A LEADER of the Baha’i faith will be called before Lord Hutton’s inquiry to answer claims that David Kelly’s religion holds clues to his suicide.
The Baha’i faith expressly forbids lying, along with the use of alcohol or drugs, stealing, begging, gambling, killing, homosexuality and gossiping.
If Dr Kelly did mislead the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, some Baha’i feel that these teachings may have weighed hard on him. The sacred writings of Abdul Baha, the son of Bahaullah, the 19th-century founder of the religion that aims to unite the teachings of other prophets from Buddha to Christ, said: “The individual must be educated to such a high degree that he would rather have his throat cut than tell a lie, and would think it easier to be slashed with a sword or pierced with a spear than to utter calumny.”
Dr Kelly converted to the faith in 1999 while in New York on attachment to the UN. He became treasurer for a small but influential Baha’i branch near his home in Abingdon, Oxford.
One of the few dozen in the branch is Barney Leith, the secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i in the UK, who is likely to be giving evidence before Lord Hutton.
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A spokeswoman for the British Baha’is said that the faith was very forgiving. “The suggestions that Baha’is would make Dr Kelly feel guilty if he had lied is wrong, Baha’is know they can make their own peace with God.
“Dr Kelly would never have been looked down upon or excluded from the Baha’i community for his actions. All the Baha’is who knew him said he was a very upright man.”