No subject

ular the use of anthrax.=20



'You couldn't commit suicide like that'=20



Thomas takes up the story. 'Each intelligence organisation had installed it=
s own computer for Dr Kelly to use on its behalf and to exchange encrypted =
messages. But Dr Kelly always said that most important information was file=
d in his head.'=20



However, perhaps fatally for Dr Kelly, his book was not only in his head. I=
t was on hard-disk in one of his computers, which have all been seized by M=
I5 and are unlikely ever to see the light of day.=20



By any standards, the book would have been hugely contentious. In addition =
to Tony Blair and the British Government, there are any number of foreign i=
ntelligence agencies who would not want a public airing of the explosive in=
formation which they shared with Dr Kelly over the years.=20



His book was also expected to expose a black market trade in anthrax which =
was being exploited, and thus condoned, by many governments.=20



But it has now come to light that there may be another compelling reason wh=
y Dr Kelly might have been murdered.=20



Amazingly, 12 other well-known micro-biologists linked with germ warfare re=
search have died in the past decade, five of them Russians investigating cl=
aims that the Israelis were working on viruses to target Arabs.=20



The Russian plane in which they were travelling from Tel Aviv to Siberia wa=
s shot down on October 2001 over the Black Sea by an 'off-course' Ukrainian=
 surface-to-air missile.=20



Dr Kelly knew the victims and asked MI6 to find out more details. However, =
they drew a blank.=20



Five weeks later, Dr Benito Que, a cell biologist known to Dr Kelly, was fo=
und in a coma near his Miami laboratory.=20



The infectious diseases expert had been investigating how a virus like HIV =
could be genetically engineered into a biological weapon.=20



Dr Que, 52, was found unconscious outside in the car park of his lab and di=
ed in hospital. Officially, he suffered a heart attack - although his famil=
y say he was struck on the head. Police refused to re-open the case.=20



Ten days after Dr Que's death, another friend of Dr Kelly died. Dr Don Wile=
y, 57, one of America's foremost microbiologists, had a U.S. Government con=
tract to create a vaccine against the killer Ebola fever and other so-calle=
d doomsday germs.=20



His rental car was found abandoned on a bridge across the Mississippi. The =
keys were in the ignition and the petrol tank full. There had been no crash=
, but Dr Wiley had disappeared.=20



The FBI visited Wiley's laboratory and removed most of his work. A month la=
ter his body was found 300 miles downstream, with evidence of severe head i=
njuries. No forensic examination was performed and his death was ruled 'acc=
idental'.=20



Little wonder, then, that Dr Kelly had begun talking about his body being '=
found in the woods'.=20



And there is more. The most mysterious death of them all happened to Dr Vla=
dimir Pasechnik - a Soviet defector Dr Kelly knew well.=20



The biochemist had left a drugs industry fair in Paris in 1989, just before=
 the collapse of Communism, saying he wanted to buy souvenirs for family. I=
nstead, he went to the British Embassy where he announced to a startled rec=
eptionist that he was a Russian scientist who wanted to defect.=20



Pasechnik was whisked secretly back to Britain, and Dr Kelly was brought in=
 to verify his claims that the Soviets were adapting cruise missiles armed =
with germs to help spread killer diseases such as plague and smallpox.=20



As chief director of the Institute for Ultra-Pure Biological preparations i=
n St Petersburg, Pasechnik had developed killer germs. 'I want the West to =
know of this. There must be a way to stop this madness,' he told Dr Kelly i=
n a safe house.=20



Dr Kelly later told the author Gordon Thomas that he believed Pasechnik. 'I=
 knew that he was telling the truth. There was no waffle. It was truly horr=
ifying.'=20



The two scientists became friends. And soon Vladimir had set up the Regma B=
iotechnologies laboratory, near Porton Down. He seemed healthy when he left=
 work on the night of November 21, 2001.=20



Returning home, the 64-year-old cooked supper and went to sleep. He was fou=
nd dead in bed the next day.=20



Officially, the reason given was a stroke. However the Wiltshire police lat=
er said his demise was 'inexplicable'.=20



It is against this extraordinary background of highly suspicious deaths tha=
t Dr Kelly's own death occurred.=20



As we know, an inquest on his body was ruled out by Oxfordshire's coroner, =
a highly unusual move.=20



'Don't be surprised if my body is found.'=20



Instead, Tony Blair ordered an inquiry by Lord Hutton. It heard evidence fr=
om 74 witnesses and concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by slashing the =
ulnar artery of his left wrist with a garden knife after swallowing painkil=
lers - although none had been prescribed by his GP.=20



A detailed medical dossier by the 13 British doctors, however, rejects the =
Hutton conclusion on the grounds that a cut to the small ulnar artery is no=
t deadly.=20



The dossier is being used by lawyers to demand a proper inquest and the rel=
ease of Dr Kelly's autopsy report, which has never been made public. Their =
evidence will be sent to Sir John Chilcot's forthcoming Iraq War inquiry.=
=20



One of the doctors, David Halpin, former consultant in trauma at Torbay Hos=
pital, Devon, told me: ' Arteries in the wrist are of matchstick thickness =
and severing them does not lead to life-threatening blood loss.'=20



He and the other doctors say: 'To die from haemorrhage, Dr Kelly would have=
 had to lose about five pints of blood.=20



It is unlikely from his stated injury that he would have lost more than a p=
int.' A lack of blood at the death scene was also confirmed by the search t=
eam who found Dr Kelly and the paramedics who tried to treat him.=20



One of the country's most respected vascular surgeons, Martin Birnstingl, a=
lso says that it would be virtually impossible for Dr Kelly to have died by=
 severing the ulnar artery on the little finger side of his inner wrist.=20



'I have never, in my experience, heard of a case where someone has died aft=
er cutting their ulnar artery.=20



The minute the blood pressure falls, after a few minutes, this artery would=
 stop bleeding. It would spray blood about and make a mess but it would soo=
n stop.'=20



He believes that if Dr Kelly was really intent on suicide he would have cut=
 the artery in his groin.=20



Dr Kelly was also right-handed - which meant he would have to slash awkward=
ly from left to right on his opposite wrist to have cut into the ulnar arte=
ry to any depth.=20



And what of the tablets? The almost empty packet of Co-Proxamol found by th=
e dead scientist's side suggested he had taken 29.=20



But he had vomited and only a fragment of one remained in his stomach. The =
level of painkillers in his blood was a third of what is required to cause =
death.=20



As David Halpin says: 'The idea that a man like Dr Kelly would choose to en=
d his life like that is preposterous. This was a scientist, an expert on dr=
ugs.'=20



So what really happened to Dr Kelly? The gardening knife that Lord Hutton s=
aid killed him was blunt and - although the scientist was not wearing glove=
s - had no fingerprints on it.=20



Which brings us back to that unopened letter found on Dr Kelly's desk, whic=
h had been sent to him at his home by MoD bosses and signed by Richard Hatf=
ield, the ministry's personnel chief.=20



A whole series of experts died in strange ways=20



It emerged at the Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death that it contained th=
reats demanding his future silence.=20



At the time, Dr Kelly had received a number of warning phone calls at his h=
ome from the MoD about his indiscreet behaviour - and he will have been in =
no doubt that the official letter was written confirmation of these admonis=
hments.=20



But he would not be put off. He saw his book as a guarantee of his financia=
l future, which he often worried about.=20



On what he felt was a lowly =C2=A358,000 a year, the scientist fretted that=
 his Government pension (based on his final salary) would not finance a dec=
ent retirement for him and his wife.=20



On the day he died, Janice has confirmed her husband was a distressed man. =
Dr Kelly lunched with her, before going out for a walk on Harrowdown Hill a=
t 3.30pm.=20



It was a walk he made regularly at the same time of day - something anyone =
watching his movements would have been well aware of.=20



That day, events were already in motion elsewhere. An hour before, at 2.30p=
m, a senior policeman sat down at his computer at Thames Valley Police head=
quarters in Oxfordshire.=20



He began to create a restricted file on his secure computer. Across the top=
 he typed a code name: Operation Mason. Although its contents have never be=
en made public, it would detail the overnight search for Dr Kelly.=20



Incredibly, he created this file an hour before the scientist even left hom=
e.=20



After Dr Kelly's corpse was found at 8.30am by the volunteer searchers, the=
 senior policeman made his last Operation Mason entry. It simply states: '9=
.00am. 18.07.03. Body recovered'.=20



Most intriguingly, at 8am, half an hour before Dr Kelly's body was discover=
ed under the tree, three officers in dark suits from MI5's Technical Assess=
ment Unit were at his house.=20



The computers and the hard-disk containing the 40,000 words of the explosiv=
e book were carried away. They have never been seen since.=20



Inside British Intelligence by Gordon Thomas is published by JR Books at =
=C2=A320. To order a copy at =C2=A318 (p&p free) call 0845 155 0720.=20


Read more:=20



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