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Kelly Chronology

22 MAY:
Dr Kelly meets Andrew Gilligan at the Charing Cross Hotel.

29 MAY:
Andrew Gilligan claims Downing Street "sexed up" Iraq dossier in a report on the BBC's Today programme.

8 JULY:
Ministry of Defence says mole has come forward.

9 JULY:
Dr Kelly named as mole in press.

15 JULY:
Dr Kelly gives evidence before the Committee. Says he doubts he was Gilligan's source. Committee believe him.

18 JULY:
A body matching the description of Dr Kelly is found in woods near his home, the morning after he was reported missing by his family.

19 JULY
Police confirm that the body is Dr Kelly's and that his wrists were slashed.



INTERNET LINKS

Dr Kelly's testimony
To the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, 15 July.

The 'Dodgy Dossier'
The September dossier on the threat from Iraq, from the Number 10 website.
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Dr Kelly confirmed dead
Iraq intelligence



Published: 19-Jul-2003
By: Elinor Goodman



Police have confirmed that the body of a man found in the Oxfordshire countryside was that of the scientist caught up in an explosive row between the Government and the BBC over Iraq's weapons capability.


David Kelly committed suicide - just days after enduring a grilling from MPs on the foreign affairs committee about his role in a BBC report alleging that 10 Downing Street had `sexed up' an intelligence dossier on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme.



  • Profile: Dr David Kelly



    In Tokyo, Tony Blair said the events leading up to Dr Kelly's death would be examined by an independent inquiry.



    Dr Kelly's family said his life had been made "intolerable" in the past few weeks.



    Thames Valley police have confirmed that Dr Kelly's death had been suicide.



    Thames Valley police spokesman:

    The post-mortem has revealed that the cause of death was haemorrhaging from a wound to his left wrist. The injury is consistent with having been caused by a bladed object. We've recovered a knife and an open packet of Coproxamol tablets at the scene. Whilst our enquiries are continuing, there is no indication at this stage of any other party being involved."



    In other words, it looks as if Dr Kelly left home on Thursday morning planning to kill himself. When he got to Harrowdown Hill, where he could be fairly certain of not being disturbed, he took the painkillers before cutting his own wrist.



    Even before the bleak announcement, the prime minister had appeared shocked and drawn in Japan. Rarely, if ever has he looked so shaken in public. With the Japanese prime minister looking on, he was asked directly whether Dr Kelly's death was on his conscience.



    Tony Blair, Prime Minister:

    "The politicians and the media alike, should show some respect and restraint."



    This tragedy has clearly undermined him personally as well as politically. When asked whether he stood by his communications director, Alastair Campbell, he again asked for the enquiry to be given time.



    But it was the shouted question at the end - "do you have blood on your hands?" - which showed how his critics in the media are hoping to use this affair to destroy his authority.





    DR DAVID KELLY - PROFILE:

    By Andrew Veitch.



    It was only the row over the Iraq dossier that thrust David Kelly into the political and media spotlight.



    Accused of being a mole and a fall guy he was in fact one of the country's top experts on biological weapons, working for the MOD and the Foreign Office, and formerly as a weapons inspector in Iraq.



    Just yesterday in an email to a friend he expressed a desire to return to the job that meant so much to him. "Hopefully it will soon pass" he wrote "and I can get to Baghdad and get on with the real work."



    In the shadowy world of biological weaponry, David Kelly was the acknowledged good guy. He dedicated much of his life to tracking and deactivating smallpox in the former Soviet Union, anthrax in Iraq - and more, one suspects, which he would not discuss with the few journalists he trusted.



    As a senior adviser to the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office, and formerly the United Nations, he was a very cautious person. Not one to use words lightly, nor to comment on things he didn't know about. Friends and colleagues say he felt the Ministry of Defence had "hung him out to dry" over the Gilligan affair.



    Garth Whitty worked with David Kelly in Iraq: Kelly was among the last of the UN inspectors to leave in 1998. He was a seeker of truth, a determined investigator and a very tough personality.



    He sent an email to his friend Alistair Hay yesterday morning. In it he said he was planning to return to Iraq - and he told colleagues he agreed to meet Andrew Gilligan so he could get a first-hand description of conditions in Baghdad.



    I too knew David Kelly. He was not a mole, he was not a spook, he was not even a civil servant. He was a consultant who planned to retire next year.



    As a close friend said: "David Kelly was just a very nice guy. He cared. He tried to make the world a safer place."



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