David Kelly exhumed as ghouls target grave
THE body of weapons inspector David Kelly has been exhumed and apparently cremated.
Relatives yesterday refused to explain the decision but friends said Dr Kelly’s widow Janice had acted after the grave was desecrated by campaigners seeking a fresh inquiry into his death.
He died in 2003, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC report that claimed Tony Blair’s government had ‘ sexed up’ a dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A pathologist concluded the 59-year- old died after cutting a small artery in his wrist – a suicide verdict disputed by campaigners.
Yesterday Dr Kelly’s daughter Rachel and brother-in-law Derek Vawdrey both declined to comment on the exhumation from St Mary’s parish church in Longworth, Oxfordshire.
Sources close to the family said they understood Dr Kelly’s remains were cremated after the grave was interfered with by campaigners.
‘They did a placard, they used to leave notes on the grave and they would have vigils,’ the source told the Sunday Times.
‘Janice hated it, she felt it was a desecration, and asked the police to get them to stop.’
However campaigners deny any desecration and say the exhumation only adds to their suspicions.
Gerrard Jonas, who lives nearby and runs the Justice for Kelly group, said: ‘I’m a regular visitor to the grave, I go there every year on the anniversary of his death. I was taking someone there in August, but when I got there it had gone, including his headstone.
‘There were still piles of earth and bits of wood around, and new turf had been laid over his former grave – it had been done in a hurry.
‘We have been in touch with the local coroner with our concerns and had said we might apply for an exhumation licence. Why would something like this be done when he had laid there for 14 years?’
Mr Jonas confirmed the group had put up a placard in the graveyard but insisted it had not been on Dr Kelly’s grave.
Unusually, no coroner’s inquest has been held into Dr Kelly’s death. Instead, the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, used an obscure law to appoint Lord Hutton to lead a public inquiry into the matter.
Some conspiracy theorists believe the scientist may have been murdered by the security services. But the pathologist insisted it was a ‘textbook’ case of suicide, with the scientist taking his own life with a blunt garden knife.