New Thames Valley Police involvement
Drug expert claims David Kelly was murdered as he could not have taken overdose
By Miles Goslett and Sue Reid
Last updated at 9:34 AM on 13th November 2010
Police have been urged to start a murder inquiry into Dr David Kelly’s death following further allegations that he did not commit suicide.
Officers have been told the government scientist could not have taken an overdose of painkillers.
This overdose was found by the original pathologist to be one of the causes of his death.
Dr Andrew Watt, an experienced clinical pharmacologist, says he has told Thames Valley Police it is not possible Dr Kelly could have swallowed more than a ‘safe’ dose of two coproxamol tablets because there was so little in his system after death.
He said: ‘I reported to the Thames force that I believe that the death of Dr Kelly may have been murder. I have received an acknowledgement and they have given me an incident number.
‘I have been told that the inquiry is being conducted by a very senior officer.’
A second development also casts doubt on the suicide verdict of the Hutton inquiry – which took the place of a formal inquest.
The Mail has established that Dr Kelly left an upbeat answerphone message to his friend Nigel Cox just days before his body was found on July 18, 2003. Dr Kelly said he was looking forward to joining him for a game of cards on July 23.
Mr Cox, who played in the same pub cribbage team as Dr Kelly, was on holiday at the time and only received the message after the scientist’s death.
The message said ‘Hi Nige, I will see you at crib next Wednesday’, said Mr Cox, adding that the tone convinced him his friend was not suicidal.
He contacted Thames Valley Police and suggested they listen to it because he believed it was an important indication of Dr Kelly’s state of mind and showed he had plans for the future. According to Mr Cox, police expressed interest in the message but it was never collected by investigating officers.
Dr Michael Powers QC, representing a group of doctors who have begun legal action to secure a full inquest on Dr Kelly, said: ‘Establishing evidence of intent to commit suicide is essential.
‘It is very surprising Thames Valley Police failed to follow up this important lead. Were there to be a coroner’s inquest this evidence would have to be investigated.’
Last night Thames Valley Police declined to comment on why they did not collect the answerphone message. A spokesman said: ‘There has been a thorough investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly and that investigation has been the subject of a major inquiry by Lord Hutton.’
Police confirmed they had received Dr Watt’s allegation that the scientist was murdered.
‘This will be considered by senior officers at the next meeting we have on David Kelly. We have not yet decided what to do about Dr Watt’s information,’ said a spokesman.
Dr Kelly’s body was found in woods near his Oxfordshire home shortly after he was unmasked as the source of a BBC report claiming the government ‘sexed up’ a dossier on Iraq’s weapons.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve is facing mounting demands for an inquest and has promised to make a decision on this shortly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329272/Drug-expert-claims-David-Kelly-murdered-taken-overdose.html
By Miles Goslett and Sue Reid
Last updated at 9:34 AM on 13th November 2010
Police have been urged to start a murder inquiry into Dr David Kelly’s death following further allegations that he did not commit suicide.
Officers have been told the government scientist could not have taken an overdose of painkillers.
This overdose was found by the original pathologist to be one of the causes of his death.
Dr Andrew Watt, an experienced clinical pharmacologist, says he has told Thames Valley Police it is not possible Dr Kelly could have swallowed more than a ‘safe’ dose of two coproxamol tablets because there was so little in his system after death.
He said: ‘I reported to the Thames force that I believe that the death of Dr Kelly may have been murder. I have received an acknowledgement and they have given me an incident number.
‘I have been told that the inquiry is being conducted by a very senior officer.’
A second development also casts doubt on the suicide verdict of the Hutton inquiry – which took the place of a formal inquest.
The Mail has established that Dr Kelly left an upbeat answerphone message to his friend Nigel Cox just days before his body was found on July 18, 2003. Dr Kelly said he was looking forward to joining him for a game of cards on July 23.
Mr Cox, who played in the same pub cribbage team as Dr Kelly, was on holiday at the time and only received the message after the scientist’s death.
The message said ‘Hi Nige, I will see you at crib next Wednesday’, said Mr Cox, adding that the tone convinced him his friend was not suicidal.
He contacted Thames Valley Police and suggested they listen to it because he believed it was an important indication of Dr Kelly’s state of mind and showed he had plans for the future. According to Mr Cox, police expressed interest in the message but it was never collected by investigating officers.
Dr Michael Powers QC, representing a group of doctors who have begun legal action to secure a full inquest on Dr Kelly, said: ‘Establishing evidence of intent to commit suicide is essential.
‘It is very surprising Thames Valley Police failed to follow up this important lead. Were there to be a coroner’s inquest this evidence would have to be investigated.’
Last night Thames Valley Police declined to comment on why they did not collect the answerphone message. A spokesman said: ‘There has been a thorough investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly and that investigation has been the subject of a major inquiry by Lord Hutton.’
Police confirmed they had received Dr Watt’s allegation that the scientist was murdered.
‘This will be considered by senior officers at the next meeting we have on David Kelly. We have not yet decided what to do about Dr Watt’s information,’ said a spokesman.
Dr Kelly’s body was found in woods near his Oxfordshire home shortly after he was unmasked as the source of a BBC report claiming the government ‘sexed up’ a dossier on Iraq’s weapons.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve is facing mounting demands for an inquest and has promised to make a decision on this shortly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329272/Drug-expert-claims-David-Kelly-murdered-taken-overdose.html
posted by Andrew Simon at 10:57 AM
2 Comments:
Chris Ames reported in the Iraq Inquiry Digest (13/07/10),quoting the Daily Mail...
"The head of the Iraq war inquiry last night cleared the way for a full inquest into the death of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly.
“Sir John Chilcot said the Government scientist’s apparent suicide in July 2003 was ‘not a matter’ for his five-man panel to investigate.”
Chris Ames added his own rider:
"Well, that settles that then."
Do you think the two issues can be separated,Andrew? We don't know why the two subjects - the dossier and the death- were fused together and very swiftly indeed, so we don't know what is being buried by what in the very cleverly crafted yet evasive Hutton Inquiry. Surely the quality of the evidence in the earlier (i.e. leading upto the disappearance of Dr Kelly) part of the Hutton Inquiry was no different from what I perceive to be the case from the later part (the one I have studied) - an ingenious attempt to build up a picture using a mixture of suppressed public evidence and gentle questioning of highly selected witnesses to point to the correct answer, viz suicide?
Will Chilcot at the Iraq Inquiry receive any evidence which will be at variance with the official narrative as told to the Hutton Inquiry? Highly unlikely. Where Hutton subtly suppressed,in my opinion, evidence and witnesses which were not convenient to the narrative, Chilcot will, I suspect, merely bury it under the catch-all of "national security"
You may not think, from your own comments on that web page, that the murder scenario carries much weight(I disagree,but fair enough), so what do you think the damage limitation is about?
The huge question which Chilton will never answer is just why Britain was blackmailed into supporting invasion, with the parallel hunt for evidence to justify it (as was mirrored across the Atlantic)
Finally, the last thing we will ever find is what Dr Kelly and the other UNSCOM inspectors REALLY thought.
The very big secret is just WHY Britain had its arm twisted and couldn't resist. My suspicions are that any Government of any colour would have done the same, and will do so again when "gently requested".
Felix
Felix -
I would suggest that the WMD issues (more so than just the dossier alone) and the death of Dr Kelly cannot be separated. Sure, you can look at either in isolation, but both situations arose because of a relatively new found (post-9/11) perception that somehow Saddam had to be 'dealt with'.
Other UNSCOM/UNMOVIC inspectors (Ritter/Barton/Killip) seem to be of the opinion that Iraq was not a serious threat to anyone in the later stages of the inspection process. They had seen nothing to suggest there were active programmes remaining in Iraq, and rather than locating supposedly existing stocks they were much more concerned with trying to account for that which had already been disposed of. One thing that I think is now evident is that the Americans were of a mindset which would never allow Saddam to be let off the hook. Some suggest that the 2003 action had to take place when it did before the WMD books were finally closed, which in all likelyhood would have come about through the extended Resolution 1284 process. The Resolution 1441 process was separate to this, and if you have followed the Iraq Inquiry you will now realise that this represented a far greater push towards military action, with Saddam trying to be 'caught out' for a material breach when he was facing the near impossibility of proving a series of negatives.
When it comes to Dr Kelly, he has been portrayed as being something of a 'hawk' with regards to Iraq. This is something I question. I think this is the area that gives rise to the possibility of damage limitation. It is evident from the FAC inquiry evidence that Dr Kelly's own views about the Iraq situation were a no-go subject.
What I think has happened is that perhaps Dr Kelly's earlier views have been pushed to the fore here. I think that it likely Dr Kelly came to a later realisation that suggested Iraq was almost entirely WMD free, and that US/UK authorities were not willing to accept this, instead preferring dubious defector (INC/INA) supplied 'intelligence' material rather than opposing UNMOVIC evidence of WMD destruction to support their continuing case.
Further to this, I believe that UNMOVIC personnel came to realise that a false case was being made against Iraq, and they could not get their voices heard to reflect this reality. This is what I believe Dr Kelly's 'dark actors' comment to Judith Miller was all about.
As far as the current (suicide) account is composed, Dr Kelly killed himself because he had been caught out in a relatively minor lie about his contacts with Susan Watts, and was overly concerned about his future. I would suggest that perhaps the reality was that he had later realised that he had been actively used to support and reinforce the Government's own erronious position, and was deeply ashamed that this had lead to war and the destruction of a society when his overall aim in life had been to prevent this from ever happening in the first place.
Where the Chilcot Inquiry is concerned, I think that it has gone out of its way to avoid discussion, criticism and condemnation of the American 'prime driver' efforts to internationally remove Saddam from power. Documents, otherwise already in the pubic domain, are being withheld on the ground of national security. The only reason I can see for this is that it is being done to prevent official blame being attached to the overall American position.
As to whether this can ever happen again, I think that the Iraq experience has taught the world a thing or two. I think the Americans (and to a far lesser extent the British) will not try the same trick with Iran for example, although there are many pro-Israeli influences within the political systems of both countries (which have to be countered) who would wish that this might be the case.
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