Norman Baker to revisit the Hutton Whitewash

A backbench MP is to investigate the "unanswered questions" from the official inquiry into the death of weapons scientist Dr David Kelly.

The former Liberal Democrat environmental spokesman Norman Baker today revealed his decision to stand down from the shadow cabinet two months ago was based on a quest to establish the "truth" behind Dr Kelly's death.

Mr Baker said he wanted to return to the issue because the 2003 Hutton inquiry had "blatantly failed to get to the bottom of matters".

"The most important unanswered question is why he would have wanted to commit suicide, which still hasn't been addressed," said Mr Baker.

There was also a question mark over the method Dr Kelly apparently used to commit suicide.

Given his knowledge of the human body, said Mr Baker, it is unlikely the scientist would have decided to kill himself by "slitting a rather hidden artery in his hand".

He said he had established through a parliamentary question that only one person in 2003 had committed suicide this way, which "presumably" was Dr Kelly.

Other puzzles include the fact that although Dr Kelly had supposedly taken 29 co-proxamol painkillers only "a quarter of one tablet" was found in his stomach, said Mr Baker.

He said he also wanted to know why the police hunt for Dr Kelly had apparently been launched before the scientist had actually left his house on his final walk, let alone been reported missing.

There were also questions about the time of Dr Kelly's death and the procedures followed at his post mortem.

And Mr Baker said he was also interested in the wider political implications of the scientist's death.

"There were unanswered questions about the way the government conducted itself which got lost in the mire of how the BBC was behaving," he said.

The Lewes MP, who was recently replaced as Liberal Democrat environment spokesman by Chris Huhne, stressed he did not want to speculate about alternative explanations for Dr Kelly's death at this stage.

"The facts do not support suicide, as set out, but nor do they necessarily support anything else and therefore those unanswered questions are what I'm looking in to."

He also said he was keen not to cause unnecessary distress to Dr Kelly's family.

"I have no wish to upset the family in any way and I hope that nothing I am doing is doing that. The fact of the matter is, in this most important of issues, there is a general feeling around that the facts have not been fully explored or revealed."

But he said the Kelly affair was "unfinished business" and there needed to be "political closure" on it.

"The public out there can smell a rat and they don't think it's finished business either," the MP added.