A leading UN weapons inspector last night added his voice to the growing clamour for a full inquest into the death of Dr. David Kelly.

Dr. Richard Spertzel claimed Dr. Kelly was on a ‘hitlist’ in the final years of his life.

The former head of the UN Biological Section, who worked closely with Dr. Kelly in Iraq in the 1990s, has written to Attorney General Dominic Grieve about the ‘mysterious circumstances’ surrounding the death.

The weapons inspector’s body was found after he was unmasked as the source of a damaging BBC news report questioning the grounds for the Iraq war.

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Officially, he took his own life.

Yesterday Dr. Spertzel told the Mail that the British authorities were ‘intentionally ignoring’ the issue.

He believes that there is something ‘fishy’ and insisted that a coroner should examine the death as soon as possible.

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His demands come 24 hours after nine of Britain’s leading medical experts wrote an open letter to minsters demanding a full inquest.

Dr. Spertzel said: ‘I know that David, as well as myself and a couple of others, were on an Iraqi hitlist. In late 1997, we were told by the Russian embassy in Baghdad. I had no idea what it meant but apparently David and I were high on the priority list.’

He said he and Dr. Kelly were told that they were ‘numbers three and four’ on the list during an inspection trip in Iraq.

‘When it first happened I felt right away that David just being associated with the work he’d been doing for the UK government would have made him a high target,’ Dr. Spertzel said.

‘The Iraqi intelligence service did not take kindly to such action so my first reaction [to Dr. Kelly’s death] was "we’d better watch our backs".’

No inquest has ever been held into Dr. Kelly’s death. Instead, a public inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton was set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding it.

Read the rest of the article

August 16, 2010

The Best of Miles Goslett

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