David Kelly | |
|---|---|
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:David_Kelly_2000s.jpg) Kelly during a Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting on 15 July 2003, two days before his death | |
| Born | David Christopher Kelly 14 May 1944 Llwynypia, Glamorgan, Wales |
| Died | 17 July 2003 (aged 59) Oxfordshire, England |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Body discovered | Harrowdown Hill, Longworth, Oxfordshire |
| Education | |
| Occupations |
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| Employer | Ministry of Defence |
David Christopher Kelly CMG (14 May 1944 – 17 July 2003) was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility, and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.
A year after the publication of the 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction—which stated that some of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were deployable within 45 minutes—Kelly had an off-the-record conversation with Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist, about the claim. When Gilligan reported this on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he stated that the "45 minutes" claim was included at the insistence of Alastair Campbell, the Downing Street Director of Communications; Kelly denied that he said Campbell had forced in the reference. The government complained to the BBC about the claim, but they refused to recant on it; political tumult between Downing Street and the BBC developed. Kelly informed his line managers in the Ministry of Defence that he might have been the source, but did not think he was the only one, as Gilligan had reported points he had not mentioned. Kelly's name became known to the media, and he was called to appear on 15 July before the parliamentary Intelligence and Security and Foreign Affairs select committees. Two days later Kelly was found dead near his home, having killed himself.
Following Kelly's suicide Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, set up a government inquiry under Lord Hutton, a former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. The inquiry concluded that Kelly had killed himself. Hutton also stated that no other parties were involved in Kelly's death. There was continued debate over the manner of Kelly's death, and the case was reviewed between 2010 and 2011 by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General; he concluded that there was "overwhelmingly strong" evidence that Kelly had killed himself.[1] The post-mortem and toxicology reports were released in 2010; both documents supported the conclusion of the Hutton Inquiry. The manner of Kelly's death has been the subject of several documentaries and has been fictionalised on television, on stage and in print. He was appointed as Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1994 and might well have been under consideration for a knighthood in May 2003, according to Hutton. His work in Iraq earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.