London - Russian former double agent
Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a
military-grade nerve toxin that had been left on the front door
of their home in England, British counter-terrorism police said.
After the first known offensive use of a chemical weapon on
European soil since World War Two, Britain blamed Russian
President Vladimir Putin for the attempted assassination and the
West has expelled around 130 Russian diplomats.
Russia has denied using Novichok, a nerve agent first
developed by the Soviet military, to attack Skripal, and Moscow
has said it suspects the British secret services are trying to
frame Russia to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.
"We believe the Skripals first came into contact with the
nerve agent from their front door," said Dean Haydon, Britain's'
senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing.
"Specialists have identified the highest concentration of
the nerve agent, to date, as being on the front door of the
address," Scotland Yard said in a statement.
Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, have been in a
critical condition since being found unconscious on a public
bench in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. A British
judge has said they may have suffered permanent brain damage.
The attempted murder of Skripal, a 66-year-old former
colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of
Russian agents to Britain's MI6 spy service, has plunged
Moscow's relations with the West to a new post-Cold War low.
After Britain expelled 23 Russians it said were spies
working under diplomatic cover, Russia followed by throwing out
23 British diplomats. The United States and other Western
countries, including most member states of the European Union
and NATO, expelled over 100 diplomats.
British lawmakers launched a new inquiry into
money-laundering, sanctions and economic crime on Thursday, with
a particular focus on properties bought with so-called "dirty
money".
"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the Kremlin had
underestimated the Western response to the attack, which also
injured a British policeman.
Johnson told an audience of ambassadors in London that 27
countries had now moved to expel Russian diplomats over Moscow's
suspected involvement, which it denies.
"These expulsions represent a moment when a feeling has
suddenly crystallised, when years of vexation and provocation
have worn the collective patience to breaking point, and when
across the world – across three continents – there are countries
who are willing to say enough is enough," Johnson said.
"If they (Russia) believed that we had become so morally
weakened, so dependent on hydrocarbons, so chronically
risk-averse and so fearful of Russia that we would not dare to
respond, then this is their answer."
Putin, who has been dealing with a deadly shopping centre
fire in Siberia, has yet to respond, though Moscow has
threatened to take retaliatory action against the West.
"An analysis of all the circumstances ... leads us to think
of the possible involvement in it (the poisoning) of the British
intelligence services," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement on Wednesday before the announcement by British
police.
"If convincing evidence to the contrary is not presented to
the Russian side we will consider that we are dealing with an
attempt on the lives of our citizens as a result of a massive
political provocation."
A London court last week gave permission for blood samples
to be taken from the Skripals for examination by chemical
weapons inspectors to confirm a conclusion by Britain that the
military nerve agent had been used.
An unidentified doctor who is treating the Skripals said
they were both heavily sedated and unable to communicate, and
that it was not possible to assess when or to what extent either
may regain mental capacity, according to the court's ruling.
Skripal, who was recruited by British spies while in Spain,
ended up in Britain after a Cold War-style spy swap that brought
10 Russian spies captured in the United States back to Moscow in
exchange for those accused by Moscow of spying for the West.
Since emerging from the world of high espionage and
betrayal, Skripal lived modestly in the cathedral city of
Salisbury and kept out of the spotlight until he was found
unconscious on March 4.
His house, which featured a good-luck horseshoe on the front
door, was bought for 260,000 pounds ($360,000) in 2011. Skripal
was listed at living there under his own name.
In the years since he found refuge in Britain, he lost both
a wife and son.
The attack on Skripal has been likened in Britain to the
killing of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Putin,
who died in London in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with
radioactive polonium 210.
Russia denied any involvement in that killing.
An inquiry led by senior British judge Robert Owen found
that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and another Russian,
Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation
probably directed by Russia’s Federal Security Service.
British police said they would continue to focus their
enquiries around Skripal's home address as the investigation
continued.