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22. 11. 09. - 15:00

UN 'suicide' scientist's family rescue evidence from destruction

By David Rogers

The sister of a British scientist who died in a mysterious fall has told how she rescued potential evidence from being destroyed by police.

Beverley Hall, 49, said she has been forced to store the clothes her brother wore on the night he died after officers revealed they were due to be burned.

She is now campaigning for police to investigate properly the death of Timothy Hampton, who plunged from the 17th floor of a UN building in Vienna last month.

Austrian detectives have completed their report into the death of Hampton, a 47-year-old scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, and have passed the information on to prosecutors.

Prosecutors have still not announced the result of their investigation but it is believed they are likely to rule it was suicide as they had apparently given police permission to dispose of the evidence.

But Hall, who runs a caravan park in Newbury, Berkshire, believes there is enough evidence � including signs of bruising around her brother�s neck consistent with strangulation � to suggest he did not kill himself.

Last night, Richard Benyon, the family�s MP, said Hall had brought her brother�s possessions to the UK to prevent police from destroying them.

He said: �She was in Vienna and was told that the clothes were going to be burned, destroyed. So she has had to bring the clothes back to the UK in sealed bags. They are sitting in her house.

�One would think that in such circumstances the clothes would be kept by the authorities but not in this case. Beverley said she felt like screaming in conversations with the authorities. I am getting increasingly concerned.�

Hampton, a father of one, was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell in Vienna at around 8pm on 20 October.

An initial post-mortem examination concluded there were �no suspicious circumstances� surrounding his death.

But his widow Olena Gryshcuk and her family were unhappy with that verdict and a second examination undertaken on their behalf found bruising "not consistent with a fall".

One theory the family want the authorities to examine is that Hampton, who worked for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation, was carried to the 17th floor from his workplace on the sixth floor and thrown to his death.

It is understood they are also concerned that the Austrian authorities and the UN have been reluctant to treat the death as suspicious.

Benyon said: "Mr Hampton�s former colleagues are terrified and no one is working late like they used to. Morale is very low.

"Beverley presented the evidence of the second autopsy but the authorities still insisted that there was nothing to suggest anything but suicide."

Benyon said he had raised the matter with Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant, who was applying pressure on the authorities through the British Embassy in Vienna.

CNTBTO staff monitor tremors worldwide to uncover illegal nuclear tests. The UN has denied claims Hampton may have been involved in talks discussing nuclear testing in Iran - although he was involved in monitoring date from three seismic stations located in Iraq.

A spokesman for Vienna police refused to comment on the case - but confirmed that possessions would be burned at the end of an investigation if the family members were not prepared to take them.

Austrian Times

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Medawar wrote on 22. 11. 2009 from Potton England about "UN 'suicide' scientist's ..."

If Dr Hampton's wife were to allow his sister to repatriate the body for burial in England, the relevant County Coroner (either at port of entry or point of burial) could call a jury and hold an inquest, at which the surviving evidence and witnesses would be evaluated and a factual determination made as to whether the death was murder or suicide, or whether the cause was still "open". The jury can also enter a narrative verdict, where they offer a detailed determination of what is known to have happened without seeking to classify it into a predetermined box. In every case where this has been done so far, juries have done a meticulous job of it and the narrative is both authoritative and generally accepted by the public as trustworthy. In bleak circumstances, inquest narratives often represent the English language at its most useful and most succinct. Medawar believes that Dr Hampton's relatives live in Berkshire, which is the same county as most of Heathrow airport, so the Berkshire Coroner would have an undiluted right to hold an inquest if the body arrived there.

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Medawar wrote on 22. 11. 2009 from Potton England about "UN 'suicide' scientist's ..."

It would be unimaginable for English police to destroy evidence this quickly when someone had died, even if they had no reason to suspect foul play. (Scotland is different.) At the moment, one would need the coroner's permission to do anything with the evidence, and that wouldn't be forthcoming before he'd held an inquest. In a case like this, it would be with a jury. This is something that Jack Straw is trying to change, but in this instance the traditional English way of doing things has clear public interest advantages over the more administratively convenient continental style... (I'm afraid that in Scotland, the absence of coroners allows the authorities to get away with the most blatant and appalling cover-ups. A Sherrif's court can hold a fatal incident inquiry, but only if the Procurator Fiscal says so. A Sherrif is like a magistrate, part of the criminal justice system. An English coroner represents the Crown directly, outside the criminal justice system, and cannot be told what to do. Only the ordering of a public inquiry can suspend inquests in sudden death cases: the loophole that got Blair off the hook with David Kelly. Rather than making this loophole bigger, it should be closed.)

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Hall Hampton police nuclear possessions circumstances Beverley floor authorities Benyon bruising Vienna examination suicide Austrian death family clothes scientist monitoring

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