- (AFP) -- The dog handler who found David Kelly vividly
described what she saw when her border collie sniffed out the blood-stained
remains of the British weapons scientist.
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- Louise Holmes was testifying at the ongoing judicial
inquiry into Kelly's apparent suicide in July that hurled Prime Minister
Tony Blair into the worst crisis of his six years in power.
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- Holmes, a dog trainer by profession, was called out by
Thames Valley police to help search for Kelly after he went missing from
his home in Oxfordshire, northwest of London, on July 17.
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- She told Lord Brian Hutton, the senior judge heading
the inquiry, that her dog Brock picked up a scent 200 meters (yards) into
woodlands, moved ahead quicker as she kept him in view, than started to
bark.
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- "I could see a body slumped against the bottom of
a tree," she testified. "He was at the base of the tree with
almost his head on his shoulders, just slumped back against the tree."
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- "His legs were straight in front of him, his right
arm was to the side of him, his left arm had a lot of blood on it and was
bent back in a funny position," she said.
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- Holmes said she was convinced it was Kelly's body, that
he was dead, "and there was nothing I could do to help him".
She then left the woods to alert police to the discovery.
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- Police constable Dean Andrew Franklin described to Hutton
finding Kelly lying on his back, with his right hand to his side and his
left hand "sort of inverted with the palm facing down".
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- "I believe he had a blue jacket on, a white collared
shirt and blue denim jeans," he said. "There was a fair amount
of blood to the left wrist area and on the left hand and a fair amount
of blood puddled around on the ground."
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- Referring to his notes, Franklin said a wristwatch was
lying away from the body next to a knife. There was also a bottle of water
at the scene.
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- The inquiry is into its fourth and final week of testimony
into the circumstances behind the apparent suicide of the former UN weapons
inspector and respected expert on Iraq's alleged quest for weapons of mass
destruction.
-
- He had been exposed by the Ministry of Defence as the
anonymous source of a BBC radio report in May alleging that a September
2002 intelligence dossier on Iraq had been "sexed up" by Blair's
staff.
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- The dossier, which Kelly helped to prepare, notably claimed
that Saddam Hussein's regime could deploy chemical or biological weapons
in as little as 45 minutes.
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- Kelly apparently took his life by slitting a wrist just
days after he faced an aggressive grilling before a parliamentary committee,
as the affair escalated into a power struggle between Downing Street and
BBC executives.
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- Blair testified before the inquiry last Thursday, taking
responsibility for events leading up to Kelly's death, but denying that
the dossier had been embellished to beef up the case for war.
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- If that had been so, he said, he would have resigned.
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- On Monday, Kelly's wife of 36 years, Janice Kelly, told
the inquiry that her husband felt "betrayed" by the Ministry
of Defence for letting his name become public, after he confided to his
superiors that he was the BBC's source.
-
- Testifying Tuesday, Kelly's family doctor Malcolm Warner
said Kelly had never shown signs of depression in the 25 years he was his
patient, and that in fact he had not seen him as a patient for four years.
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- He also said that he never prescribed Co-proxamol to
Kelly. Evidence of the powerful pain-killer was found when the body was
discovered.
-
- The inquiry was continuing Tuesday with testimony from
an Oxford University expert on suicide, and from friends with whom Kelly
shared the Ba'hai faith.
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