 Cover | |
| Author | Norman Baker |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Death of David Kelly |
| Published | London |
| Publisher | Methuen |
Publication date | 2007 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 399 |
| ISBN | 9781842752173 |
| 941.086 | |
The Strange Death of David Kelly is a 2007 book by British politician Norman Baker. [1]
Baker investigates the death of David Kelly. Kelly was a British scientist and authority on biological warfare, employed by the Ministry of Defence and formerly a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. He had an off-record discussion with a BBC journalist concerning a British government dossier about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was cited by the journalist. Kelly's name became subsequently known and he was aggressively questioned by a Parliamentary committee. He was found dead two days later, attributed to suicide. In the book, Baker disputes this version of events and suggests Kelly was murdered. Baker stated 'I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this could not be suicide. The medical evidence does not support it and David Kelly's state of mind and personality suggests otherwise. It was not an accident so I am left with the conclusion that it is murder.'
In The Guardian Richard Norton-Taylor wrote 'there is no evidence supporting the many theories that Kelly was murdered and plenty of evidence supporting the conclusion that he was driven to suicide'; however he also wrote 'Baker may have done a service by reminding us of one of the nastiest episodes arising from the invasion of Iraq'. [2] The book was also serialised in The Daily Mail . [3] Additionally, the book was reviewed by Nigel Jones in The Daily Telegraph . [4]
Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre, was a massacre on 30 January 1972 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland. Thirteen men were killed outright and the death of another man four months later was attributed to gunshot injuries from the incident. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons; two were run down by British Army vehicles; and some were beaten. All of those shot were Catholics. The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to protest against internment without trial. The soldiers were from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, the same battalion implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre several months before.
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David Christopher Kelly 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.
Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002. Parliament was recalled on the same day to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq six months later. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD, including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programme.
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Norman John Baker is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewes in East Sussex from the 1997 general election until his defeat in 2015.
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Events from 2004 in England
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