David Kelly’s former Iraq aide joins call for inquiry into his ‘suicide’

A close confidante of Government scientist Dr David Kelly has demanded a new investigation into his death.

Mai Pederson, a US Air Force linguist who served in Iraq with Dr Kelly’s weapons inspection team, has called on Attorney General Baroness Scotland to carry out a ‘formal, independent and complete review’ into the ‘suspicious circumstances’ of his death.

Ms Pederson’s intervention comes a week after The Mail on Sunday disclosed that a team of doctors are mounting a legal challenge to the Hutton Inquiry’s conclusion that he committed suicide.

The inquiry, commissioned by Tony Blair, ruled that the 59-year-old used a blunt gardening knife to slit an artery on his left wrist in July 2003 after swallowing co-proxamol painkillers.

His death, near his Oxfordshire home, came after he was exposed as being the source for a BBC news report questioning the justification for war in Iraq.

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