Kelly death details revealed

The full tragic details of how weapons expert David Kelly killed himself were revealed for the first time today.

As Lord Hutton's official inquiry into his death opened at the High Court, it was outlined how Dr Kelly had planned his suicide in intricate detail.

Dr Kelly, the adviser at the centre of the row between the BBC and the Government over the "dodgy dossier" on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, methodically removed his watch and spectacles before slashing his left wrist, a Home Office pathologist said.

Lord Hutton described the outcome of the post-mortem examination carried out by Dr Nicholas Hunt, a Home Office pathologist.

He said that in the opinion of Dr Hunt the main factor in bringing about Dr Kelly's death was bleeding from an incised wound to his left wrist. Removal of watch and spectacles suggested a deliberate act of self-harm, Dr Hunt found.

The pathologist had also said Dr Kelly had a significant degree of coronary artery disease and that this may have played some small part in the speed of death but was not a major cause of it.

He said four electro-cardiogram pads were found on Dr Kelly's chest.

Lord Hutton said: "It is clearly important that I and the public should have a very much more detailed and fuller picture of the facts than the outline I have just given. Therefore, the first task in this inquiry will be to flesh out that outline. This will be done at the next stage of the inquiry."

He said he proposed to sit again on Monday 11 August.

The inquiry will be carried out in two stages - the second of which threatens the greatest political hazard for Prime Minister Tony Blair, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, the BBC top brass and others involved in the dossier controversy.

The first stage, Lord Hutton said, would be to establish the course of events leading up to the unmasking of Dr Kelly and his death. But that was bound to throw-up "discrepancies" between the various accounts and expose individuals to criticism.

The second stage will see those criticised, or whose accounts are under question, recalled to face further cross-examination.

That, clearly, could be the crunch for Mr Hoon and Alastair Campbell, both under question for the way in which Dr Kelly's name emerged in the public domain after he came forward to tell his bosses at the Ministry of Defence that he had held an unauthorised meeting with Andrew Gilligan, defence correspondent for the BBC Today programme.

Dr Kelly's death at Harrowdown Hill, near his Oxfordshire home, on 17 July, rocked the Blair government.

It followed his outing as the suspected mole, later confirmed by the BBC, who had spoken to Mr Gilligan about his doubts over the Government's claims of Iraq's WMD.

In a dramatic opening statement Lord Hutton made its clear that all involved, from Tony Blair and his communications director Alastair Campbell, to BBC bosses, the wider media, minsters and officials, will face a detailed and politically dangerous investigation into any responsiblity they may have had over the tragedy.

Today's statement from Lord Hutton, however, also threw up a fresh problem for the BBC and for Mr Gilligan. The statement revealed that Dr Kelly, when he first "owned up" to his meeting with the reporter, said he did not believe that he was the person responsible for the broadcaster's allegation that Downing Street had "sexed up" the Iraq weapons dossier.

In a letter to his MoD line-manager, dated 30 June, he confirmed that he had met Mr Gilligan in London on 22 May.

He said the pair spoke for 45 minutes during the evening to "privately discuss his Iraq experiences and definitely not to discuss the dossier".

Dr Kelly wrote: "I did not even consider that I was the source of Gilligan's information until a friend in RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) said that I should look at the oral evidence provided to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 19 June because she recognised that some of the comments were the sort I would make about Iraq's chemical and biological capacity. The description of that meeting in small part matches my interaction with him, especially my personal evaluation of Iraq's capability, but the overall character is quite different.

"I can only conclude one of three things. Gilligan has considerably embellished my meeting with him; he has met with other individuals who truly were intimately associated with the dossier; or he has assembled comments from both multiple, direct and indirect sources for his articles."

Lord Hutton did not reveal any other segments from the letter but said that he had been provided with a large quantity of material by the Government which showed that after Dr Kelly's letter, detailed discussions took place between officials and ministers in the Ministry of Defence and in other governmental departments.

"I intend to hear detailed evidence in relation to those discussions," Lord Hutton said.

"In addition, on 4 July and 7 July, Dr Kelly was interviewed by the personnel director of the Ministry of Defence and by his line manager."

Today's inquiry began, at Lord Hutton's request, with a minute's silence in memory of the weapons expert, who died after he was exposed as the mole. In the statement which followed, the Law Lord made clear that all those involved will be held to full and public account for their actions.

"It is my intention to conduct this inquiry in public unless considerations such as those of national security require me to sit in private," said Lord Hutton. "Unless such considerations arise, it is important that the public should know every word of evidence which is spoken at this inquiry and should know the full contents of every document which is referred to in evidence."