Dr. David Kelly's Death Being Investigated - "A Whitewash - Not a Suicide"

I don't know about you, but I'm wondering if they're going to have a special commission to investigate the blessed Tony Blair's part in this travesty. (Hooray! (for the diligent doctors)) (Thusly, consider the latest intelligence on the Cheney assassination squad . . . .) And on this side of the big water, we finally learn (which we always will - eventually) "George W. Bush personally ordered White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card to visit an ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 after Ashcroft’s deputy Jim Comey refused to certify the warrantless surveillance program." Are they sending in the CSI? (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

The death of Government scientist David Kelly returned to haunt Labour today as a group of doctors announced that they were mounting a legal challenge to overturn the finding of suicide. Dr. Kelly's body was found six years ago this week in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the grounds for war in Iraq. Unusually, no coroner's inquest was held into his death. The only official verdict has come from the Hutton Inquiry, commissioned by Tony Blair, which concluded that Dr. Kelly, 59, died from loss of blood after cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife. Critics regarded the report as a 'whitewash', and Mr Blair remains acutely sensitive to the accusation that he has 'blood on his hands' over the scientist's death.

But now a team of 13 specialist doctors has compiled a detailed medical dossier that rejects the Hutton conclusion on the grounds that a cut to the ulnar artery, which is small and difficult to access, could not have caused death.

It will be used by their lawyers to demand a formal inquest and the release of Dr. Kelly's autopsy report, which has never been published. It will also be sent to Sir John Chilcot's forthcoming inquiry into the Iraq War.

The 12-page opinion, a copy of which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday, concludes: 'The bleeding from Dr. Kelly's ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death.

'We advise the instructing solicitors to obtain the autopsy reports so that the concerns of a group of properly interested medical specialists can be answered.'

The doctors do not say how, or why, they believe Dr. Kelly did die but they have worked closely with campaigning Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who believes that the scientist was murdered by enemies he made in the course of his work as a weapons inspector.

And two of the doctors have added to the sense of persistent intrigue surrounding Dr. Kelly by claiming that thousands of emails relating to the case had 'vanished' from their computers, in what one claimed was an act of 'state-sponsored sabotage'.

A coroner's inquest into Dr. Kelly's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as 'fulfilling the function of an inquest', but as a judicial investigation it had no power to make witnesses give evidence under oath.

After taking evidence from - but not cross-examining - Dr. Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination, Lord Hutton concluded that 'the principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to the left wrist' combined with the consumption of painkillers and 'silent coronary artery disease'. The doctors also say that the level of the painkiller co-proxamol in Dr. Kelly's blood was about one third of that required to produce death and point to Dr. Hunt's comments at the end of giving evidence to Lord Hutton.

Asked if there was anything further he would like to say on the circumstances leading to Dr. Kelly's death, he said: 'Nothing I could say as a pathologist, no.'

After the report was published, Dr. Hunt added to the doctors' suspicions by telling Channel 4 that he thought a full coroner's inquest should be held.

The doctors have hired solicitor Martin Day, of Leigh Day and Co, and received advice from barrister Richard Hermer, QC, both of whom have a strong track record in civil liberties actions, including winning nearly £3million in compensation from the British Government for the family of Iraqi Baha Mousa, who died while being detained by UK troops.

They intend to use the Coroners Act to challenge Lord Falconer's suspension of the inquest.

One of the doctors, David Halpin, told The Mail on Sunday that they had argued their case in the legal document in 'microscopic' detail.

He said: 'We reject haemorrhage as the cause of death and see no contrary opinion which would stand its ground. I think it is highly likely he was assassinated.'

Mr. Baker said: 'The fact that eminent medical experts feel so strongly that the official explanation for Dr. Kelly's death cannot be sustained and are now taking legal action against the Government to secure a proper inquest demonstrates both how suspect Lord Hutton's conclusions were and how this dark chapter cannot be closed unless Sir John Chilcott's inquiry into the Iraq war addresses this issue.

'A proper inquest into Dr. Kelly's death must take place.'

Among the doctors is Christopher Burns-Cox, 71, the former senior consultant physician for the Frenchay Healthcare Trust, Bristol, and current co-chairman of the NHS consultants' association.

Read much more here.

Suzan _____________________