I write these two pages in case my points might help towards a judicial review of Mr Grieve's negative response to our plea for an inquest. These points do, I think, concern the process in his response rather than his rationale.
The death of Dr Kelly, either by his own hand or by another's, was all about the Iraq war. That cannot be disputed. I note:-
a. Mr Dominic Grieve QC, and then Shadow Minister of Justice, voted strongly 18 March 2003 for the following -
The motion voted through by a majority of MPs agreed that the Government "should use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".[1]
This resulted in the United Kingdom joining the United States led invasion of Iraq two days later.[2]
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2002-09-24&number=319&mpn=Dominic_Grieve&mpc=Beaconsfield&house=commons
b. As a senior lawyer he would know incidentally that in the absence of a Security Council figleaf this war was to be an aggressive war as defined in the Nurnberg Principles and that it was against the UN Charter. Furthermore he would have known this 'aggressive war' was the supreme war crime 'from which all other crimes flow'.
c. The massive bombardment and invasion of Iraq that followed with all but two Tory MPs voting in support of Labour certainly exhibited 'all that flowed' from aggressive war.
I felt strongly before the AG announced his decision that he should have disqualified himself from responding to our plea on these grounds. I made the point strongly to Frances Swaine of Leigh Day and to our colleague Michael Powers QC but there were no responses. I know full well that a barrister or a judge will withdraw from a hearing if there is a conflict of interest ie 'recusal'. In my humble view there is here.
I wish to reinforce that a conflict of interest exists/existed. This forms part of my fifth submission to the AG leading up to the Addendum of 28 February:-
Mr Kevin McGinty 16 February 2011 From:- David Halpin FRCS, Kiln Shotts, Haytor, Newton Abbot, TQ13 9XR
Insufficiency of inquiry: Evidence from Rachel Kelly: Deportation of Dr Kelly – Kuwait
This is an extract from Wikipedia on Dr David Kelly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_David_Kelly#cite_note-Kelly_article-9
(The limitations of Wikipedia are acknowledged but the cited references have been checked.)
“Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections.[10]
After the end of the ground war (Gulf War Two – 20 March 2003 >), he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes, and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003, when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation.
The second trip was from 5 June 2003 - 11 June 2003, when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said: They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons. [11]
It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote.”[12] ***
*** Quote from Hutton. Evidence of Peter Stuart Beaumont journalist.
120
5 yes, yes, something like that. When I pressed him on,
6 you know, what he meant, he said: well, the facilities
7 are as the Iraqis describe them.
122
6 name associated with it but he did not have a problem
7 with the information being in the public domain.
(NB Please use the Wikipedia excerpt to obtain references by hyperlink)
Evidence given by Rachel Kelly at the Hutton inquiry
15 Q. On 19th May we have heard about your father's visit to
16 Kuwait --
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. -- and the fact that he came back very shortly having
19 arrived in Kuwait. How was he after that?
20 A. The first I knew was Dad flew to Kuwait from Heathrow
21 Airport and on departure he discovered his visa was
22 incorrect but he was still allowed to board the plane.
23 When he arrived into Kuwait he was refused entry and
24 physically searched, I believe he was physically
25 restrained -- they are not particularly dignified
103
1 there -- and he was then kept overnight in a hotel and
2 his phone was taken from him. He was then deported back
3 to the UK. Dad phoned me at work to ask me to organise
4 a taxi for him. I could see he sounded quite upset by
5 it.
6 When he got home I could just see he felt so let
7 down and embarrassed by it because it was a key time for
8 him to go out there and he was very keen to go out
9 there, and he felt left out at a very important time for
10 him.
8 Q. We have heard that in early June your father went, in
9 fact, to Iraq. Were you aware of that?
10 A. Yes, I was. We were actually both out of the country at
11 the same time and I was aware that Dad was away.
12 Q. And did you speak to him before he went away about the
13 trip?
14 A. No, I spoke to him when he got back from his trip.
15 Again, I went to see him on that Saturday after and he
16 had got his photographs back by that time and he took
17 great pleasure in showing me his photographs and showing
18 me the conditions he had experienced out there.
19 He did tell me quite a lot about how much Iraq had
20 changed. Obviously he had not been out there since 1998
21 and although he had followed the progress of the war the
22 actual reality of going to Iraq made quite an impact on
23 him, and he was disappointed he did not see any actual
24 real Iraqis, as he put it. He was very fond of the
25 Iraqi people and he was actually --- all the personnel
105
1 there had to stay on the airfield, I think, for security
2 reasons.
Commentary
The Inquiry must surely have regarded the treatment of Dr Kelly in Kuwait as having been extraordinary, especially his deportation the day after his arrival by plane according to his daughter. And yet no questions arose at the inquiry from this treatment of the UK's most senior biological and chemical weapons scientist who had the highest security clearance assigned to him.
Were these questions asked of some of the MOD and other professional witnesses who might have known why Dr Kelly was treated in such a humiliating manner?
1.What was the basis for his arrest, confinement to an hotel, the confiscation of his mobile phone and his deportation from a region which he had visited to do with arms control 36 times at least? Which force was responsible? Was it a Kuwaiti force, military or otherwise? Or was it a 'western force' – US/UK/Polish/Australian?
2.Dr Kelly was accompanied on his many UNSCOM details by an ex-RAF navigator (personal communication) who acted as minder. Was this man with Dr Kelly on these dates? Was he arrested too and deported?
3.Did the basis for his execrable treatment arise from a political strategy back in the UK to humiliate him and thus encourage a picture to develop of a dejected, burned out man?
4.Given there could have been no rational explanation for deportation of this good man, could it be that the people in charge of Operation Iraqi Freedom did not want Dr Kelly applying his keen powers of observation and very expert knowledge at the scenes of bombardment and invasion?
5.I have very strong evidence that proscribed weapons were used in the massive assault on Iraq. It is highly likely Dr Kelly would have known of such if that was the case. It is likely he received reports from the war zones and from different services. Were there very specific reasons for keeping him out of Iraq at a time when there was still widespread opposition to the war and increasing suspicion there were no WMDs? If 'WMDs' were shown to have been used in Iraq by the 'coalition of the willing' that would have caused an eruption in public opinion in the UK and in many other countries.
6.I have referred previously to the obliquity of the instruction given by Lord Falconer to Lord Hutton – “urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly” and hold that this was obviously far short of the duties of a coroner towards an unnatural death in this jurisdiction. However, this above example of 'insufficiency of evidence' shows that the Hutton inquiry could not rise even to the lax requirements of Lord Falconer. The fact is that this abhorrent arrest and deportation of Dr Kelly was a likely sign he was being 'done over' because his expertise and probity were unwelcome in some corridor of power. He was being isolated and demeaned. I believe this was the first evidence the inquiry heard of inexplicably poor treatment of this man. Given its remit, the inquiry completely failed in its duty to examine this important evidence.
I will submit one more topic for the Attorney General's consideration but this will attempt to demonstrate subversion of due process, in stead of 'insufficiency of inquiry', based on correspondence that I hold.
Yours sincerely David Halpin FRCS
I go further. My analysis of images taken of Ali Abbas about 11 days after 'Shock and Awe' started suggest to me that his trunk was burnt to a thickness of 1 inch and his arms incinerated (I mean incinerated) by extremely intense thermal or nuclear radiation through a horizontal aperture in the wall of his family's house, thus sparing his handsome head and his legs. His mother, who was pregnant, his father, and 10 other relatives were incinerated in the dwelling. I am sure that these deaths and terrible images were caused by a nuclear weapon, possibly a neutron shell/bomb. I have no corroboration for this but I have noted reports that the US removed soil from Baghdad airport in large quantities and dumped it elsewhere. My view is that no possibility should be ruled out given the width and depth of 'military' actions.
We are told that Dr Kelly had 5 hard drives at home and we know he had the highest security clearance. If WMDs had been used in Iraq, ironically, he would surely have got to know about it because a great many reports flowed past him. You have noted 'He was very fond of the Iraqi people and he was actually --- The break in the transcript is interesting and I could enlarge if you wish.
If I am correct in dismissing Dr Kelly as a source of the 'sexing up' allegation as being a red herring (the FAC and ? the ISC both ruled him out as the source) then I might be correct in thinking that he had very disturbing knowledge about the weapons used by the 'coalition of the willing'. If this was real, imagine the potency of this knowledge in a principled man if WMDs for instance had been used in a war which was justified on the grounds of removing the same from Iraq. His forthright analysis and attributed statement re the trailers in June gives a measure of the man. By May onwards, the war was being opposed by more citizens and the UK government and the sofa cabinet in particular wanted no bad publicity.
I strongly believe our plea for an inquest on this highly esteemed public servant should have been heard by a law officer who played no part whatsoever in this supreme war crime.
Mr Grieve should not have had one word to say in it.
Yours sincerely
David Halpin FRCS
ps My sister tells me you have been speaking on many channels. I hope you have some quiet in this coming week - reading apart!
In everything truth surpasses the imitation and copy.
Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due. Marcus Tullius Cicero