New evidence of cover up in Dr David Kelly's death. Doctors want inquest.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Doctors demand inquest to 'prove Dr David Kelly was murdered'

Six eminent doctors have launched a legal action to reopen the inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly in an attempt to prove he was murdered.

Published: 8:00AM GMT 05 Dec 2009

Doctors have demanded an inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly

They plan to publish a report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide, as the Hutton Report decided, and have hired lawyers to call on Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, and the coroner Nicholas Gardiner to re-examine the circumstances of his death.

The doctors are asking for permission to go to the High Court to reopen the inquest on the grounds that it was improperly suspended.

In a phone conversation after he was outed as the source Dr Kelly said he wouldn't be surprised "if my body was found in the woods".

The inquest into Dr Kelly's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, a former flatmate of Mr Blair.

He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as "fulfilling the function of an inquest".

The six doctors claim that the original inquest was never formally closed, and a proper inquiry should now be held.

They are Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner; trauma surgeon David Halpin; Andrew Rouse, an epidemiologist who established that deaths from cutting the ulnar artery – as claimed in Dr Kelly's case – are extremely rare; Martin Birnstingl, another surgeon; plus Stephen Frost and Chris Burns-Cox.

Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by severing an ulnar artery in his left wrist after taking an overdose of prescription painkillers.

However, he was criticised for glossing over controversies about the causes of death and instead concentrating on the political row between Downing Street and the BBC, which broke the story.

Dr Kelly's death certificate states that he died of a haemorrhage, but the results of a post mortem examination have never been made public.

The doctors tried to persuade the coroner to reopen his inquest in 2004 but were rejected because they were not judged to be "properly interested persons". However, now they have hired human rights lawyers Leigh Day & Co to challenge the use of the Coroners Act to close the inquest.

A source close to the doctors told The Daily Mail: "Lord Falconer is on record saying this is a "useful little law" but it was set up to avoid multiple inquests in cases where there were multiple deaths.

"It has been used for victims of train crashes and the Harold Shipman case but Dr Kelly's was not a multiple death.

"We argue that that's an abuse of due process. The lawyers have sent the letters this week.

"We have concentrated on the finding on the death certificate that the primary cause of death was a haemorrhage. We are spelling out why he could not have died from a cut to the small ulnar artery."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...dered.html