LONDON, Oct 23, (AFP) -The British government released secret autopsy records Friday confirming that Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly died by slashing his own wrist, after doubts were raised over the cause of death.
The justice ministry said it was publishing the documents, initially classified for 70 years following an official inquiry into Kelly's death, “in the interests of maintaining public confidence in the inquiry.”A group of medical experts earlier this year called for a full inquiry into Kelly's death in 2003, arguing that the suicide verdict was unsafe. The incident has also spawned a host of conspiracy theories.
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| British government weapons advisor David Kelly arrives to give evidence to the Commons foreign affairs select committee at the House of Commons in London in a July 15, 2003 file photo. REUTERS |
In the post-mortem report, unveiled publicly for the first time, pathologist Nicholas Hunt wrote that wounds to Kelly's left wrist that severed an artery were “typical of self-inflicted injury.”The fact that Kelly had taken an overdose of painkillers and had undiagnosed coronary artery disease had likely brought about his death “more certainly and more rapidly than would have otherwise been the case,” he said.
Kelly was found dead in woods near his home in Oxfordshire, southern England, after he was exposed as the source for a BBC story that alleged prime minister Tony Blair's government “sexed up” intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The then lord chancellor Charles Falconer, the government's chief law officer, suspended an inquest into the death before an inquiry began, and the inquest was never resumed.
The 2004 inquiry, carried out by Lord Brian Hutton, also concluded that the principal cause of death was the wounds to Kelly's wrists, but Hutton requested that the medical papers should remain classified for 70 years.
“I am publishing these reports in the interests of maintaining public confidence in the inquiry into how Doctor Kelly came by his death,” Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said in a statement. “While I firmly believe that the publication of these documents is in the public interest, I am mindful that the contents may be distressing. I hope that the privacy of Doctor Kelly's family will be respected at this difficult time.”
The autopsy report released Friday said there was no evidence that Kelly had been subjected to any kind of assault and no sign that his body had been “dragged or otherwise transported to the location at which his body was found.”There were other features “pointing towards this being an act of self-harm”, including that Kelly had made several smaller cuts before slashing his wrist and that he had removed his watch and spectacles, it said.
In August a group of eight respected experts, including a former coroner and and a professor, wrote an open letter saying that the official cause of death, haemorrhage, was “extremely unlikely”.
They insisted that a severed ulnar artery, the wound found to Kelly's wrist, was unlikely to be life-threatening unless an individual suffered from problems with blood clotting.
Michael Powers, a doctor campaigning to overturn Hutton's findings, said there was “nothing new” in the documents released Friday and there was still a “major conflict” over the amount of blood at the scene.
“I don't believe any of the evidence that we have seen or heard to date can answer those questions,” he told the BBC.
Hutton said in a statement on Friday that his request that the documents should not be released until 2074 was “not a concealment” and was “solely in order to protect Doctor Kelly's widow and daughters” for the rest of their lives.
Kelly was the most experienced British expert involved in United Nations inspections in Iraq intended to prevent dictator Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Ahead of the invasion, Blair's government unveiled a dossier of intelligence about Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction in a bid to strengthen its case for war, including a claim that they could be deployed within 45 minutes.
After the “sexed up” dossier claim, the government was furious and sought out the source. |
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