A post mortem report on the death of Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly says wounds on his body were consistent with self-inflicted injuries.
Wounds to the body were “typical of self-inflicted injury”, according to the report, released today by the British government.
Dr Kelly's body was found in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003 after it emerged he was the source who had provided information to Andrew Gilligan, the BBC's defence correspondent, that a British government dossier on Iraq was "sexed up" to make a more convincing case for war.
Dr Kelly went missing from his home on July 17, 2003, and his body was found nearby the next day.
According to the report, Dr Kelly’s arterial injury, caused by the wound to his left wrist, “resulted in the loss of a significant volume of blood as noted at the scene”, the postmortem examination found.
“The orientation and arrangement of the wounds over the left wrist are typical of self-inflicted injury. Also typical of this is the presence of small so-called ‘tentative’ or ‘hesitation’ marks.”
The removal of Dr Kelly’s watch while blood was already flowing “suggests that it has been removed deliberately in order to facilitate access to the wrist”, the pathologist’s report said.
“The removal of the watch in this way and indeed the removal of the spectacles are features pointing towards this being an act of self-harm.”
Home Office pathologist Dr Nicholas Hunt added that the choice of a “very pleasant yet relatively private spot”, the neat way in which the water bottle and its top were placed, and the “lack of obvious signs of trampling of the undergrowth or damage to clothing” all pointed to suicide.
“There is a total lack of classical ‘defence’ wounds against a sharp weapon attack,” he said.
There was “no positive pathological evidence” that Dr Kelly had been subjected to “a sustained, violent assault”, or that he had had his neck compressed “such as by manual strangulation, ligature strangulation or the use of an arm hold”, he added.
There was no evidence that the body had “been dragged or otherwise transported to the location at which his body was found”.
The law lord who conducted the inquiry into Dr David Kelly’s death insisted there was no secrecy surrounding the post mortem report.
In a statement, Lord Hutton, who retired as a law lord in 2004, said: “There appears to be widespread misunderstanding about the availability of the postmortem report on Dr David Kelly prepared by Dr Hunt, who gave evidence to the inquiry into his death which I conducted.
“I wish to make it clear that when a group of doctors made a request to see the post mortem report, I issued a statement in January that I would not object to its disclosure to the doctors and their legal advisers for the purposes of legal proceedings.
Lord Hutton said his request that the documents should not be released for 70 years was “solely in order to protect Dr Kelly’s widow and daughters for the remainder of their lives (the daughters being in their 20s at that time) from the distress which they would suffer from further discussion of the details of Dr Kelly’s death in the media”.
He added: “My request was not a concealment of evidence because every matter of relevance had been examined or was available for examination during the public inquiry.
“There was no secrecy surrounding the post mortem report because it had always been available for examination and questioning by counsel representing the interested parties during the inquiry.”
Lord Hutton said his inquiry was “open and public” and neither Dr Kelly’s family, the Government nor the BBC “asked for leave to question or challenge by cross examination” witnesses whose evidence “led to the conclusion that Dr Kelly had committed suicide and had not been murdered”.
These included the pathologist Dr Hunt, leading suicide expert Professor Keith Hawton, the director of the Centre for Suicide Research in the University of Oxford, and others, Lord Hutton said.
PA