The Strange Death of David Kelly

Book excerpt: "Anyone can commit a murder, but it takes an artist to commit a suicide." – Old KGB saying The high-profile death of government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly twenty-one years ago, amid the tumult of Britain's controversial invasion of Iraq, plunged the New Labour government into crisis and led to the resignation of the BBC's director general. An informal inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death cleared the government of wrongdoing but was widely dismissed as a whitewash. The Strange Death of David Kelly argues that neither the medical evidence nor David Kelly's state of mind and personality supported the verdict of suicide. Analysing the official process instigated after Kelly's death, putting the entire episode into its political context and scrutinising the actions of the government in launching the Iraq War, this new edition of the instant bestseller is fully updated to include the latest evidence and theories surrounding this most mysterious and political of deaths.