Kelly assassinated ?

[luke]

and the knife didn't have any fingerprints on ...

[faceless]

well that's reasonable - as we all know, suicidal people always like to flummox investigations...

[luke]

KGB man: MI5 agent told me that David Kelly had been ‘exterminated'

The mystery over the death of David Kelly took a further twist last night after a former KGB officer said he had evidence that the scientist did not commit suicide.

Boris Karpichkov, who worked as a Russian spy for 15 years before fleeing to Britain, has sent a dossier to Attorney General Dominic Grieve in which he claims to relay information from an ‘MI5 agent’ that Dr Kelly had been ‘exterminated’.

His move comes amid increasing calls from within the Coalition Government for a full, independent investigation into Dr Kelly’s death.

Mr Grieve has indicated that he is ‘concerned’ by the growing scepticism among experts about the official version of events.

Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, after the Government exposed him as the source of a BBC report questioning Tony Blair’s case for war in Iraq.

There was no full coroner’s inquest – instead, Lord Hutton chaired a public inquiry which concluded Dr Kelly died from loss of blood after slashing his left wrist with a blunt garden pruning knife.

A number of doctors have since come forward to say that the incision could not have caused his death.

Mr Karpichkov, who sought political asylum in the UK in 1998 and now has British nationality, says he met the ‘agent’, Peter Everett, on dozens of occasions while carrying out work for Mr Everett’s company Group Global Intelligence Services, which hiredex-MI5 operatives for corporate detective work and infiltration.

In the document sent to Mr Grieve, Mr Karpichkov says that during one of their meetings, two days after

Dr Kelly’s body was found, Mr Everett told him that Dr Kelly had been ‘exterminated’ for his ‘reckless behaviour’.

Mr Karpichkov, who says that Mr Everett indicated that he was an ‘active field operative’ for MI5, writes: ‘He told me that it was extremely uncomfortable, inconsistent and unusual for Dr Kelly to slash his arm in the way he did. He would have lost some blood, but it would not have been fatal.

‘He also claimed that it was not a coincidence that Special Branch officers were the ones who first appeared on the scene – they moved Dr Kelly’s body to another location, changed the original position of his corpse and took away incriminating evidence.

‘He added that the scene where Dr Kelly’s body was found was carefully arranged and completely “washed out”, including the destruction of all fingerprints. When I asked who was behind his death, he [Mr Everett] answered indirectly, saying the “competing firm”, which I took to mean MI6.’

Last night, Mr Everett – who is believed to be in his late 50s and whose former company was registered to his home address in Dulwich, South-East London – admitted meeting Mr Karpichkov on a number of occasions, and recalled discussing the manner of Dr Kelly’s death.

He said: ‘We had a general conver­sation about the David Kelly case, in which I said that it was very unusual for him to have slashed his wrist in that way.

'That is all I said. I do not have any particular inside knowledge on it.’

Asked whether he was a current, or former, MI5 operative, he said: ‘I am not commenting on that.’

Asked if he had carried out work on behalf of the agency, he said: ‘I have spent a number of years working in the world of intelligence.’

Associates indicated that his work on behalf of security agencies was indirect, rather than as a paid operative.

Mr Karpichkov’s testimony reflects the continuing debate in the intelligence community and associated agencies over Dr Kelly’s death.

He fled to Britain from Latvia with his wife and two sons after being accused of stealing £310,000 from a failed bank, although he claims that he was framed by the Russian mafia.

According to Latvian newspaper reports, he was recruited by the regional KGB in 1981, trained at the Secret Services School and served as a special forces operative during the war in Afghanistan.

After the Cold War, he was assigned to undercover work in Latvia.

Mr Everett’s former company, Group Global Intelligence Services, which was dissolved in 2006, normally operated in the shadows.

But in 2004, it was accused of placing six members of its staff at Manchester United’s Annual General Meeting as ‘plants’ to ask embarrassing questions about manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s transfer dealings.

At the time, Sir Alex’s business rival John Magnier was known to be hiring private eyes to investigate the United manager.

When confronted by journalists, Mr Everett said: ‘I was nothing to do with that side of the alleged operation.’

Ministers increasingly believe that the continuing speculation about Dr Kelly’s death – fanned by the fact that he emailed a friend on the morning he died to warn that there were ‘many dark actors playing games’ – will not end until a proper inquest is held.

Earlier this month, one of Dr Kelly’s close female colleagues, Mai Pedersen, wrote to Mr Grieve reiterating what she had first revealed in an interview in The Mail on Sunday in August 2008, saying that Dr Kelly had been too weak to cut his own wrist – because a hand and arm injury meant he even had trouble ‘cutting his own steak’, and he would have to have been a ‘contortionist’ to have killed himself.

She demanded a ‘formal, independent and complete’ review of the case.

Her claims are backed by 13 specialist doctors, who have compiled a dossier rejecting the Hutton conclusion on the grounds that the cut to the ulnar artery could not have caused death.

In addition, it was recently disclosed that Dr Kelly’s death certificate was not properly completed.

It was not signed by a doctor or coroner and does not state a place of death, leaving open the possibility he died somewhere other than where his body was found.

Furthermore, the pruning knife has been revealed to have had no fingerprints on it.

Campaigners are aggrieved by a mysterious decision to classify all evidence relating to the post-mortem for 70 years.

But they are encouraged by the fact that one of their most vocal supporters, Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, who has written a book questioning the Hutton verdict, is now a member of the Coalition as a Transport Minister.

A spokeswoman for Dominic Grieve said last night: ‘Mr Grieve expressed concerns about this issue when in opposition and has, since taking office as Attorney General, been exploring with ministerial colleagues any actions that may be taken.

‘No decisions have been made.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297444/MI5-agent-told-Kelly-exterminated.html

[faceless]

'There wasn't much blood about'
Detective who found weapons expert David Kelly's body raises questions over his death
Matt Sandy
8th August 2010

The police officer who discovered the body of Dr David Kelly has spoken out for the first time – and revealed that there was ‘not much’ blood on or near the Government scientist. Detective Constable Graham Coe was the first official on the scene after the body of the weapons expert was discovered in woods near his Oxfordshire home seven years ago. He guarded the body alone for 25 minutes.

The retired detective’s comments raise serious questions about whether Lord Hutton adequately investigated the circumstances of the scientist’s death. And they will inevitably focus attention on Hutton’s finding that Dr Kelly died from blood loss after slitting his left wrist with a blunt pruning knife.

DC Coe, 63, joins a growing list of officials whose evidence about the death of Dr Kelly casts doubts on the verdict of the Hutton Report. A lifelong police officer – he joined the Thames Valley Police force in 1972 – DC Coe served for 36 years, 28 as a detective, before retiring in 2008. Since retirement, he assists detectives carrying out interviews with suspects at his local station. An unassuming man, he lives in a well-kept £200,000 cottage in an Oxfordshire hamlet with his wife Margaret, a former nurse.

He said: ‘I certainly didn’t see a lot of blood anywhere. There was some on his left wrist but it wasn’t on his clothes. On the ground, there wasn’t much blood about, if any.’ DC Coe’s version of events is supported by the two experienced paramedics who attended the scene, who also said the lack of blood was puzzling. They have previously said: ‘It is incredibly unlikely he died from the wrist wound we saw.’ He also confirms the much-disputed existence of a ‘third man’ with him and his partner DC Colin Shields that morning – a claim he denied at the Hutton Inquiry.

Critics who believe Dr Kelly was murdered have claimed the so-called ‘third man’ could have been a member of the security services. DC Coe now admits he existed and says he was a trainee officer. But he refuses to name him.

DC Graham Coe's evidence makes callls for inquest into Dr David Kelly's death even more compelling The detective also helped search Dr Kelly’s home the day after his body was found. He claims this was because the authorities were desperate to find any potentially sensitive documents about Iraq.

Dr Kelly, 59, who was one of the world’s leading experts on biological and chemical weapons, left his home in the village of Southmoor, in Oxfordshire, on the afternoon of July 17, 2003, saying he was going for a walk. A week earlier, the former weapons inspector had been unmasked as the source of BBC claims that the Labour Government had ‘sexed up’ reports that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

His wife Janice reported him missing just before midnight. DC Coe, who was stationed in the nearby town of Wantage, was called at 6am and was soon making house-to-house inquiries in Southmoor, Dr Kelly’s village. Ruth Absalom, a neighbour of Dr Kelly’s, told him and DC Shields that she had seen Dr Kelly the previous day near Longworth, a village about a mile north of Southmoor. North of Longworth is the secluded Harrowdown Hill woods running down to the Thames.

‘You think to yourself, something ain’t going to be right. You get a thought, what’s the nearest thing? The river. We left our unmarked car in Longworth and walked up the bridle path to Harrowdown Hill.’ It was there, apparently by chance, that they ran into two of the volunteer searchers, Paul Chapman and Louise Holmes, and their dog, Brock, shortly after 9am.

Moments earlier, Brock had detected a scent and sprinted off into the woods, before running back and barking. Following his trail, Mr Chapman and Ms Holmes saw a body slumped against a tree. Having checked for signs of life, they spoke to a sergeant at Abingdon police station at 9.20am, who said he would dispatch uniformed officers to meet them. It was as they were walking out of the woods they encountered the detectives – and sparked one of the most enduring mysteries of Dr Kelly’s death and the subsequent Hutton report.

When questioned during the Inquiry, both Mr Chapman and Ms Holmes recalled running into three suited men on the path that morning. However, when DC Coe was questioned by junior counsel Peter Knox, he insisted just he and his partner, DC Shields, were present. The discrepancy has fuelled speculation that the mystery man may have been a member of the security services.

DC Coe is now willing to admit the existence of the third man but is unable to provide a plausible explanation for what he told Hutton. He says he does not remember giving that evidence. He now claims the third man was a police constable who was still on his initial two-year probation period and had been seconded to the CID unit for a month as part of his training. But he refuses to name the officer and says he is no longer with the force.

Harrowdown Hill, where the body of Dr David Kelly was found

‘They [the two civilians] told us what they’d found and the bloke showed me where the body was,’ he said. ‘It was a dry, clear day but it was too early to be hot. There is a good canopy on the wood but you can see fine if there is daylight. I had to pick my way through brambles and nettles but it wasn’t impassable. As I got closer, I could see Dr Kelly’s body sideways on, with his head and shoulders against a large tree. He wasn’t dead flat along the ground. If you wanted to die, you’d never lie flat out. But neither was he sat upright.’

Within a minute of getting to the body, he radioed in. He then guarded it alone for about25 minutes until back-up arrived – but, he claims, never touched it. He said: ‘He was lying in the dirt near the base of the tree – in the area where there’s no undergrowth. I went right up to the body and examined it.

‘I took a look at his face and his left wrist. I got in quite close. It was obvious he was dead. You can pretty much tell over the years. You aren’t going to feel his pulse, you know he’s dead. He had turned an ashen colour. I think he was wearing a green Barbour jacket and a bluish checked shirt, both of which I think were rolled up, and dark cords. I think he was wearing his glasses and I think his eyes were closed. I could see his left wrist had been cut. Near him was a pruning knife with a wooden handle and a curved, three-inch blade. On the ground was a cap, a watch and a small Evian water bottle. After examining him, I stood right by him – no more than a few feet away.’

DC Coe said he had dealt with too many dead bodies to be struck by the significance of what he found. He said: ‘We had found the man we were looking for. You don’t think, “It’s all due to the Iraq War that he’s done this.” You know someone’s going to come and relieve you. All I had to do was protect the scene.’

But despite being underwhelmed by the job in hand, DC Coe is able to provide invaluable evidence on another of the major mysteries of Dr Kelly’s death – the lack of blood at the scene. DC Coe is clear on the amount of blood he saw. He said: ‘I certainly didn’t see a lot of blood anywhere. There was some on his left wrist but it wasn’t on his clothes. On the ground, there wasn’t much blood about, if any. I didn’t see any bloodstains on the bottle and I didn’t check the knife.’

This account is much more thorough than the one that he gave in response to questions at the Hutton Inquiry. He told the inquiry he saw blood on Dr Kelly’s left wrist. He was not pushed to answer a question about bloodstains elsewhere on his clothes nor asked about any blood on the ground.

The Hutton report was later to conclude that Dr Kelly died from severing his ulnar artery with his pruning knife – and that he had a non-lethal level of painkillers in his bloodstream. But that finding has been thrown into fresh doubt after Dr Neville Davis MBE, an eminent forensic physician, said there would be a ‘hell of a lot of blood’ if someone had bled to death in that way.

Dr Davis, a former senior forensic medical examiner at the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘If he died because of the cut to the ulnar artery, I would expect to see a hell of a lot of blood at the scene. It has got to go somewhere. If the artery is going to empty, it will spray hard. To kill the chap, he would have to lose many pints of blood. We are talking about a considerable percentage.’

But Dr Davis added he would be very surprised to see anyone die because of blood loss from severing their ulnar artery – echoing a group of 13 campaigning doctors who put together a dossier on the subject last year. He added: ‘After about ten to 15 minutes, if the artery had been completely transected, you would then expect to see it seal up and the blood loss to stop. It is a tiny artery. You tend not to lose that much blood from it.’

DC Coe’s observations match those of the two paramedics who attended the scene, Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, who both told the inquiry how surprised they were at the lack of blood. It is also backed up by the evidence of Mr Chapman and Ms Holmes.

The forensic biologist who visited the scene, Roy Green, told Hutton there was a ‘fair bit of blood’ and he believed more could have seeped into the ground, a view echoed by DC Coe. Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist, found some bloodstains on his clothing and the cap, watch, knife and bottle. He also said there was a bloodstain of 2ft in length on the ground. Eventually, two officers, PC Andrew Franklin and PC Martyn Sawyer, arrived and stood with DC Coe.

‘We sealed off a pathway to the scene,’ said DC Coe, ‘and I stayed for a bit after that and had a chat with them about old times. I told them there he is, dead, and then you chat about other things. Then the ambulance team came and opened his shirt to put white pads on his chest [four electrodes connected to a heart monitor, the reading from which was a flatline].’

Dr Kelly was pronounced dead at 10.07am and DC Coe left the scene shortly afterwards. However, that was not the end of his involvement in the Dr Kelly case. The next day, he was ordered to go to Dr Kelly’s home to act as an ‘exhibits officer’ in a thorough search. Intriguingly, he believes the brief was to look for any papers that ‘could be of a sensitive nature’ about Iraq or other national security concerns, not for anything that might relate directly to his death. He said: ‘We were looking for documents relating to Iraq. No one knew whether he kept any papers of a sensitive nature at home. We had to search. If someone writes a suicide note, you’ll find it. We were looking for politically sensitive documents.’

The search team took ‘several boxes’ of files back to the police station, where DC Coe spent three days examining them with an officer from Thames Valley Special Branch. He said the documents were about ‘all sorts of things’ but will not disclose if anything sensitive was found. He also said there were drawings but, asked if they were technical drawings, said only they ‘weren’t artistic’.

His involvement was touched on only briefly at the Hutton Inquiry. He said he went to the house to act as an exhibits officer but was asked for no further details. The inquiry was apparently satisfied with the evidence of Assistant Chief Constable Michael Page and PC Sawyer, who said the house was searched and unspecified ‘documents’ were taken away.

As for DC Coe, despite all the speculation, he remains convinced that Dr Kelly committed suicide. He said: ‘There was nothing untoward about the scene as I found it. After 28 years as a detective, I am convinced there was nothing suspicious about that crime scene. There would have been more at the scene. Nothing had been disturbed. In my view he took his own life. Only he will know why he did that.’

[luke]

Experts call for David Kelly inquest
Official cause of David Kelly's death is 'extremely unlikely', say group of legal and medical experts

A group of prominent legal and medical experts today called for a full inquest into the death of the government scientist David Kelly in 2003.

An inquest was suspended by Lord Falconer, then lord chancellor, before the Hutton inquiry into the circumstances of the scientist's death. It was not resumed after Hutton's report in 2004 concluded that Kelly killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist.

Nine experts including Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner, and Julian Blon, a professor of intensive care medicine, said in a letter to the Times that the official cause of death – haemorrhage from the severed artery – was "extremely unlikely".

"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 haemorrhage is unsafe."

Kelly's body was found in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, shortly after it was revealed that he was the source of a BBC report casting doubt on the government's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be fired within 45 minutes.

Lord Hutton concluded that "the principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself with the knife found beside his body".

In January, five doctors who made an application to the Oxford coroner to have the inquest reopened, were told that Hutton made a ruling in 2003 to keep medical reports and photographs closed for 70 years. Hutton responded by saying the documents could be revealed to doctors and that he had made the gagging order to spare Kelly's family "unnecessary distress".

Hopes for a new inquest have been raised by the change in government. Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, said in April, when he was shadow justice secretary, that the Tories would consider a new inquest into Kelly's death. He also called for a review of the government's decision not to release related medical records and postmortem documents.

Grieve is looking at the matter with the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP and a junior minister in the coalition government, supports resumption of the inquest. He resigned from the front bench while in opposition to write a book, The Strange Death of David Kelly, which argued that the scientist's life had been "deliberately taken by others".

The Hutton inquiry applied a less stringent test than would have been used in an inquest, where a coroner has to be sure "beyond reasonable doubt" that a person intended to kill themselves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/13/experts-call-david-kelly-inquest

[Brown Sauce]

[Brown Sauce]

as much as I don't like this rag, if they go after Kellys murderers fair play to 'em.