Bestselling author Ian Halperin says medical examiner Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne admitted to him that he had a “conflict of interest” when determining that Cobain killed himself at his home in Seattle.

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Halperin claims Dr. Hartshorne – who died in a BASE jumping accident in Switzerland in 2002 – was a Nirvana and Courtney Love super fan who lacked the necessary expertise in toxicology.

He exclusively told The U.S. Sun that the medical examiner confessed during an interview with him in 1996 that he should have been recused from the autopsy.

The bombshell allegations come after a purported copy of Cobain’s autopsy report – which has never before been made public due to Washington state privacy laws – was leaked online last week.

The alleged report confirms that Cobain died by suicide after turning a shotgun on himself.

It also states that the In Bloom singer had substances including morphine, codeine and diazepam in his blood plus opiates and benzodiazepines in his urine and needle track marks along his right arm.

Halperin published a book last year claiming that Cobain had 70 times the lethal dose of heroin in his system and therefore could not have killed himself.

The Canadian documentary maker, 59, also told The U.S. Sun last year that he was challenging Love to take a lie-detector test to prove that she had nothing to do with Cobain’s death.

Love has always strenuously denied any suggestions of being involved in Cobain’s death.

Reacting to the autopsy report leak, Halperin said: “I was the first person to ever interview the coroner and he admitted to me he should not have been the guy to do the exam.

“I showed up at his office one day in Seattle and he said ‘You’re Canadian, I trust you. I’ll give you the first interview.’

“So he opened his office doors to me and I saw Nirvana and Courtney Love posters all over his office.

“He admitted to me that he was intimately involved with Courtney and he should never have been so presumptuous with what he put in the autopsy.

“He admitted it was a conflict of interest and he should have recused himself from the case and then another autopsy be conducted.”

Halperin claims that Dr. Hartshorne went so far as to tell him he had been on dates with Love.

“He insinuated to me that he had something with her and said ‘I can’t tell you more, but use your own imagination.’

“He admitted to me that he was intimately involved with Courtney and he should never have been so presumptuous with what he put in the autopsy.”

Ian Halperin

“His inference was that it was potentially sexual and more than a friendship.”

Halperin says that Dr. Hartshorne’s bragging left him with the impression that he was a “loose cannon”.

“Still I cannot believe he was the guy who conducted the autopsy in the case,” he said.

“The authorities should have knocked him off the case.

“He was not an expert in toxicology either.

“I interviewed three pathologists who said he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

‘HOPE FOR JUSTICE’

The writer says Dr. Hartshorne also confessed  he might have reached a different conclusion if Seattle cops had not urged him to treat it as an open and shut case of yet another junkie overdosing.

“While he never said he suspected murder, he had trouble with his decisions,” Halperin said.

“I believe it haunted him for the rest of his life.”

The autopsy report leaked online last week was signed by Dr. Hartshorne as the King County assistant medical examiner and the late Dr. Donald Reay as chief medical examiner.

The toxicology results were signed by an analyst and the Washington state toxicologist.

“I hope for justice. There’s no statute of limitations on this stuff.”

Ian Halperin

Halperin argued last year in his book Case Closed: The Cobain Murder: The Killing And Cover Up of Kurt Cobain that Seattle cops were “steered away” from investigating the star’s death as a potential murder.

He also pointed to ex-Seattle police chief Norm Stamper’s previous admission that a new investigation should be launched.

The purported autopsy report was published online by private investigator Tom Grant, who was initially hired by Love to investigate her husband’s death.

Grant is also sceptical of the official version and wrote that the medical examiner’s report had brought nothing new to the investigation other than a “huge added lie” about Cobain’s purported suicide note.

The report states: “A note indicating suicidal intent was found in the residence.”

But Grant believes the note was originally written by Cobain to tell fans he was quitting the music industry with “strange added lines at the bottom of that note”.

The former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detective wrote: “I’ve always said, as far back as the mid 1990s, ‘There will be nothing…’ and now I can say, ‘There is nothing…’ in the autopsy report that could not be duplicated by a staged suicide.”

Halperin told The U.S. Sun he still has hope that evidence could come to light supporting his theory that Cobain was murdered

He pointed to famous cases like rapper Tupac Shakur’s alleged killer Keefe D being charged 27 years after the rap icon’s death and Connecticut teen Martha Moxley’s unsolved murder being brought to trial decades after her death in 1975.

He said: “I hope for justice. There’s no statute of limitations on this stuff.

“It just takes somebody to cooperate with the authorities and for the authorities to finally take the case seriously.”

Case Closed: The Cobain Murder: The Killing And Cover Up of Kurt Cobain is available on Amazon.

The U.S. Sun contacted Courtney Love’s representative asking for comment but did not hear back.

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