by Jon E. Lewis
Q. Yes.
A. When considering something like this, one obviously has to think about whether there could have been some other person or persons involved in the act, and the circumstances suggest that this was not the case.
Q. What, whether some third parties were involved in Dr Kelly’s death?
A. Yes.
Q. And what circumstances do you consider show that there were not?
A. Well, there were no signs of violence on his body other than the obvious injury to his wrist that would be in keeping with his having been involved in some sort of struggle or a violent act. There was no sign I understand of trampling down of vegetation and undergrowth in the area around his body. So that makes it highly unlikely that others could have been or were involved.
Q. We are going to hear from a toxicologist. Have you had a chance to read that report?
A. I have.
Q. Does that assist you in your determinations?
A. Well, we know that evidence was found in Dr Kelly’s body and also on his person of him having consumed some particular medication.
Q. Right. And what medication was that?
A. That is Coproxamol.
Q. And why does that assist in your determination?
A. Well, it in itself is quite a dangerous medication taken in overdose because it can have particular effects on both breathing and also on the heart rhythm.
LORDHUTTON: Just going back to the knife, Professor Hawton, you said it was very similar to one in his drawer. Now, we have been told, for very understandable reasons, that Mrs Kelly was not shown the knife. But when you say “very similar”, are you drawing the inference that in fact it was probably a knife that had been in his drawer, is that why you say “very similar”?
A. Yes, I am my Lord.
LORD HUTTON: Yes, quite. Thank you very much. Yes.
MR DINGEMANS: We were dealing with the toxicologist’s report. What do you understand the position to be in relation to that Coproxamol?
A. Well, I understand that the evidence found from blood levels and from the contents of Dr Kelly’s – in Dr Kelly’s stomach suggests that he had absorbed – he had taken approximately 30 tablets – I am sorry, the number of tablets is based on the number that were missing from the sheets he had with him.
Q. Right.
A. But that he had consumed well in excess of a therapeutic dose of Coproxamol and given the blood levels and the relatively small amounts in his stomach, although he had vomited, I believe you have heard evidence he has vomited, but this would suggest he had consumed Coproxamol some time before death.
Q. Does that assist you in determining whether or not any third party was involved?
A. Well, for a third party to have been involved in the taking of the Coproxamol would, I imagine, have involved a struggle. I mean if somebody was forced to take a substantial number of tablets, it is difficult to believe there would not have been signs of a struggle.
Q. That is a factor you have borne in mind?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you come, then, to any overall conclusion about whether or not Dr Kelly had committed suicide?
A. I think that taking all the evidence together, it is well nigh certain that he committed suicide.
150. In his evidence Assistant Chief Constable Page stated:
Q. Can you just briefly outline to his Lordship the lines of inquiry that you set out when confronted with the discovery of Dr Kelly’s body?
A. Yes, certainly. Very early on in the inquiry one sets up a series of hypotheses which one tries then to knock down. For the sake of completeness the first of these would be: was the death natural or accidental? In this case it is fairly obvious that was not the case. The next question is: was it murder? I think as I pointed out in my last evidence, the examination of the scene and the supporting forensic evidence made me confident that actually there was no third party involved at the scene of the crime and therefore, to all intents and purposes, murder can be ruled out. One is then left with the option that Dr Kelly killed himself.
LORD HUTTON: Sorry, may I just ask you, Mr Page, you say no third party was involved at the scene of the crime. Did you consider the possibility that Dr Kelly might have been overpowered and killed elsewhere and his body then taken to the wooded area where it was found?
A. Yes, my Lord; and I think, again, upon examination of the pathologist’s evidence and of the biologist’s evidence, it is pretty clear to me that Dr Kelly died at the scene.
LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
MR DINGEMANS: You were going on to say having ruled out natural causes, having ruled out murder.
A. One is left with the fact that Dr Kelly killed himself. My duty in that respect is to establish to the best of my satisfaction that there was no criminal dimension to Dr Kelly’s death.
Q. Have you found any evidence suggesting that there was a criminal element?
A. Based on the extensive inquiries that we have undertaken thus far, I can find no evidence to suggest any criminal dimension to Dr Kelly’s death.
Q. Can you give his Lordship, and everyone else, some idea of how many people you have interviewed in the course of your inquiries?
A. Yes, certainly. We have made contact with somewhere in the region of 500 individuals during the course of our inquiry.
Q. How many statements have you taken?
A. We have taken 300 statements and we have seized in excess of 700 documents in addition to the computer files I referred to when I gave evidence last time.
LORD HUTTON: Mr Page, could you just elaborate just a little on what you mean by no criminal dimension?
A. Well, again, my Lord, I would- I suppose being a police officer and I am inherently suspicious and I would look at the circumstances and ask myself a range of questions as to why Dr Kelly would have taken his own life.
LORD HUTTON: Yes.
A. And very early on in the inquiry, based on early discussions with the inquiry it seemed entirely out of character for Dr Kelly to take that move. Therefore, my view of whether there was a criminal dimension to this would centre around: was he being blackmailed? Was he being put under some other criminal behaviour that would have prompted him to take this action?
LORD HUTTON: Thank you for that, I just wanted you to elaborate that. And you have excluded that in your inquiries?
A. We have carried out extensive inquiries and based on those inquiries, I can find no evidence that he was being blackmailed or indeed any other evidence of any other criminal dimension.
151. Those who try cases relating to a death or injury (whether caused by crime or accident) know that entirely honest witnesses often give evidence as to what they saw at the scene which differs as to details. In the evidence which I heard from those who saw Dr Kelly’s body in the wood there were differences as to points of detail, such as the number of police officers at the scene and whether they were all in uniform, the amount of blood at the scene, and whether the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. I have seen a photograph of Dr Kelly’s body in the wood which shows that most of his body was lying on the ground but that his head was slumped against the base of the tree – therefore a witness could say either that the body was lying on the ground or slumped against the tree. These differences do not cause me to doubt that no third party was involved in Dr Kelly’s death.
The evidence of Mr David Broucher
152. Mr David Broucher, a member of the Diplomatic Service, gave evidence that in February 2003 he was the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. He said that he had met Dr Kelly once in connection with his duties. He had not made a minute of the meeting or recorded it in his diary and doing the best that he could he thought that the meeting was in February 2003 in Geneva. He said that he wanted to pick Dr Kelly’s brains because he knew that he was a considerable expert on compliance with the biological weapons convention in relation to Iraq. He had a meeting with Dr Kelly for about an hour.
153. Mr Broucher was asked:
Q. Did you then go on to discuss the possible use of force in Iraq?
A. We did.
Q. Can you tell us, in your own words, what was said?
A. I said to Dr Kelly that I could not understand why the Iraqis were courting disaster and why they did not cooperate with the weapons inspectors and give up whatever weapons might remain in their arsenal. He said that he had personally urged – he was still in contact with senior Iraqis and he had urged this point on them. Their response had been that if they revealed too much about their state of readiness this might increase the risk that they would be attacked.
Q. Did Dr Kelly say how he was in contact or not?
A. He did not give any details of names or places or times; and I did not ask him that.
Q. Did he say what he had said to those persons that he had contacted?
A. He said that he had tried to reassure them that if they cooperated with the weapons inspectors then they had nothing to fear.
Q. Which, as I understand it, was the position adopted by the United Nations.
A. So I understand, yes.
Q. And did he disclose how he felt about the situation?
A. My impression was that he felt that he was in some personal difficulty or embarrassment over this, because he believed that the invasion might go ahead anyway and that somehow this put him in a morally ambiguous position.
Q. Did he say anything further to you?
A. I drew some inferences from what he said, but I cannot recall the precise words that he used.
Q. What inferences did you draw?
A. Well, I drew the inference that he might be concerned that he would be thought to have lied to some of his contacts in Iraq.
Q. Did you discuss the dossier at all in this conversation?
A. We did discuss the dossier. I raised it because I had had to – it was part of my duties to sell the dossier, if you like, within the United Nations to senior United Nations officials; and I told Dr Kelly that this had not been easy and that they did not find it convincing. He said to me that there had been a lot of pressure to make the dossier as robust as possible; that every judgment in it had been closely fought over; and that it was the best that the JIC could do. I believe that it may have been in this connection that he then went on to explain the point about the readiness of Iraq’s biological weapons, the fact they could not use them quickly, and that this was relevant to the point about 45 minutes.
Q. Did you discuss Dr Kelly’s position in the Ministry of Defence?
A. He gave me to understand that he – it was only with some reluctance that he was working in the Ministry of Defence. He would have preferred to go back to Porton Down. He felt that when he transferred into the Ministry of Defence they had transferred him at the wrong grade, and so he was concerned that he had been downgraded.
Q. Right. Did you have any other conversation with Dr Kelly that day?
A. As Dr Kelly was leaving I said to him: what will happen if Iraq is invaded? And his reply was, which I took at the time to be a throwaway remark – he said: I will probably be found dead in the woods.
Q. You understood it to be a throwaway remark. Did you report that remark at the time to anyone?
A. I did not report it at the time to anyone because I did not attribute any particular significance to it. I thought he might have meant that he was at risk of being attacked by the Iraqis in some way.
Q. And you, at the time, considered it to be a sort of general comment one might make at the end of a conversation?
A. Indeed.
Q. Where were you in July this year on about 17th/18th July?
A. I was on leave in Geneva.
Q. And did you hear of Dr Kelly’s death at all?
A. I believe I heard about it on the television news.
Q. Right. And did you see a picture of Dr Kelly on the news?
A. Yes.
Q. What was your reaction to that?
A. I recognised him, I realised that I knew him.
Q. And as a result of that what happened?
A. Nothing happened immediately because I was aware that I knew him but it was not until later that I became aware of the circumstances of his death and realised the significance of this remark that he had made to me, seemingly as a throw-away line, when we met in February.
Q. Did you contact anyone about your recollection?
A. Yes, I did, not immediately but when the Inquiry began on 1st August it seemed to me that I needed to make known this fact.
Q. Can I take you to CAB/10/9? How did you make this fact known?
A. I sent an e-mail to my colleague, the press officer for biological weapons in the Foreign Office, Patrick Lamb.
Q. And you say to Patrick Lamb: “Is the FCO preparing evidence for the Hutton Inquiry?” We have heard from Mr Lamb: “If so, I may have something relevant to contribute that I have been straining to recover from a very deep memory hole.” Is that right, that at the time your impression was that it was a throwaway remark, and is it also fair to say that it was deeply buried within your memory?
A. Yes, that is fair to say, and the other facts of the meeting took sometime for me to remember; and it took a long time to establish when the meeting took place because it was not noted in my diary.
154. Mr Broucher was clear in his evidence that he had only met Dr Kelly on one occasion. After he had given evidence Dr Kelly’s daughter, Miss Rachel Kelly, looked at her father’s diary and found that it contained an entry that he had met Mr Broucher in Geneva on 18th February 2002. In her evidence Miss Kelly said:
Q. We have heard from your mother this morning. She has given us some of the background. Can I ask you to look at a diary entry for 2002? Before I ask you to look at that, can you just tell me where you found the diary?
A. Yes. The diary was in my father’s study—
Q. It is FAM/1/1. If we look at the entry for February, what does it tell us?
A. It mentions specifically a meeting with David Broucher on 18th February 2002, and the interesting thing with my father’s diaries is he tended to write entries in them after the event and this would have been a meeting that he actually had because it is in his diary.
Q. It does not look like we have been able to get the diary on the screen, but if I look at the diary that I have in front of me, it says: “Monday 18th February 2002, 9.30, David Broucher, USmis.”
A. Yes, US mission.
Q. It gives details of his flights into Geneva the day before.
A. Yes, the day before.
Q. And out of Geneva on 20th February; is that right?
A. Yes, that is correct, on the 20th.
Q. And that is February 2002?
A. It is a year earlier than the date that David Broucher gave as being this year, the conversation he had with my father.
Q. And I think Mr Broucher told us he had only had one meeting with your father.
A. Yes, that is what made me look at it. I actually thought that was the case.
Therefore it appears to be clear that Dr Kelly’s one meeting with Mr Broucher was in February 2002 and not in February 2003.
155. In his evidence Professor Hawton said:
Q. We have heard evidence from a Mr Broucher, who relayed a comment about Dr Kelly being found “dead in the woods” and he had at the time thought it was a throwaway remark. He had attributed it, if he attributed it at all, to Iraqi agents. Then after hearing of Dr Kelly’s suicide he thought perhaps it was something else. Can you assist with that at all?
A. Well, I gained the impression talking to family members about that particular alleged statement that it was not a typical – not that he would say that particularly – communicate that, but it was the sort of
throwaway comment he might make. I have also gathered that it is quite possible that it was not made at the time that was initially alleged but possibly a year beforehand.
Q. We have seen now diaries. Mr Broucher thought it was February 2003. He did say it was a deep memory pocket. We have seen diaries which suggest that he has met Mr Broucher in February 2002 and Mr Broucher has said they only met once. So that may mean it is February 2002. Does that assist?
A. I think it is pure coincidence. I do not think it is relevant to understanding Dr Kelly’s death.