Case Ref : 20050806, Cooke, Robin

Official Narrative

A British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 until his death in 2005 and served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 until 2001 when he was replaced by Jack Straw. He then served as Leader of the House of Commons from 2001 until 2003.

At the start of August 2005, Cook and his wife, Gaynor, took a two-week holiday in the Scottish Highlands. At around 2:20 pm on 6 August 2005, while he walked down Ben Stack in Sutherland, Cook suddenly suffered a severe heart attack, collapsed, lost consciousness and fell about 8 feet (2.4 m) down a ridge. He was assisted after his fall by another hill-walker who refused all publicity and was granted anonymity. A helicopter containing paramedics arrived 30 minutes after a 999 call was made. Cook then was flown to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness. Gaynor did not get in the helicopter, and walked down the mountain. Despite efforts made by the medical team to revive Cook in the helicopter, he was already beyond recovery, and at 4:05 pm, minutes after arrival at the hospital, was pronounced dead. Two days later, a post-mortem examination found that Cook had died of hypertensive heart disease.

Notes

Immediately after the London bombings Cooke wrote a very controversial article titled “The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means” in which he states

“Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.”