Experts demand David Kelly inquest
By politics.co.uk staff
A fresh inquest of Iraqi weapons expert David Kelly is needed to settle doubts about his death, medical experts have demanded.
An open letter published in the Times newspaper casts doubt on the cause of death given by the Hutton inquiry – “bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself”.
Senior figures including Sir Barry Jackson, former president of the British Academy of Forensic Science, Julian Bion, a professor of intensive care medicine and ex-coroner Michael Powers concluded Dr Kelly’s death by haemorrhage was “extremely unlikely”.
“Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life,” they claimed.
“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 haemorrhage is unsafe.”
Lord chancellor Charles Falconer suspended the inquest into Dr Kelly’s death when the Hutton inquiry began its work. It was never resumed.
Dr Kelly took his own life after finding himself at the centre of a power struggle between the government and the BBC over allegations that spin doctors had ‘sexed up’ a dossier of intelligence used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
