EXCERPT:
On July 17, 2003, Dr. David Christopher Kelly, who was an employee of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MoD), an expert in biological warfare, and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, died. Kelly's discussion with Today programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal. He was found dead days after appearing before a Parliamentary committee, to whose investigation the scandal was subject. His experience with biological weapons at Porton Down led to his selection as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq following the end of the Gulf War. An official enquiry, The Hutton Inquiry, concluded that Dr Kelly had committed suicide by slitting his left wrist and taking excessive levels of Coproxamol,[7] a prescription medicine. Since then, this verdict has been disputed by some,[8] including the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Norman Baker.
Secrecy
Most of the work carried out at Porton Down has to date remained secret, and the UK Government have been criticised for not revealing the true extent of the research that was carried out on servicemen. The facility produces a high efficacy anthrax vaccine which is sold throughout the world. However, certain Members of Parliament have admitted that they are not fully aware of everything that goes on at Porton Down.
Bruce George, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Commons Defence Committee (defence select committee), told BBC News on August 20, 1999 that:- "I would not say that the Defence Committee is micro-managing either DERA or Porton Down. We visit it, but, with eleven members of Parliament and five staff covering a labyrinthine department like the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces, it would be quite erroneous of me and misleading for me to say that we know everything that’s going on in Porton Down. It’s too big for us to know, and secondly, there are many things happening there that I’m not even certain Ministers are fully aware of, let alone Parliamentarians." [9]
[edit] Deaths attributed to Porton Down
Dstl Porton Down has also been involved in human testing.A second inquest on Ronald Maddison commenced in May 2004, after many years of lobbying by his relatives and their supporters. It later found the death of Ronald Maddison to have been unlawful;[10] this was challenged by the Ministry of Defence,[11] but the verdict was upheld and the case settled.[12]
In February 2006 three ex-servicemen were awarded compensation in an out-of-court settlement after claims they were given LSD without their consent during the 1950s.[13]
http://www.greatdreams.com/concentration-camp-locations.htm
EXCERPT:
ARKANSAS
| ARKANSAS | ||
| Ira Eaker AFB | Blytheville | 3,931 |
| Little Rock AFB | Little Rock | 11,373 |
Ft. Chaffee (near Fort Smith, Arkansas) - Has new runway for aircraft, new camp facility with cap of 40,000
prisoners
Pine Bluff Arsenal - This location also is the repository for B-Z nerve agent, which causes sleepiness,
dizziness, stupor; admitted use is for civilian control.
Jerome - Chicot/Drew Counties - site of WWII Japanese camps
Rohwer - Descha County - site of WWII Japanese camps
Blythville AFB - Closed airbase now being used as camp. New wooden barracks have been constructed
at this location. Classic decorations - guard towers, barbed wire, high fences.
Berryville - FEMA facility
located east of Eureka Springs off Hwy. 62. Omaha - Northeast of Berryville near Missouri state line,
on Hwy 65 south of old wood processing plant. Possible crematory facility.
Pine Bluff Arsenal Homepage
http://www.pba.army.mil/
B-Z Nerve Agent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate
Fema Camp Locations
http://www.eznewstube.com/femacamplocations.html
http://www.eyespymag.com/features/porton.html
EXCERPTS:
1) The police are to investigate gruesome allegations that military scientists at a top secret Ministry of Defence research facility used old and sick people as guinea pigs in germ warfare experiments. Porton Down is already at the centre of another police investigation - Operation Antler - which concerns the duping of servicemen with the deadly sarin and tabun nerve gas, mustard gas, CS and CR riot gas, LSD and another mind-binding drug believed to be known as BZ. According to intelligence sources, more than 400 complaints and allegations have been made from surviving servicemen and women covering a period of time from the 1950’s right up to 1989.
 |
MOD’s PORTON DOWN AND SECRET EXPERIMENTS Priest Claims Top Secret Base Injected Dying Patients With Killer Viruses 2) One campaigner who has tried for many years to uncover the truth regarding the service personnel experiments is Liz Sigmund. When she learned of Barry’s claims, she believed there had indeed been a cover-up. Interestingly, she gave journalists from the Express two letters from the Monsignor in which he writes: “I believed and still believe the reports I received.” He wouldn’t divulge the source of his information however, because he thought they would suffer “personal repercussions.” |
EXCERPT:
Many years ago I worked alongside other women campaigning against both animal and human experimentation at the Porton Down research facility in the UK. At the time rumour was rife that not only were animals bred and tortured in horrific conditions, but humans too, including servicemen, the elderly and the mentally handicapped were being subjected to terrifying and dangerous experiments, evidence of which is just now coming to light.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the British 1957 atomic weapons tests, see Operation Antler. In July 1999 the UK Wiltshire Constabulary opened an investigation into allegations of malfeasance at Porton Down Chemical and Biological Research Establishment. As a consequence of these preliminary investigations the scope of the inquiry was broadened into a major inquiry named Operation Antler. The inquiries established that a number of the participants in the Service Volunteer Programme claimed to have been tricked into taking part in experiments. Some also claimed to have suffered long-term illness or injury as a result of the experiments. The investigation covered the period from 1939 to 1989 and has lasted for five years. Its 13 members interviewed over 700 ex-servicemen or their relatives. The British Government provided the constabulary with an additional 870,000 pounds towards the costs. At least 20,000 servicemen participated as volunteers in testing at Porton Down and records survive from 1942 onwards. The Second World War was the peak period for testing, and much of this concerned mustard gas, with as many as 8,000 volunteers being exposed. After 1945 testing shifted to nerve agents, and used around 3,400 volunteers (although they may not all have been exposed). In the 1960s smaller scale experiments took place with non-lethal agents such as LSD and glycollates, and more recently testing focused on countermeasures such as pyridostigmine bromide which is a pre-treatment for nerve agents. The constabulary developed 25 cases for possible prosecution, of which 8 were forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service. Subsequently, the CPS concluded that there would be no prosecutions of scientists involved in the tests, although the decision will be reviewed following the result of the inquest into the death of a volunteer, Ronald Maddison, in November 2004. |
http://www.stevepieczenik.com/bio.htm
Dr. Steve Pieczenik is a critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers and the co-creator of the New York Times best-selling "Tom Clancy's Op-Center" and "Tom Clancy's Net Force" book series. He is also one of the world's most experienced international crisis managers and hostage negotiators. His novels are based on his twenty years experience in resolving international crises for four U.S. administrations.
Dr. Pieczenik trained in Psychiatry at Harvard and has both an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College and a Ph.D. in International Relations from M.I.T. He was the first psychiatrist ever to receive a PhD. focusing on international relations. He served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and/or Senior Policy Planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker.
During his career as a senior State Department official, Dr. Pieczenik utilized his unique abilities and expertise to develop strategies and tactics that were instrumental in resolving major conflicts in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and the United States.
Dr. Pieczenik was the principal International Crisis Manager and Hostage Negotiator under Secretaries Kissinger and Vance. During this time he developed conflict resolution techniques that were instrumental in saving over five hundred hostages in different terrorist episodes, including the Hanafi Moslem Seizure in Washington, DC, the TWA Croatian Hijacking, the Aldo Moro Kidnapping, the JRA Hijacking, the PLO Hijacking, and many other incidents involving terrorists such as Idi Amin, Muammar Quaddafi, Carlos, FARC, Abu Nidal and Saddam Hussein.
Dr. Pieczenik helped develop negotiation strategies for major U.S.- Soviet arms control summits under the Reagan administration. He was also involved in advising senior officials on important psycho-political dynamics and conflict mediation strategies for President Carter's successful Camp David Peace Conference. In 1991, Dr. Pieczenik was a chief architect of the Cambodian Peace Conference in Paris. He is currently an advisor to the Department of Defense.
Dr. Pieczenik has started several successful companies, employing his methodologies in various industries, including investment banking, publishing and television/film.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/132_06/
CPS decides no prosecutions after re-review of evidence in Porton Down
12/06/2006The Crown Prosecution Service has decided after a re-review of evidence that there should be no prosecutions of scientists over allegations made about experiments carried out on human volunteers from 1939 to 1989, at Porton Down, Wiltshire.
The re-review was carried out after an inquest into the death of Ronald Maddison found he was unlawfully killed. Aircraftman Mr Maddison died at Porton Down in May 1953 after volunteering to take part in tests.
Kate Leonard, Senior Crown Prosecutor who reviewed the Porton Down files, said: "I have decided there is still insufficient evidence available to prosecute any person with a criminal offence over the testing which was carried out.
"When I made the original decision not to prosecute in July 2003 there was one case outstanding where I was awaiting further evidence from the police. The final information in that case was received in November 2004.
"I decided not to make a decision in that case until I had considered the evidence from the inquest. Having done that, my decision is there is insufficient evidence in relation to that case as well.
"In reaching these decisions I considered the evidence from the inquest into Mr Maddison's death to see whether it had any impact on my previous decision. I also looked at recent cases which have been before the courts since 2003 which have clarified the legal issue of consent."
In September 1999, Wiltshire Constabulary started an investigation into allegations made by veterans of the then Human Volunteer Observer Scheme conducted at Porton Down. Starting in September 2001, a sample number of files, relating to 66 volunteers, was given to the CPS. Files continued to be submitted throughout 2002 and 2003.
When the CPS announced its decision not to prosecute these cases, it gave an undertaking that the cases would be reconsidered in the light of the evidence presented during the inquest into Mr Maddison's death.
Ms Leonard said: "It was considered proper in light of the age and, in some cases, failing health of the potential suspects, to reach a decision in 2003 as to whether the evidence then available provided any realistic prospect of conviction despite the forthcoming inquest."
Notes to Editors
- The original decision not to prosecute was announced in a CPS press release dated July 8 2003 and can be found on this website - CPS advises no charges over Porton Down.
- There were 11 suspects altogether contained in nine advice files which related to 66 volunteers. During the course of the investigation two suspects died, leaving nine suspects.
- The inquest into the death of Ronald Maddison took place over 64 days. It started on May 5 2004 and ended on November 15 2004 when the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing. The jury did not sit every day during that period.
- The CPS has never considered a file in relation to Mr Maddison's death as there were no living suspects.
- The Ministry of Defence pursued a judicial review application of the inquest decision before the High Court. That hearing was abandoned following an agreement reached between the parties on February 13 2006.
- For further information contact CPS Press Office on 020 7796 8180.
Ronald Maddison | ||
On 6 May 1953, 200 milligrams of liquid sarin were poured onto a double layer of uniform clothing that was tied on the arm of Leading Aircraftsman Ronald Maddison, a British Royal Air Force engineer. Within half an hour the twenty-year-old Maddison lost consciousness. He died later that day. The experiment took place at the Chemical Defence Experimental Establishment Porton Down in Wiltshire, Great Britain’s military research and development facility since the First World War. A Coroners inquest, held in secret at the time for reasons of national security, concluded that Maddison’s death was attributable to “misadventure” that resulted in the young serviceman choking to death. Continued complaints about human experiments at the site throughout the years, and allegations of hundreds of other experiment-related illnesses, led to a comprehensive police investigation, named “Operation Antler”, which began in the late 1990s. In 2002, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, ordered a fresh inquest into the death of Ronald Maddison. Finally, in November 2004, a Coroner’s Inquest into Maddison’s death ruled that he was “unlawfully killed” at the hands of the state. After 64 days of evidence, the jury concluded that the cause of Mr Maddison’s death was the “application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment”. Many lawyers and experts see this as a momentous moment in legal history, which may impact on hundreds of servicemen who were exposed to toxic agents and chemicals during the Cold War, and it may even have had significant implications for the Gulf-War veterans. In February 2006, the Ministry of Defence and Ronald Maddison's family agreed to the charge of "gross negligence". This ruling was the foundation for a broader compensation claim by 360 Porton Down veterans who had undergone tests during the Cold War. On the 31st January 2008 the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, Derek Twigg, announced to the House of Commons the agreement of a compensation package totalling £3 million along with an apology and accepted that "that there were aspects of the trials where there may have been shortcomings and where, in particular, the life or health of participants may have been put at risk". http://www.getipm.com/articles/sarin-uk.htm Final agony of RAF volunteer killed by sarin - in Britain. Porton Down Sarin Death Witness By Antony Barnett Public Affairs Editor The Observer, 9-28-3 Final agony of RAF volunteer killed by sarin - in Britain. As the inquest into the death of a 'human guinea pig' at Porton Down opens, a witness breaks 50 years' silence to recount the horrors he saw... Like most 19-year-olds, Alfred Thornhill had never seen anybody die. When the fresh-faced trainee engineer from Salford answered his call for National Service, he thought he could handle anything. Dispatched to the ambulance service, the self-confident teenager arrived for a month-long posting at Porton Down, the Government's top-secret chemical weapons laboratory in Wiltshire. He was proud to be doing his bit for his country. But nothing could have prepared the young Mancunian for the horrific events he witnessed on a May morning in 1953. Answering an emergency call, he witnessed scenes which would haunt him for half a century and thrust him to the centre of an inquiry into one of the darkest hours of British military history. Until today Thornhill - now a 70-year-old pensioner - has never spoken publicly about what he saw. He feared the Ministry of Defence would send him to prison. He has now broken his silence to tell of the day he arrived at Porton Down's gas chamber and saw the convulsing body of 20-year-old Ronald Maddison thrashing around on the floor, spewing substances from his mouth. Thornhill's eyewitness testimony will form a key plank of the reopened inquest into Maddison's death, which is due to be heard in the next few weeks. Maddison, an RAF engineer from County Durham, had been used as a human guinea pig by MoD scientists experimenting on the lethal nerve gas sarin. Like hundreds of others from the armed forces, Maddison had volunteered for the trials, believing he was going to Porton Down to take part in some 'mild' experiments to find a cure for the common cold. Instead, by dropping sarin onto Maddison's skin, they used him to help determine the dosage of the lethal nerve agents. Thornhill's accounts of the agonising last hours of Maddison's life shines a light into the murky past of this secretive establishment and the shocking experiments carried out on volunteers. Hundreds are suspected of dying prematurely or going on to develop illnesses such as cancer, motor neurone disease and Parkinson's. Despite the grief and fury of survivors and their families, over the decades successive Governments have sought to bury the scandal. But Thornhill's testimony could change all that. 'I had never seen anyone die before and what that lad went through was absolutely horrific... it was awful,' he said. 'It was like he was being electrocuted, his whole body was convulsing. I have seen somebody suffer an epileptic fit, but you have never seen anything like what happened to that lad... the skin was vibrating and there was all this terrible stuff coming out of his mouth...it looked like frogspawn or tapioca.' Thornhill recalls a number of scientists standing around Maddison. 'You could see the panic in their eyes - one guy looked as if he was trying to hold his head down. There were four of us who picked him off the floor and put him in the back of the ambulance. He was still having these violent convulsions and we drove him to the medical unit at Porton.' By the time he reached the unit, it had been cleared of other casualties and there were men in white coats standing around a bed. Thornhill was told to carry Maddison over and it was then that the young ambulance driver saw a second image that would haunt him for decades. 'I saw his leg rise up from the bed and I saw his skin begin turning blue. It started from the ankle and started spreading up his leg. It was like watching somebody pouring a blue liquid into a glass, it just began filling up. I was standing by the bed gawping. It was like watching something from outer space and then one of the doctors produced the biggest needle I had ever seen. It was the size of a bicycle pump and went down onto the lad's body. The sister saw me gawping and told me to get out.' The next day Thornhill was 'devastated' when he was told by a medical officer that the young man had died. He recalls the whole medical unit stinking of Dettol as if it had been sprayed everywhere to decontaminate the rooms. Thornhill was asked to drive the body to the mortuary at Salford General Hospital and instructed to take the back roads. At the time, Thornhill was suspicious of what had happened and why he was told to take such a strange route to the hospital, but he simply followed orders. 'There was a lot of talk among the squaddies about nerve gas and mustard gas and the like, but nobody really knew what was going on. In those days you trusted the authorities and didn't ask too many questions. You kept yourself to yourself.' There was another reason why Thornhill kept quiet. 'I was called into an office and read the riot act by a medical officer. He made me sign something and told me if I ever spoke a word about what I saw at Porton Down I would be sent to prison. I was frightened and didn't want to go to jail, so I didn't tell any of the other lads what I had seen.' Over the years, Thornhill has had frequent flashbacks of the terrible events he witnessed, but has never mentioned them outside his immediate family. 'I used to see things on the news and on TV that used to bring it all back to me. I remember seeing the news about Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds and I couldn't stop thinking about that young lad.' For 50 years, Thornhill found it difficult to stop wondering who the dying man was. 'I noticed his blue RAF trousers under the blue boiler suit, but that's all I ever never knew about him. I thought he might be married and his wife or parents would want to know what happened and that there was somebody with him when he died. I was recently engaged and I would have hoped somebody would have done the same for me.' Yet it was only this summer when he heard a report on a local Manchester radio station about a police inquiry into the death of the RAF engineer Ronald Maddison at Porton Down, that it all fitted into place. 'I stopped in my tracks when I heard it. I knew that was it him, that it was Maddison. It was the right date, he was in the RAF and they said it was the only person who had died at Porton.' Thornhill telephoned the Wiltshire police who were conducting the inquiry and a team travelled to Manchester the next day to interview him. He gave them a nine-page statement detailing all he knew and saw at Porton Down during his time there. An original MoD inquest was held in secret in 1953 and recorded a verdict of death by misadventure. Although the police inquiry into events at Porton Down found insufficient evidence to mount a criminal prosecution, their findings were passed to Lord Chief Justice Woolf who ruled that the inquest must be reopened. Lawyers for Maddison's family and the hundreds of other volunteers who have suffered subsequent illnesses are hoping for a verdict of 'unlawful killing'. Thornhill now wants to meet Maddison's family so he can talk to them about what he saw. 'What that lad went through was horrendous, it shouldn't have been allowed to happen to anybody. We talk about Saddam Hussein gassing his own people but what we did at Porton Down was the same... I want his family to have some justice.' With Thornhill now ready to speak out 50 years later, Maddison's family might finally be able to get just that. Race to test a Cold War killer Porton Down was established as a research centre on the edge of Salisbury Plain in 1916, to help Britain catch up with German chemical weapons technology. By the time Alfred Thornhill was an ambulance driver there in 1953, British intelligence believed the Soviets were stockpiling nerve agents, such as sarin, which could kill instantly or cause paralysis, convulsions and breathing difficulties. Scientists at Porton Down wanted to know the precise doses to cause such symptoms. From 1945 more than 3,000 men were sent into the gas chamber; various amounts of liquid nerve gas were dripped by pipette onto their arms. Many believed they were helping to find a cure for the common cold. Ronald Maddison died 45 minutes after 200mg of the deadly nerve agent sarin was dripped onto a patch of uniform on his arm. The coroner's report was never released but Lord Chief Justice Woolf has now ordered a fresh inquest. =============================================== [(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.) # # # http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article391624.ece EXCERPT: Alfred Thornhill, a former army ambulance driver, who was called to help LAC Maddison after he collapsed, told the jury: “He was convulsing and foam was coming out of his mouth. Then he was taken into the medical centre . . . it was a terrible atmosphere, they were all panicking.” Britain’s chemical weapons were destroyed in the 1950s, but research has continued. Ken Earl, chairman of the Porton Down Veterans Support Group, said: “The veterans have been shabbily treated.” |
No comments:
Post a Comment