Thursday, 4 September 2003

The strange saga of David Kelly

Typical that one has to go to the Internet and another blog to actually get some decent analysis of this. Shows you how crap the media really are... Big hugz going out to xymphora!

  1. David Kelly was found with four electrode pads on his chest, as if he had been given an electrocardiogram but the pads had not been removed. The pads would normally have been removed, and their presence remained a mystery until Tuesday. Police Constable Dean Andrew Franklin answered the mystery (here, at section 36):

    "The shirt was unbuttoned, they placed four sticky pads, I believe it is four, on to the body, the chest, and attached it to a medical machine - sorry, I have no idea what it is. And they pronounced life extinct at 10.07 hours that morning."

    Police Constable Martyn Sawyer said (here, at sections 48 and 49):

    "So I took a number of pictures as we approached the body, and of the body and the surrounding area; and then the paramedics asked if they could do their job, to which we said: yes. They tried to - they used the paddles of the electrocardiogram machine to try to see if there was a sign of life through Dr Kelly's shirt. They were unable to do so and said: could they undo the shirt? I said: yes. I asked them to wait for a second. I took another two more reference pictures. They then undid the shirt, put the electrodes on and got a graph from the machine which showed there were no signs of life. I then - they disconnected their equipment from the machine, leaving the electrodes in place; I asked them to do that. I then took a further reference shot to show the electrodes in place."

  2. The Hutton inquiry heard from a psychiatrist who, without ever having met Kelly, managed to determine that it was 'well nigh certain' that Kelly had killed himself. He based his conclusion on the usual psychiatric nonsense, and concluded that the fact that the last person he supposedly spoke to (other than whoever killed him, of course) thought he acted perfectly normal actually proved that he was off to commit suicide (if the person had said he seemed depressed, Mr. Psychiatrist would no doubt have said that that proved he was going off to off himself; the witness' testimony is here at sections 1, 2 and 3, and the psychiatrist's here at section 122).


  3. Kelly had told David Broucher that if Iraq were invaded: 'I will probably be found dead in the woods'. Broucher originally thought this meant that Kelly felt himself in danger from the Iraqis, but Broucher said he had different feelings in light of what happened to Kelly (see here, sections 145 to 148). Our extraordinarily helpful psychiatrist volunteered that this was 'a pure coincidence and not relevant to understanding Kelly's death'. There is another alternative. In 1984, a 78-year-old political activist, Hilda Murrell, was found dead in the woods, having been stabbed and left to die from hypothermia. The murder has never been solved, and some feel that it was a British intelligence job due to the fact that she may have had embarrassing documents about the British sinking of the Argentine ship Belgrano during the Falklands War, or perhaps because she was an anti-nuclear activist (for the conspiracy, see here or here; for the debunking of the conspiracy, see here; also see here and here). One writer believes that the expression 'found dead in the woods' is a possible reference by Kelly to Hilda Murrell, and to the fate of being murdered by British intelligence operatives because of what one knew.


  4. Kelly was a member of the Baha'i faith. Barnabus Leith, the secretary of the national spiritual assembly of the Baha'i faith, confirmed that his religion did not condone suicide, saying self harm was 'an undue curtailment of life' (see here, section 91).


  5. The two paramedics, Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett, both expressed surprise at how little blood there was at the scene of death (see here sections 76 and 85). This was in contradiction to police accounts. Ms. Hunt said the 'amount of blood seemed relatively minimal'; Mr. Bartlett said he was 'surprised there wasn't more blood on the body'. Needless to say, the absence of blood at the scene indicates that Kelly was murdered elsewhere.


  6. The dog handler who originally found the body of David Kelly testified (see here at section 13):

    "His legs were straight in front of him. His right arm was to the side of him. His left arm had a lot of blood on it and was bent back in a funny position."

    Bent back in a funny position? Police Constable Dean Andrew Franklin testified (see here at section 33):

    "He was lying on his back with his right hand to his side and his left hand was sort of inverted with the palm facing down (Indicates), facing up on his back."

    I don't even understand this, but it doesn't sound like a natural position to be found in.

The psychiatrist suggested that the thirty tablets of copraximol which Kelly had taken would have been difficult for someone to administer to him without signs of violence. I can think of some ways. He may have been kidnapped at some point in his walk and taken somewhere, perhaps for a final interrogation. He could have been threatened or pressured to take the pills, killed in such a way that it looked like suicide (with the blood loss occurring at the actual place of death), and his body moved to the place where he was found. I still think he was probably killed because he found himself inside some intrigue between British military interests and British intelligence interests, and someone in a position of authority broke a promise to him to provide him with some protection.

Full story...