http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/blair-roommate-iraq-whistleblower/
Tony Blair’s ex-roommate shut down inquest into death of David Kelly: report
Daniel Tencer
Monday, December 13th, 2010
UK may reopen inquest into death of Iraq whistleblower
Britain's attorney general may finally allow a full inquest into the death of David Kelly, a weapons inspector who died under suspicious circumstances shortly after being identified as the source of a leak that embarrassed the British government ahead of the invasion of Iraq.
A probe carried out shortly after Kelly's death -- known as the Hutton inquiry -- was made secret by the British government. Earlier this year, the new coalition government unsealed those records, showing that the inquiry had concluded Kelly's death was a suicide.
But doubts have persisted. In September, a group of medical practitioners sent a letter to Attorney General Dominic Grieve, calling for a full inquiry to be held.
That letter, published by the Daily Mail on Monday, argues that the Hutton inquiry was shut down prematurely -- less than two weeks after the investigation was called -- and was done so on the orders of Charles Falconer, at the time Britain's Lord Chancellor, the Cabinet secretary responsible for the courts.
As the Daily Mail notes, Falconer was once a roommate of Tony Blair, the British prime minister whose push to launch the war in Iraq was dealt a public blow when Kelly told the BBC that Blair's government had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
Falconer replaced the standard inquest with a "non-statutory examination of the circumstances leading to Dr Kelly's death," the Mail reports. "As a result no witness, including Tony Blair and his press secretary Alastair Campbell, swore an oath or was cross-examined."
"The Coroner refused to resume the inquest and rejected relevant evidence following the findings of the Hutton inquiry despite representations made and evidence submitted to him as the exceptional reasons why an inquest should in fact be held," the doctors' letter states.
NO FINGERPRINTS ON TOOLS ALLEGEDLY USED FOR SUICIDE
Among the irregularities the medical professionals cite is the lack of fingerprints on the bottle of pills that Kelly reportedly ingested before he was found dead in the woods near his home on July 18, 2003. Nor were fingerprints found on a knife and water bottle near Kelly's body, even though the knife was supposedly used to open Kelly's wrists.
Contradictory claims abound about the presence of blood at the scene. In August, the detective who found Kelly's body said there "wasn't much blood about." That would contradict the conclusion that Kelly had died by slitting his wrists, which usually results in large amounts of blood spilling. The doctors' group said it was "extremely unlikely" that Kelly had died by his own hand.
"Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life," they said. "Absent a quantitative assessment of the blood lost and of the blood remaining in the great vessels, the conclusion that death occurred as a consequence of hemorrhage is unsafe."
But the report released by the government in September stated that there was "heavy bloodstaining over [Kelly's] left arm" and a two- or three-foot long blood puddle next to him.
Last month, the Mail reported that a drug expert told investigators that he believed that Kelly was murdered and a pill overdose was not the cause of his death, even though that was cited as being among the causes of death.
"I reported to the Thames force that I believe that the death of Dr Kelly may have been murder," the expert reportedly said.
The Mail reports that Attorney General Grieve has hired a medical assistant to help him sift through the doctors' report. The paper says he will soon make a decision on whether the report justifies opening a full inquest into Kelly's death.
-- With earlier reporting by Stephen C. Webster
Showing posts with label David Kelly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Kelly. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Drug expert told police Iraq whistleblower David Kelly was ‘murdered’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/drug-expert-told-police-iraq-whistleblower-david-kelly-murdered/
Drug expert told police Iraq whistleblower David Kelly was ‘murdered’
Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, November 13th, 2010
The death of Dr. David Kelly, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, was "murder" and not suicide, according to a drug expert who spoke with British authorities during the ensuing investigation.
Dr. Andrew Watt, quoted prominently in the Saturday edition of Britain's Mail Online, is attributed as "an experienced clinical pharmacologist" who reportedly spoke to authorities after Dr. Kelly's death and assurred them it was not due in part to an overdose, which was later cited as one of the causes.
"I reported to the Thames force that I believe that the death of Dr Kelly may have been murder," he reportedly said. "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."
Dr. David Kelly was found dead in a field near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003, shortly after he was revealed to be the source of a BBC leak that accused Tony Blair's government of exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. His death prompted suspicions among many that he may have been killed in retaliation for the leak.
Kelly himself had predicted he would be "found dead in the woods" if the UK invaded Iraq.
However, the Mail's report also notes that Kelly placed a phone call to a friend days before his alleged suicide, but the message he left was not examined by investigators. In it, he allegedly sounded upbeat, telling his friend that he'd see him on Wednesday night for a game of pub cribbage.
He was officially ruled to have bled to death from a wound on his left wrist, aided by an overdose of coproxamol tablets and undiagnosed coronary artery disease.
Last year, a team of 13 doctors challenged the finding, insisting that he could not have bled to death from a wound of that size. This was apparently confirmed in August, when the detective who found Kelly's body revealed that there "wasn't much blood about" the scene. The doctors added that the amount of painkiller in his system was not nearly enough to kill him.
There is also controversy over whether Kelly's body was moved to a different location after it was discovered. A paramedic who was at the scene said last month that the body had "obviously" been moved, which would have explained why there was so little blood at the scene, as at least two witnesses claim.
"I’ve seen more blood at a nosebleed than I saw there," the paramedic said.
"I think it is highly likely he was assassinated," remarked one of the doctors who penned the challenge, speaking to The Telegraph.
With additional reporting by Daniel Tencer.
Drug expert told police Iraq whistleblower David Kelly was ‘murdered’
Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, November 13th, 2010
The death of Dr. David Kelly, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, was "murder" and not suicide, according to a drug expert who spoke with British authorities during the ensuing investigation.
Dr. Andrew Watt, quoted prominently in the Saturday edition of Britain's Mail Online, is attributed as "an experienced clinical pharmacologist" who reportedly spoke to authorities after Dr. Kelly's death and assurred them it was not due in part to an overdose, which was later cited as one of the causes.
"I reported to the Thames force that I believe that the death of Dr Kelly may have been murder," he reportedly said. "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."
Dr. David Kelly was found dead in a field near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003, shortly after he was revealed to be the source of a BBC leak that accused Tony Blair's government of exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. His death prompted suspicions among many that he may have been killed in retaliation for the leak.
Kelly himself had predicted he would be "found dead in the woods" if the UK invaded Iraq.
However, the Mail's report also notes that Kelly placed a phone call to a friend days before his alleged suicide, but the message he left was not examined by investigators. In it, he allegedly sounded upbeat, telling his friend that he'd see him on Wednesday night for a game of pub cribbage.
He was officially ruled to have bled to death from a wound on his left wrist, aided by an overdose of coproxamol tablets and undiagnosed coronary artery disease.
Last year, a team of 13 doctors challenged the finding, insisting that he could not have bled to death from a wound of that size. This was apparently confirmed in August, when the detective who found Kelly's body revealed that there "wasn't much blood about" the scene. The doctors added that the amount of painkiller in his system was not nearly enough to kill him.
There is also controversy over whether Kelly's body was moved to a different location after it was discovered. A paramedic who was at the scene said last month that the body had "obviously" been moved, which would have explained why there was so little blood at the scene, as at least two witnesses claim.
"I’ve seen more blood at a nosebleed than I saw there," the paramedic said.
"I think it is highly likely he was assassinated," remarked one of the doctors who penned the challenge, speaking to The Telegraph.
With additional reporting by Daniel Tencer.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Dr Kelly 'couldn't have slit his wrist as he was too weak'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291019/Dr-Kelly-slit-wrist-weak.html
Dr Kelly 'couldn't have slit his wrist as he was too weak'
Miles Goslett
1st July 2010
Dramatic new testimony has heaped pressure on ministers to reopen the investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly.
A female colleague claims that the UN weapons inspector could not have committed suicide as claimed, as he was too weak to cut his own wrist.
Mai Pedersen, a U.S. Air Force officer who served with Dr Kelly's inspection team in Iraq, said a hand and arm injury meant that the 59-year-old even 'had difficulty cutting his own steak'.
Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his home in 2003 after the Government exposed him as the source of a BBC report questioning Tony Blair's government's case for war in Iraq.
In a letter to the new Attorney General Dominic Grieve through her lawyers, Miss Pedersen also said Dr Kelly had difficulty swallowing pills, casting serious doubt on the Hutton Inquiry conclusion that he swallowed 29 painkillers before slitting his left wrist.
Campaigners hope her extraordinary intervention will convince ministers of the need for a new investigation. Mr Grieve has already indicated that he believes the case could merit a further inquiry.
Had she testified at the Hutton Inquiry, Miss Pedersen would have revealed that in the months leading up to his death Dr Kelly was unable to use his right hand for basic tasks requiring any strength such as slicing food because of a painful elbow injury.
Miss Pedersen says he would therefore have had to be a 'contortionist' to have killed himself by slashing his left wrist, as Lord Hutton concluded in 2004.
She called for a 'formal, independent, and complete' review of the case at the earliest opportunity, saying it was the only way to achieve 'closure'.
The letter said the absence of a full coroner's inquest into Dr Kelly's death and 'perpetual secrecy' meant it was ' crying out' for further scrutiny.
Dr Kelly, who worked for both the UN and later the Ministry of Defence, was found dead seven years ago next month in an Oxfordshire wood.
He was said to be deeply upset after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC news report questioning Britain's grounds for going to war in Iraq.
The report, by journalist Andrew Gilligan, stated that Tony Blair's press spokesman Alastair Campbell had 'sexed up' the case for war for political reasons.
But, unusually for a death of this nature, no full coroner's inquest has ever been held. Instead, Tony Blair appointed retired judge Lord Hutton to chair a non-statutory public inquiry into the circumstances leading to his body being discovered.
Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly died by haemorrhage after slashing his left wrist but, as the Mail reported last week, his death certificate was officially registered before the Hutton Inquiry ended and it was not properly completed.
It was not signed by a doctor or coroner and does not state a place of death, as all death certificates should if this information can be established. This leaves open the possibility that he died somewhere other than where his body was found.
To further deepen the mystery, all evidence relating to the post-mortem has been classified for an incredible 70 years.
Miss Pedersen's view is significant because she knew Dr Kelly so well, both personally and professionally.
The pair worked together in Iraq in the 1990s and remained close friends until his death, although Miss Pedersen, 50, has always that she and Dr Kelly were not romantically involved.
She was initially asked to give evidence to the Hutton Inquiry in 2003 and agreed to do so, but was not called. This was because, it is claimed, the inquiry would not allow her to testify in private.
Her letter to Mr Grieve, dated June 10, states: 'We understand you have indicated a willingness to consider possibly reopening the investigation into the continuing controversy into the death of Dr Kelly.
'Given the absence of any coroner's inquest and the perpetual secrecy surrounding the post-mortem examination, it is painfully obvious that this matter continues to cry out for a formal, independent and complete review. Ms Pedersen fully supports and adds her voice to such an effort.
'The passage of time [does] not diminish either the public's interest or the government's responsibility to ascertain the full truth, whatever that might be.'
The Hutton Report failed to allay suspicions of foul play in Dr Kelly's death. On the morning of July 17, Dr Kelly mysteriously told a friend by email that there were 'many dark actors playing games'.
In 2007 it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the pruning knife he is said to have used to cut his wrist had no fingerprints on it.
Dr Kelly 'couldn't have slit his wrist as he was too weak'
Miles Goslett
1st July 2010
Dramatic new testimony has heaped pressure on ministers to reopen the investigation into the death of Dr David Kelly.
A female colleague claims that the UN weapons inspector could not have committed suicide as claimed, as he was too weak to cut his own wrist.
Mai Pedersen, a U.S. Air Force officer who served with Dr Kelly's inspection team in Iraq, said a hand and arm injury meant that the 59-year-old even 'had difficulty cutting his own steak'.
Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his home in 2003 after the Government exposed him as the source of a BBC report questioning Tony Blair's government's case for war in Iraq.
In a letter to the new Attorney General Dominic Grieve through her lawyers, Miss Pedersen also said Dr Kelly had difficulty swallowing pills, casting serious doubt on the Hutton Inquiry conclusion that he swallowed 29 painkillers before slitting his left wrist.
Campaigners hope her extraordinary intervention will convince ministers of the need for a new investigation. Mr Grieve has already indicated that he believes the case could merit a further inquiry.
Had she testified at the Hutton Inquiry, Miss Pedersen would have revealed that in the months leading up to his death Dr Kelly was unable to use his right hand for basic tasks requiring any strength such as slicing food because of a painful elbow injury.
Miss Pedersen says he would therefore have had to be a 'contortionist' to have killed himself by slashing his left wrist, as Lord Hutton concluded in 2004.
She called for a 'formal, independent, and complete' review of the case at the earliest opportunity, saying it was the only way to achieve 'closure'.
The letter said the absence of a full coroner's inquest into Dr Kelly's death and 'perpetual secrecy' meant it was ' crying out' for further scrutiny.
Dr Kelly, who worked for both the UN and later the Ministry of Defence, was found dead seven years ago next month in an Oxfordshire wood.
He was said to be deeply upset after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC news report questioning Britain's grounds for going to war in Iraq.
The report, by journalist Andrew Gilligan, stated that Tony Blair's press spokesman Alastair Campbell had 'sexed up' the case for war for political reasons.
But, unusually for a death of this nature, no full coroner's inquest has ever been held. Instead, Tony Blair appointed retired judge Lord Hutton to chair a non-statutory public inquiry into the circumstances leading to his body being discovered.
Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly died by haemorrhage after slashing his left wrist but, as the Mail reported last week, his death certificate was officially registered before the Hutton Inquiry ended and it was not properly completed.
It was not signed by a doctor or coroner and does not state a place of death, as all death certificates should if this information can be established. This leaves open the possibility that he died somewhere other than where his body was found.
To further deepen the mystery, all evidence relating to the post-mortem has been classified for an incredible 70 years.
Miss Pedersen's view is significant because she knew Dr Kelly so well, both personally and professionally.
The pair worked together in Iraq in the 1990s and remained close friends until his death, although Miss Pedersen, 50, has always that she and Dr Kelly were not romantically involved.
She was initially asked to give evidence to the Hutton Inquiry in 2003 and agreed to do so, but was not called. This was because, it is claimed, the inquiry would not allow her to testify in private.
Her letter to Mr Grieve, dated June 10, states: 'We understand you have indicated a willingness to consider possibly reopening the investigation into the continuing controversy into the death of Dr Kelly.
'Given the absence of any coroner's inquest and the perpetual secrecy surrounding the post-mortem examination, it is painfully obvious that this matter continues to cry out for a formal, independent and complete review. Ms Pedersen fully supports and adds her voice to such an effort.
'The passage of time [does] not diminish either the public's interest or the government's responsibility to ascertain the full truth, whatever that might be.'
The Hutton Report failed to allay suspicions of foul play in Dr Kelly's death. On the morning of July 17, Dr Kelly mysteriously told a friend by email that there were 'many dark actors playing games'.
In 2007 it was discovered, through a Freedom of Information request, that the pruning knife he is said to have used to cut his wrist had no fingerprints on it.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Details of Iraq alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years
http://rawstory.com/2010/01/details-iraq-whistleblowers-alleged-suicide-sealed-70-years/
Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years
By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
By 2080, anyone with a direct interest in learning how Dr. David Kelly died, will themselves be dead.
That's how an Oxford coroner reacted to a recent ruling ordering the details of the former United Nations weapons inspector's death locked away for 70 years.
Kelly's story, however, was gravely important in 2003, just before he was found dead in the woods behind his home in Oxfordshire, U.K. As the BBC revealed in the wake of his passing, he had been the key source behind a story claiming intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was "sexed up."
Hours before his death, he reportedly e-mailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, warning her of "many dark actors playing games," according to the BBC.
Lord Hutton, the British judge who led the state's investigation into Kelly's death, also ordered his written records pertaining to the case sealed for 30 years, according to UK's Morning Star Online.
The report added that Hutton's inquiry "concluded that Dr Kelly had killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist. But the finding has been challenged by doctors who claim that the weapons inspector's stated injuries were not serious enough to have killed him."
A paramedic who responded to the scene was quoted by The Guardian, saying: "There just wasn't a lot of blood... When somebody cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere. I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw."
The claims eventually led a group of six doctors to bring formal demands for an investigation into Kelly's death. An initial inquiry was headed up by the British Ministry of Defense.
"[Just] how far were the Blair/Bush administrations willing to go in order to fabricate a reason for the Iraq war?" asked RAW STORY's Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna in a post to her blog, At Largely. "The Bush administration was at the very least willing to out a covert CIA officer, committing treason in the process. What was Tony Blair willing to do?"
Sadly, with the court's inquiry ended, the questions seem doomed to persist.
Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years
By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
By 2080, anyone with a direct interest in learning how Dr. David Kelly died, will themselves be dead.
That's how an Oxford coroner reacted to a recent ruling ordering the details of the former United Nations weapons inspector's death locked away for 70 years.
Kelly's story, however, was gravely important in 2003, just before he was found dead in the woods behind his home in Oxfordshire, U.K. As the BBC revealed in the wake of his passing, he had been the key source behind a story claiming intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was "sexed up."
Hours before his death, he reportedly e-mailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, warning her of "many dark actors playing games," according to the BBC.
Lord Hutton, the British judge who led the state's investigation into Kelly's death, also ordered his written records pertaining to the case sealed for 30 years, according to UK's Morning Star Online.
The report added that Hutton's inquiry "concluded that Dr Kelly had killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist. But the finding has been challenged by doctors who claim that the weapons inspector's stated injuries were not serious enough to have killed him."
A paramedic who responded to the scene was quoted by The Guardian, saying: "There just wasn't a lot of blood... When somebody cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere. I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw."
The claims eventually led a group of six doctors to bring formal demands for an investigation into Kelly's death. An initial inquiry was headed up by the British Ministry of Defense.
"[Just] how far were the Blair/Bush administrations willing to go in order to fabricate a reason for the Iraq war?" asked RAW STORY's Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna in a post to her blog, At Largely. "The Bush administration was at the very least willing to out a covert CIA officer, committing treason in the process. What was Tony Blair willing to do?"
Sadly, with the court's inquiry ended, the questions seem doomed to persist.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Weapons inspector found dead was writing expose
Thanks to Robert Larson for the following...
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/06/uk-weapons-inspector-dead-expose/
UK weapons inspector who was found dead was writing expose: paper
By John Byrne
July 6, 2009
British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.
Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.
The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.
“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.
Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.
According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion… and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
‘Anthrax War’
‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.
“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.
“Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins,” the CBC continues. “The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.”
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/06/uk-weapons-inspector-dead-expose/
UK weapons inspector who was found dead was writing expose: paper
By John Byrne
July 6, 2009
British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.
Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.
The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.
“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.
Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.
According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion… and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
‘Anthrax War’
‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.
“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.
“Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins,” the CBC continues. “The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.”
Thursday, September 4, 2008
David Kelly's closest female confidante
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1050919/David-Kellys-closest-female-confidante-COULDNT-killed-himself.html
David Kelly's closest female confidante on why he COULDN'T have killed himself
By Sharon Churcher
31st August 2008
A female confidante of Dr David Kelly raised disturbing new questions last night over how the Ministry of Defence weapons inspector was able to kill himself.
After his body was discovered in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, a Government inquiry led by Lord Hutton ruled that he committed suicide by slashing his left wrist with a knife and taking an overdose of co-proxamol, a painkiller commonly used for arthritis.
He was said to be anguished about being named as the source of a BBC report, which alleged that Tony Blair ‘sexed up’ a dossier justifying the invasion of Iraq.
But five years after his death at 59, his close friend, American military linguist Mai Pederson, has come forward to dispute this account.
The Hutton inquiry heard that he died after making several cuts to his left wrist, which severed the ulnar artery, buried deep in the tissue on the side of the hand nearest the little finger.
An earlier coroner’s inquest was halted when the Government used an obscure law to turn the investigation over to Lord Hutton. His inquiry concluded that ‘there was no involvement by a third party’ in the scientist’s death, which was said to be caused primarily by the cut artery and hastened by the painkillers.
Ms Pederson, a US Air Force officer, met Dr Kelly when she was assigned to work in 1998 as a translator for the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq.
And she revealed in an interview with The Mail on Sunday that, in the months leading to his death, the right-handed scientist was unable to use his right hand for tasks requiring strength because of a painful injury to his right elbow.
According to Ms Pederson, when she dined with Dr Kelly at a Washington restaurant in the spring of 2003, the hand’s grip was so weak that he struggled to get a knife through a steak he had ordered.
The linguist, who counselled Dr Kelly during his conversion to the Baha’i religious faith that she follows, says he had begun to favour his left hand for even relatively minor tasks, a tendency she observed on numerous other occasions.
‘David would have had to have been a contortionist to kill himself the way they claim,’ she said.
‘I don’t know whether he was born right-handed but by the time I first met him he favoured his left hand for any task that required strength, like opening a door or carrying his briefcase.
‘When he embraced friends at the beginning and end of Baha’i meetings, it was his left arm that you felt hugging you and you could tell his right arm hurt him because he rubbed the elbow a lot.
‘I didn’t want to pry but he finally told me the reason in the spring of 2003. It was the last time I saw him before he died. He was visiting America on business and we went out to dinner.
‘He ordered steak and he was holding his knife very oddly in the palm of his right hand, with his wrist crooked, trying to cut the meat.
‘He told me that some time ago he had broken his right elbow and it was never fixed properly, so he had real problems with it. It was painful and it never regained its strength.
'I just don’t see how he could have used his right hand to cut through the nerves and tendons of his left wrist - especially as the knife he supposedly used had a dull blade.’
Ms Pederson said she believed she was familiar with the knife Dr Kelly is said to have used.
‘He always wore a Barbour jacket and he kept a knife in his pocket,’ she said. ‘It had a folding blade and I remember him telling me he couldn’t sharpen it because his right hand didn’t have the strength to hold a sharpener.
‘It would have taken him a long time to reach the artery that was severed and it would have been very painful.
‘As a scientist, David had no need to kill himself that way. I don’t understand why the British Government isn’t thoroughly investigating this. Logically, he cannot have committed suicide.’
Ms Pederson, 48, whose military duties have included intelligence assignments, has avoided the spotlight since Dr Kelly’s death. But she says she is perturbed by mounting evidence that he may have been murdered.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that after his disappearance, a heat-seeking search helicopter flew over the exact spot where his corpse was later discovered. Yet the thermal-imaging equipment picked up no sign of a body – which some experts say suggests he was killed elsewhere.
Moreover, a group of doctors, surgeons and anaesthetists has called for a new inquiry into his death, contending that a cut to the ulnar artery would not cause catastrophic bleeding. Little blood was found at the scene.
They also maintain that the 29 or so painkillers Dr Kelly supposedly swallowed were only one-third of the dosage normally considered as lethal.
Even more mysteriously, there were no fingerprints on the knife he allegedly wielded nor on the bottle from which he supposedly drank water to wash down the tablets.
But perhaps most key is the information that Ms Pederson provided to Thames Valley Police, who were assisting the Hutton inquiry.
When officers flew to meet her in America in August 2003, she says she told them during two days of interviews that she was baffled about how Dr Kelly could have killed himself.
‘The facts just don’t add up,’ said Ms Pederson. ‘The more I have heard about this, the more I have thought about the significance of his weak right hand. I told the police about it when they interviewed me. I said, “How could David have cut his left wrist using a dull knife with his weak right hand?”
‘They said, “It wasn’t a straight cut. It was jagged.”
‘When I heard nothing more about it, I assumed they had come to an informed decision - that it was suicide. But now, knowing all that we do, I feel it is time for a disinterested public inquiry.'
Ms Pederson has been one of the more elusive figures in the mystery of Dr Kelly’s death. There have been rumours that she might have been romantically involved with the married scientist.
However, the vivacious brunette strongly denied this in a previous interview with The Mail on Sunday, pointing out that both her religion and military rules prohibit adultery.
Ms Pederson, who is fluent in Arabic, German and French, met Dr Kelly when she was seconded to the UN team in Iraq as a translator. In the tense atmosphere, she developed a close bond with him. They had long conversations about her devout beliefs in the ecumenical teachings of the Baha’i faith, to which he converted a year later.
She recalled: ‘He was like my big brother. I was the only linguist on the team and I would work until 11 or 11.30 at night and then go for a walk to get rid of the stress and the pressure. Other team members would walk with me but eventually it was mostly David because of his British passion for his daily constitutional.
‘The only time it was safe to talk about anything important was when we were walking. At our hotel, the Iraqis monitored us. The only place to change our underwear and not be filmed by their surveillance equipment was behind the shower curtains in our rooms.
‘The desk clerk at the hotel constantly called me, saying he was enamoured by me. I later discovered he was a lieutenant in the Iraqi military and I think it was a clumsy effort to elicit information from me.
‘One night, a group of us were out walking and suddenly a red laser shone out. It went from David’s heart to his head and it pretty much stayed on the middle of his forehead.
‘The inspectors said it happened all the time. The idea was to intimidate David, showing they could pick him out as a target even in the dark.’
Enraged, Ms Pederson insisted that the Russian inspector heading the team complain to General Amer Al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein’s British-educated weapons adviser.
'The general said it was children playing,’ she said derisively. ‘The other thing that bothered me was that key people on the team were constantly getting sick.
‘The symptoms were very similar to anthrax. We joked that they were poisoning us so we couldn’t finish our job. David pretty much lived on Vegemite and bread.’
After Ms Pederson returned to America, she was stationed at the Defence Language Institute in California. It has been described as a spy school but she says she worked as a personnel officer. The US Air Force often sent her on assignments that required a linguist, which she is not permitted to discuss.
She met Dr Kelly again after she was transferred to the Pentagon. ‘It was October 2002 and he was visiting Washington,’ she said. ‘He told me that the Iraqis had drawn up a hit list of people to be killed.
‘He said, “I am number three and you also are on it.” At the time, it didn’t really bother either of us. We understood there was a danger because of our jobs.
‘He also told me that if we invaded Iraq, he would be found dead in the woods. He loved to walk in the woods near his home. But he knew that walking alone made him vulnerable. The Iraqis wanted him dead.’
In May 2003, journalist Andrew Gilligan reported on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a source had disclosed that the Blair administration had ‘sexed up’ the dossier, accusing Saddam of harbouring weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kelly was subsequently named as the source and the Hutton inquiry concluded that this plunged him into depression
Ms Pederson concedes that he was ‘upset’ by the episode but says that he brushed it off, insisting he had been misquoted.
And far from being opposed to the Government’s dossier, she says he was convinced that Saddam lied when he told the UN that he was no longer developing WMDs.
She said: ‘David believed the Iraqis were not being forthcoming during our inspections about their potential for making weapons. If they weren’t up to anything, why did we have to be accompanied by minders? And why were people scared to talk to us?
‘David’s position on the invasion was that it was regrettable but necessary because UN sanctions had failed. He said he was misquoted and his words were twisted and taken out of context.
‘He wasn’t depressed. He was upset. I have taken courses on suicide prevention and he exhibited none of the signs.
‘He was planning for his retirement. He wanted to make more money to provide for his family and he’d had job offers in the States as well as Europe. Also, he was excited that one of his daughters was getting married. He said, “The controversy will blow over.” ’
Ms Pederson claims that at the time of his death, Dr Kelly was looking forward to returning to Iraq. ‘Had he been alive, he finally would have been free to look for evidence of WMDs,’ she said. ‘If anyone could have found them, it would have been David.
‘I am not saying that the Iraqis killed him. But that is one possibility that should be investigated. All the facts suggest that David did not kill himself. It is against our Baha’i faith.
‘But for David there were also personal reasons - he believed his mother’s death was suicide. Research shows that suicide runs in families and I asked him if he would ever do that. I said, “Hypothetically, if you are ever at your wit’s end, promise me that you will seek help.”
‘He said, “I don’t see the relevance. I would never take any life, let alone my own.” He finally did say that if he was ever desperate, he would get help. That’s important because he was a man of his word. He could never hurt his wife and daughters the way that he was hurt by his mother’s death.’
Ms Pederson’s Washington DC lawyer, Mark Zaid, has made available to The Mail on Sunday parts of her final statement to Thames Valley Police, given on September 1, 2003.
Its ten pages would appear critical, since they describe Iraqi death threats and the incident with the laser. She also stated that she was bewildered about how Dr Kelly could have taken an overdose, as he suffered from a disorder that made it difficult for him to swallow pills.
‘I was so confused when I heard he had swallowed a load of painkillers,’ she told the officers.
She also emphasised in the statement that he suffered from pain and problems ‘grabbing things with his right hand, which he attributed to breaking his elbow’.
Police have implied that she did not give them permission to give her statement to the Hutton inquiry. But in fact she stipulated: ‘If specific information [in the statement] is deemed relevant to the coroner’s inquiry into the death of David Kelly, I am willing for Thames Valley to reveal the information in a non-attributable way.’
However, her statement was never given to the inquiry. The then Assistant Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Michael Page, testified that it ‘contained nothing of relevance’.
After the inquiry, Ms Pederson started to get death threats. ‘Some were from nuts,’ she said. But others, she believes, may have been related to her sensitive work with Dr Kelly in Iraq. And she spoke on condition that we do not reveal her whereabouts.
‘I can’t say for sure that David was murdered,’ she said. ‘But his life had been threatened because he strived to do what was best for humanity.
‘He deserved more from his country than an investigation that overlooked the fact that his right hand was so weak that he had problems cutting a piece of steak.’
David Kelly's closest female confidante on why he COULDN'T have killed himself
By Sharon Churcher
31st August 2008
A female confidante of Dr David Kelly raised disturbing new questions last night over how the Ministry of Defence weapons inspector was able to kill himself.
After his body was discovered in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, a Government inquiry led by Lord Hutton ruled that he committed suicide by slashing his left wrist with a knife and taking an overdose of co-proxamol, a painkiller commonly used for arthritis.
He was said to be anguished about being named as the source of a BBC report, which alleged that Tony Blair ‘sexed up’ a dossier justifying the invasion of Iraq.
But five years after his death at 59, his close friend, American military linguist Mai Pederson, has come forward to dispute this account.
The Hutton inquiry heard that he died after making several cuts to his left wrist, which severed the ulnar artery, buried deep in the tissue on the side of the hand nearest the little finger.
An earlier coroner’s inquest was halted when the Government used an obscure law to turn the investigation over to Lord Hutton. His inquiry concluded that ‘there was no involvement by a third party’ in the scientist’s death, which was said to be caused primarily by the cut artery and hastened by the painkillers.
Ms Pederson, a US Air Force officer, met Dr Kelly when she was assigned to work in 1998 as a translator for the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq.
And she revealed in an interview with The Mail on Sunday that, in the months leading to his death, the right-handed scientist was unable to use his right hand for tasks requiring strength because of a painful injury to his right elbow.
According to Ms Pederson, when she dined with Dr Kelly at a Washington restaurant in the spring of 2003, the hand’s grip was so weak that he struggled to get a knife through a steak he had ordered.
The linguist, who counselled Dr Kelly during his conversion to the Baha’i religious faith that she follows, says he had begun to favour his left hand for even relatively minor tasks, a tendency she observed on numerous other occasions.
‘David would have had to have been a contortionist to kill himself the way they claim,’ she said.
‘I don’t know whether he was born right-handed but by the time I first met him he favoured his left hand for any task that required strength, like opening a door or carrying his briefcase.
‘When he embraced friends at the beginning and end of Baha’i meetings, it was his left arm that you felt hugging you and you could tell his right arm hurt him because he rubbed the elbow a lot.
‘I didn’t want to pry but he finally told me the reason in the spring of 2003. It was the last time I saw him before he died. He was visiting America on business and we went out to dinner.
‘He ordered steak and he was holding his knife very oddly in the palm of his right hand, with his wrist crooked, trying to cut the meat.
‘He told me that some time ago he had broken his right elbow and it was never fixed properly, so he had real problems with it. It was painful and it never regained its strength.
'I just don’t see how he could have used his right hand to cut through the nerves and tendons of his left wrist - especially as the knife he supposedly used had a dull blade.’
Ms Pederson said she believed she was familiar with the knife Dr Kelly is said to have used.
‘He always wore a Barbour jacket and he kept a knife in his pocket,’ she said. ‘It had a folding blade and I remember him telling me he couldn’t sharpen it because his right hand didn’t have the strength to hold a sharpener.
‘It would have taken him a long time to reach the artery that was severed and it would have been very painful.
‘As a scientist, David had no need to kill himself that way. I don’t understand why the British Government isn’t thoroughly investigating this. Logically, he cannot have committed suicide.’
Ms Pederson, 48, whose military duties have included intelligence assignments, has avoided the spotlight since Dr Kelly’s death. But she says she is perturbed by mounting evidence that he may have been murdered.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that after his disappearance, a heat-seeking search helicopter flew over the exact spot where his corpse was later discovered. Yet the thermal-imaging equipment picked up no sign of a body – which some experts say suggests he was killed elsewhere.
Moreover, a group of doctors, surgeons and anaesthetists has called for a new inquiry into his death, contending that a cut to the ulnar artery would not cause catastrophic bleeding. Little blood was found at the scene.
They also maintain that the 29 or so painkillers Dr Kelly supposedly swallowed were only one-third of the dosage normally considered as lethal.
Even more mysteriously, there were no fingerprints on the knife he allegedly wielded nor on the bottle from which he supposedly drank water to wash down the tablets.
But perhaps most key is the information that Ms Pederson provided to Thames Valley Police, who were assisting the Hutton inquiry.
When officers flew to meet her in America in August 2003, she says she told them during two days of interviews that she was baffled about how Dr Kelly could have killed himself.
‘The facts just don’t add up,’ said Ms Pederson. ‘The more I have heard about this, the more I have thought about the significance of his weak right hand. I told the police about it when they interviewed me. I said, “How could David have cut his left wrist using a dull knife with his weak right hand?”
‘They said, “It wasn’t a straight cut. It was jagged.”
‘When I heard nothing more about it, I assumed they had come to an informed decision - that it was suicide. But now, knowing all that we do, I feel it is time for a disinterested public inquiry.'
Ms Pederson has been one of the more elusive figures in the mystery of Dr Kelly’s death. There have been rumours that she might have been romantically involved with the married scientist.
However, the vivacious brunette strongly denied this in a previous interview with The Mail on Sunday, pointing out that both her religion and military rules prohibit adultery.
Ms Pederson, who is fluent in Arabic, German and French, met Dr Kelly when she was seconded to the UN team in Iraq as a translator. In the tense atmosphere, she developed a close bond with him. They had long conversations about her devout beliefs in the ecumenical teachings of the Baha’i faith, to which he converted a year later.
She recalled: ‘He was like my big brother. I was the only linguist on the team and I would work until 11 or 11.30 at night and then go for a walk to get rid of the stress and the pressure. Other team members would walk with me but eventually it was mostly David because of his British passion for his daily constitutional.
‘The only time it was safe to talk about anything important was when we were walking. At our hotel, the Iraqis monitored us. The only place to change our underwear and not be filmed by their surveillance equipment was behind the shower curtains in our rooms.
‘The desk clerk at the hotel constantly called me, saying he was enamoured by me. I later discovered he was a lieutenant in the Iraqi military and I think it was a clumsy effort to elicit information from me.
‘One night, a group of us were out walking and suddenly a red laser shone out. It went from David’s heart to his head and it pretty much stayed on the middle of his forehead.
‘The inspectors said it happened all the time. The idea was to intimidate David, showing they could pick him out as a target even in the dark.’
Enraged, Ms Pederson insisted that the Russian inspector heading the team complain to General Amer Al-Saadi, Saddam Hussein’s British-educated weapons adviser.
'The general said it was children playing,’ she said derisively. ‘The other thing that bothered me was that key people on the team were constantly getting sick.
‘The symptoms were very similar to anthrax. We joked that they were poisoning us so we couldn’t finish our job. David pretty much lived on Vegemite and bread.’
After Ms Pederson returned to America, she was stationed at the Defence Language Institute in California. It has been described as a spy school but she says she worked as a personnel officer. The US Air Force often sent her on assignments that required a linguist, which she is not permitted to discuss.
She met Dr Kelly again after she was transferred to the Pentagon. ‘It was October 2002 and he was visiting Washington,’ she said. ‘He told me that the Iraqis had drawn up a hit list of people to be killed.
‘He said, “I am number three and you also are on it.” At the time, it didn’t really bother either of us. We understood there was a danger because of our jobs.
‘He also told me that if we invaded Iraq, he would be found dead in the woods. He loved to walk in the woods near his home. But he knew that walking alone made him vulnerable. The Iraqis wanted him dead.’
In May 2003, journalist Andrew Gilligan reported on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a source had disclosed that the Blair administration had ‘sexed up’ the dossier, accusing Saddam of harbouring weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kelly was subsequently named as the source and the Hutton inquiry concluded that this plunged him into depression
Ms Pederson concedes that he was ‘upset’ by the episode but says that he brushed it off, insisting he had been misquoted.
And far from being opposed to the Government’s dossier, she says he was convinced that Saddam lied when he told the UN that he was no longer developing WMDs.
She said: ‘David believed the Iraqis were not being forthcoming during our inspections about their potential for making weapons. If they weren’t up to anything, why did we have to be accompanied by minders? And why were people scared to talk to us?
‘David’s position on the invasion was that it was regrettable but necessary because UN sanctions had failed. He said he was misquoted and his words were twisted and taken out of context.
‘He wasn’t depressed. He was upset. I have taken courses on suicide prevention and he exhibited none of the signs.
‘He was planning for his retirement. He wanted to make more money to provide for his family and he’d had job offers in the States as well as Europe. Also, he was excited that one of his daughters was getting married. He said, “The controversy will blow over.” ’
Ms Pederson claims that at the time of his death, Dr Kelly was looking forward to returning to Iraq. ‘Had he been alive, he finally would have been free to look for evidence of WMDs,’ she said. ‘If anyone could have found them, it would have been David.
‘I am not saying that the Iraqis killed him. But that is one possibility that should be investigated. All the facts suggest that David did not kill himself. It is against our Baha’i faith.
‘But for David there were also personal reasons - he believed his mother’s death was suicide. Research shows that suicide runs in families and I asked him if he would ever do that. I said, “Hypothetically, if you are ever at your wit’s end, promise me that you will seek help.”
‘He said, “I don’t see the relevance. I would never take any life, let alone my own.” He finally did say that if he was ever desperate, he would get help. That’s important because he was a man of his word. He could never hurt his wife and daughters the way that he was hurt by his mother’s death.’
Ms Pederson’s Washington DC lawyer, Mark Zaid, has made available to The Mail on Sunday parts of her final statement to Thames Valley Police, given on September 1, 2003.
Its ten pages would appear critical, since they describe Iraqi death threats and the incident with the laser. She also stated that she was bewildered about how Dr Kelly could have taken an overdose, as he suffered from a disorder that made it difficult for him to swallow pills.
‘I was so confused when I heard he had swallowed a load of painkillers,’ she told the officers.
She also emphasised in the statement that he suffered from pain and problems ‘grabbing things with his right hand, which he attributed to breaking his elbow’.
Police have implied that she did not give them permission to give her statement to the Hutton inquiry. But in fact she stipulated: ‘If specific information [in the statement] is deemed relevant to the coroner’s inquiry into the death of David Kelly, I am willing for Thames Valley to reveal the information in a non-attributable way.’
However, her statement was never given to the inquiry. The then Assistant Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, Michael Page, testified that it ‘contained nothing of relevance’.
After the inquiry, Ms Pederson started to get death threats. ‘Some were from nuts,’ she said. But others, she believes, may have been related to her sensitive work with Dr Kelly in Iraq. And she spoke on condition that we do not reveal her whereabouts.
‘I can’t say for sure that David was murdered,’ she said. ‘But his life had been threatened because he strived to do what was best for humanity.
‘He deserved more from his country than an investigation that overlooked the fact that his right hand was so weak that he had problems cutting a piece of steak.’
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