Hutton: Nobody could have predicted Kelly suicide

Weapons expert Dr David Kelly committed suicide by slashing his left wrist - and nobody could have foreseen his actions, Lord Hutton said today.

The judge said nobody involved in the controversy surrounding Dr Kelly could have “contemplated Dr Kelly would take his own life”, no matter what pressures he had been put under.

Lord Hutton began reading out a summary of his 328-page report in Court 76 at the Royal Courts of Justice in England at 12.30pm.

He said: “I am satisfied that Dr Kelly took his own life by cutting his left wrist.”

His death was hastened by taking a “concoction” of pills, said the judge. He added no third party was involved.

Dr Kelly’s body was found in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on July 18 last year, the day after he disappeared. Mr Blair ordered the Hutton Inquiry into his death days later.

Dr Kelly had been identified as the source for reporter Andrew Gilligan’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme broadcast on May 29, saying the British government had “sexed up” its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and had included information probably knowing it to be wrong.