance with the New York Times, containing the line: 'I will wait until the end of the week before judging - many dark actors playing games.' [HI exhibit COM/1/15]

David Broucher, British ambassador to the disarmament conference, reported to the inquiry a conversation he recalled having with Dr Kelly at a Geneva meeting in February 2003 (the date and location of which are subject to debate). Broucher had asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded, and Kelly had replied, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.'[HI] Professor Hawton dismissed this as 'pure coincidence' and without relevance to Dr Kelly's death. [HI] Others have strangely twisted it to represent a premonition of his impending suicide. Taken at face value, it could as readily be interpreted to mean he was aware of some threat to his safety.

The coproxamol and knife found at the scene are ideal choices for lending the appearance of suicide, especially if one starts out with that conclusion. Both items could easily be associated with the victim and shown to be readily available to him at his home. Of interest here is the comment by a Thames Valley Police spokesman reported in the 18 July Guardian, the day the body was found. 'Responding to questions about whether the dead man had died of gunshot wounds, the spokesman said that Dr Kelly was not a licensed firearms holder.' [6]

ACC Page gave evidence that he had been contacted by a witness who reported seeing three men dressed in dark or black clothing between 8.30 and 9.30 am on 18 July near the site where Dr Kelly's body was found. ACC Page said he was able to satisfy himself by plotting the movements of the approximately 50 officers at the scene that he was 'aware of the identity of these three individuals.' [HI] He declined to elaborate on their purported activities.

ACC Page told the inquiry that Dr Kelly's dentist had reported the following incident. Upon hearing on 18 July of Dr Kelly's death, she had attempted to retrieve his dental records from the filing cabinet and found them missing; two days later they had reappeared in their expected place in the filing cabinet. According to ACC Page, the police had investigated and 'found no trace of anything untoward.' [HI] There was no evidence from the dentist that she believed the records to have been misplaced.

Dr Hunt's post mortem examination noted three minor abrasions to the scalp, a small abrasion on the inner lower lip, a bruise below the left knee, two bruises below the right knee, and two bruises over the left side of the chest. His supposition that these injuries may have been sustained through contact with the undergrowth or by stumbling about in the brush merits further critical analysis.

Who is DC Coe?

According to evidence given at the inquiry, Detective Constable Graham Coe enjoyed some prominence in the police investigation. He initially took charge of the death scene, and by his own account supervised an exhibits officer during a search of the Kelly residence on 19 July. But he was not mentioned by ACC Page in connection with the case, nor did the search adviser or search team leader seem to be aware of his activities. There is also some question as to how he came to be the first police officer on the scene and who accompanied him.

Upon locating the body, searchers Holmes and Chapman notified Abingdon police station by mobile phone and were instructed to return to the car and wait for police officers to arrive. Within a few minutes, while walking back to the car, they encountered three men coming up the track, one of whom identified himself as DC Coe.

Chapman told the inquiry, 'As we were going down the path we met three police officers coming the other way that were from CID. We identified ourselves to them. They were not actually aware that (a) the body had been found or we were out searching this area. They I think had just come out on their own initiative to look at the area.' [HI]

DC Coe told the inquiry he had been called out to Abingdon police station at 6.00 am and instructed to 'make some house to house inquiries in the area where Dr Kelly lived.' After speaking to neighbor Ruth Absalom about her encounter with Dr Kelly the previous afternoon, DC Coe and a colleague, whom he identified as Detective Constable Shields, 'went to the area where she had last seen him and made a sort of search towards the river.' [HI]

But search adviser PC Franklin stated he had believed there were only two volunteers out searching at that time, and he had anticipated that after receiving the call he and search team leader PC Sawyer 'were going to be the first team out on the ground.' He evidenced surprise at having found DC Coe and the 'two uniformed police officers' there, commenting 'I had no idea what he was doing there or why he was there. He was just at the scene when PC Sawyer and I arrived.' [HI]

PC Sawyer stated: 'We continued walking up the hill, where I saw DC Coe and two uniformed officers. ...The three officers -- DC Coe and the two uniformed officers -- stayed on the path which leads through the woods.' [HI]

DC Coe affirmed he had only one companion. But at least four other witnesses contradicted his account, specifically stating (some more than once) that he had been accompanied by two other men. Lord Hutton dismissed these discrepancies by noting that 'entirely honest witnesses often give evidence as to what they saw at the scene which differs as to details.' [HR p 100]

It does not appear that the inquiry attempted to verify who DC Coe was with, why they were at the scene, and whether or not he and his two companions were the three men in dark clothing witnessed earlier that morning near Harrowdown Hill.

What is Operation 'Mason'?

One piece of evidence listed on the Hutton inquiry website was 'TVP Tactical Support Major Incident Policy Book: Operation 'Mason' Between 1430 17.07.03 and 0930 18.07.03, DCI Alan Young.' [HI exhibit TVP/10/0099-0105]

In the course of the inquiry PC Sawyer identified Detective Chief Inspector Alan Young as senior investigating officer for the case. ACC Page stated that upon being notified that Dr Kelly's body had been found, he had appointed an unnamed senior investigating officer to 'carry out the technical issues around the investigation.' [HI] It is assumed that both statements referred to the same individual. But the above exhibit indicates his participation began on the afternoon of the day before.

It does not appear that DCI Young gave evidence at the inquiry. Nor was anyone questioned about the tactical support operation under his command, which appears to have commenced at least half an hour before Dr Kelly left his home -- a full 10 hours before his family reported him missing -- and to have terminated at about the time the body was found.

Has all of the evidence been considered?

Unlike a coroner's inquest, the inquiry lacked the authority to request new evidence or compel witnesses to appear. Testimony was not given under oath, nor was it subject to aggressive cross-examination. Key pathological evidence, especially, was not introduced or queried.

The pathologist failed to include assessment of rigor mortis or to establish an approximate time of death -- he offered a nine-hour window based on a temperature reading taken seven hours after gaining access to the body. And his medical evidence did not substantiate haemorrhage, self-infliction, or coproxamol overdose.

In view of the nature of Dr Kelly's work, it is not unreasonable to suspect he may have been killed by someone familiar with the use of techniques and substances which are difficult to detect. But it is unclear whether the necessary sophisticated and exhaustive toxicological analysis was performed to address such a possibility.

As reported by ACC Page, about 500 people were contacted and 300 statements taken in the course of the police investigation, of which five individuals refused to permit their statements to be forwarded to Lord Hutton. The inquiry heard from about 70 individuals whose evidence the police deemed relevant to the proceedings. Those not heard from included Paul Weaver, Mai Pederson, and Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak.

Farmer Paul Weaver may have been the last person to see Dr Kelly alive. The 19 July Guardian reported that Weaver had seen Dr Kelly in the fields near his home on the afternoon of 17 July, and later that day he and councillor John Melling had searched for Kelly in the area between Southmoor and Longworth. [7]

Mai Pederson, considered a friend and confidante of Dr Kelly's, was interviewed by detectives after his death but declined to give evidence to the inquiry. In a 25 January interview with the Mail on Sunday she claimed to have told police of his aversion to swallowing pills, his feeling about suicide, and his sense that his life might be in danger. [8] Yet ACC Page stated that his conversation with Pederson 'added nothing that was of relevance to my inquiry at all.' [HI]

Gabriella Kraz-Wadsak was identified at the inquiry as an officer in the German army who had worked with Dr Kelly in Iraq and been in contact with him days before his death. In reference to her interview, ACC Page judged it also to be '[n]othing that furthered my inquiries...' [HI]

Conceivably, the missing witness statements and pathology details could shed additional light on Dr Kelly's state of mind or behavior. The coroner has indicated that his review of the case will include evidence not considered by the inquiry.

What really happened?

Lord Hutton was unequivocal in his finding of suicide. With all due respect for his juridical competence, such conviction is not warranted by the evidence offered. The preponderance of circumstantial evidence and the exaggerated political context makes questionable a definitive ruling.

As the pathologist noted, Dr Kelly's death has the appearance of typical self-inflicted injury 'if one ignores all the other features of the case.' [HI]

Throughout the inquiry, Lord Hutton neglected to challenge contradictory evidence or to pursue testimony suggesting an alternative scenario. The most obvious explanation in support of suicide was consistently seized upon with little regard for Dr Kelly's known character and disposition.

Despite the circumstantial evidence, it is doubtful that this particular individual would have chosen such an awkward, messy, and potentially ineffectual method. And notwithstanding expert opinion, it is unlikely that in this specific situation he would have gone to his death without attempting to vindicate himself or to put his affairs in order.

All that has been shown thus far is the circumstance under which Dr Kelly was found dead in the woods. It has not been shown that he went there to kill himself, or that he bled to death from self-inflicted injuries. The inquiry did not reliably establish when or how he died.

Lord Hutton's official version remains unproven, the facts as documented by the inquiry incomplete. A coroner's inquest is needed to render a plausible explanation of events based on rigorous examination of the toxicological and pathological evidence.

It is left to Mr Gardiner, wielding the instruments of subpoena and sworn testimony, to probe more deeply into these questions and uncover the truth about David Kelly's death.

About the author:

RENAN TALIEVA is a freelance writer living in the western US, trained in psychological research, with knowledge of suicidal thought and behaviour. He states: 'I have closely followed the Kelly case from the beginning and find it absolutely incredible that the public and the media accept without question the official story.'

Notes

HI The Hutton Inquiry

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/

HR Lord Brian Hutton, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G., 28 January 2004

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/report/index.htm

1. Danny Kemp, 'Kelly Coroner May Examine Unseen Evidence,' The Scotsman, 29 January 2004

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2468152

2. Jim Rarey, 'The Murder Of David Kelly,' 14 October 2003

http://www.worldnewsstand.net/MediumRare/31.htm

3. 'Our doubts about Dr Kelly's suicide,' The Guardian, 27 January 2004

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1131833,00.html

4. 'A haunted man,' The Observer, 20 July 2003

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1001786,00.html

5. 'Dr Kelly 'did not kill himself',' femail.uk, 26 January 2004

http://www.femail.co.uk/pages/standard/article.html?in_article_id=206680&in_page_id=2

6. Tom Happold, 'Body matches Kelly's description,' The Guardian, 18 July 2003

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1000922,00.html

7. Steven Morris and Hugh Muir, 'Mystery of last, lonely walk,' The Guardian, 19 July 2003

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1001358,00.html

8. Chris Marsden, 'More questions on Dr Kelly’s death as a confidante rejects suicide claim,' World Socialist Web Site, 30 January 2004

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/kell-j30.shtml

Reproduced gratefully from Truthseeker.com

Kelly: 'I'll probably be found dead in the woods'

PA News Reporters -- The Independent 21 August 2003

David Kelly, the government weapons expert, predicted that he would be "found dead in the woods" if Iraq was invaded, months before his apparent suicide, the Hutton Inquiry heard today.

The weapons inspector slashed his wrist in Oxfordshire woodlands after being revealed as the source for BBC claims that the Government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been "sexed up" in the run-up to war.

Foreign Office official David Broucher said Dr Kelly had made what he thought to be the "throwaway" remark in February, when they met in Geneva.

Dr Kelly had expected to remain anonymous after meeting BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, the inquiry had heard earlier.

He had publicly maintained that the Ministry of Defence had been "quite good" when he revealed he had briefed Mr Gilligan. But privately the weapons expert told a trusted contact: "I have been through the wringer."

Dr Kelly told Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford, shortly after hearing from the MoD that he would be named in the next day's papers: "I am a bit shocked, I was told it would all be confidential."

Mr Broucher told the inquiry Dr Kelly had told him that continued inspections "properly carried out would give a degree of certainty about compliance" with UN disarmament demands.

"He said he had tried to reassure them that if they cooperated with the weapons inspections, they had nothing to fear," Mr Broucher said.

"My impression was that he felt he was in some personal difficulty or embarrassment about this because he felt the invasion might go ahead anyway and somehow it was putting him in a morally ambiguous situation."

Mr Broucher, the Foreign Office's ambassador-ranking permanent representative at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, said: "As David Kelly was leaving, I said to him 'what do you think will happen if Iraq is invaded?'.

"His reply was, which at the time I took to be a throwaway remark, he said 'I will probably be found dead in the woods'."

Mr Broucher said he had discussed the dossier with Dr Kelly and told the inquiry that it was part of his job to "sell" the dossier to senior officials at the UN, many of whom found it "unconvincing".

Dr Kelly had defended the dossier, saying there had been a lot of pressure to make it "as robust as possible".

Mr Broucher said he asked Dr Kelly what would happen if the coalition went to war with Iraq. He told the inquiry: "His reply was, which I took at the time to be a throwaway remark, he said 'I will probably be found dead in the woods'."

Mr Broucher added: "I didn't report it at the time to anyone because I didn't attribute any particular significance to it.

"I thought he might have meant that he was at risk of being attacked by the Iraqis in some way."

He heard of the weapons expert's death while he was on leave in Geneva but said he had not immediately realised the circumstances.

The inquiry saw an e-mail sent by Mr Broucher to Patrick Lamb, deputy head of counter-proliferation at the Foreign Office.

"In a conversation in Geneva which took place in late February, he explained to me that he thought that the weapons inspectors could have a good idea what the Iraqis had built and destroyed," it read.

The e-mail said Dr Kelly feared that in the event of an invasion it would have appeared that he had "betrayed his contacts, some of whom might be killed as a direct result of his actions."

The e-mail repeated Dr Kelly's statement that following on from this "he would probably be found dead in the woods.

Reproduced gratefully from Truthseeker.com

Dr David Kelly, Sex Education and the BBC

Rixon Stewart

Sunday August 24, 2003

The British Broadcasting Corporation excels at it. Indeed they are probably without equal in the art. Decades of practise have made them masters at passing off disinformation as ‘news’, and disguising social engineering as entertainment. A prime example occurred earlier this year when the Corporation reported that a panel of "experts" had recommended sex education begin with children as young as five years old.

Accordingly BBC Online asked: “Is giving five-year-olds sex education taking away their innocence? Does education help children talk about sex without embarrassment as they get older? How would you prefer your children to find out?”

On the face of it this appears balanced enough but the BBC omits to say that sex education for such young children might be intended to rob them of their innocence. And, more significantly, it omits to mention that this is exactly what the architects of the New World Order want. It gives them more control over the population, allowing them to implement behavioural modification programs at an ever-younger age. Although do not expect it to be announced like that. Instead it will be introduced as the answer to a problem, such as the growing number of teenage pregnancies in Britain. Accompanied by the opinions of ‘experts’, as always, to help sway the doubtful.

Quite possibly, the decision to start sex education at such a young age has already been made. But just to make sure that we remain under the illusion of ‘freedom’, the media will sponsor public debates on the issue. Because even though it may well have been decided, it’s crucial that the public believe the decision has been arrived at through “expert” consultation and the “democratic process.” That way we are more likely to accept it.

More importantly though, this helps retain the illusion that we live in a “free society” with a “free” and “independent” media. This is critical to the controllers and its power is not so much in what we are told, as in what we are not told.

Thus, for ten years the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media barely mentioned the fact of between six and ten thousand children dying every month in Iraq. Their deaths were the direct result of sanctions on Iraq, imposed and enforced by Britain and America. But because the media chose to ignore the mounting death toll the sanctions remained, ultimately accounting for the deaths of over 700,000 children and setting the scene for the recent invasion.

And in the process, making the BBC and mainstream media in general, complicit in covering up what was essentially genocide.

A more recent example of this came with the death of Dr David Kelly.

Shortly before setting off on a walk, from which he would never return, Dr David Kelly sent an email warning of “dark actors, playing games.” The message referred to officials in the Ministry of Defence and British Intelligence with whom Dr Kelly had clashed over the exact nature of the threat posed by Iraq and its alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The email gave no indication that he was either depressed or contemplating suicide. Although his body was found on a friday morning, he wrote that he was waiting "until the end of the week" before judging how his appearance before the House of Commons select committee had gone.

Another email sent at the same time to an associate said that he was enthusiastic about the prospect of returning to Iraq and determined to overcome the scandal surrounding him.

All of which are hardly the sentiments of a man about to commit suicide. As if to underline this, his wife told the New York Times that her husband had been under enormous stress recently "as we all had been", but at no stage had he indicated that he was contemplating suicide.

However, the mainstream media said nothing other than his death was ‘suspected suicide’. Even after it was revealed at the Hutton inquiry, that in the months before the invasion of Iraq, he said that if it went ahead, he would be “found dead in the woods.”

Today Britain's media is abuzz with reports about Dr David Kelly's death. 'How government ministers had tried to gag him', (The Independent): 'how his family were now pointing the finger of blame at the Ministry of Defence,' (BBC): 'how police had planned to arrest him' (The Sunday Times). All this and more, but not a word about the possibility that his death was anything other than suicide.

In all probability Dr Kelly’s death was not suicide, but don’t expect to hear that from the mainstream media. Its role in the New World Order is to shape and condition public perception. And the blizzard of news reports surrounding the Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death serves as no more than a smokescreen, concealing the possibility that he was in fact murdered.

So it is not so much as what the media say, as what it omits to say that is crucial.

Hence the BBC running an online debate on the issue of sex education, helps maintain the illusion that we live in a society with a free press. And a media whose power lies in the fact that we believe it to be “free” and not what it really is: a control mechanism.

However, the issue of sex education for young children was anticipated long ago. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World children were encouraged to have sex, precisely to rob them of their innocence. And if the controllers have their way the BBC will be broadcasting sex education programs for the very young to assist in exactly that.

Reproduced gratefully from Truthseekers.com

Go To Mysterious Deaths Page I