Daughter in UK spy poisoning case discharged from hospital
YULIA Skripal, poisoned with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury along with her Russian ex-spy father, has been discharged from hospital, an official said on Tuesday.
“This is not the end of her treatment but marks a significant milestone,” Salisbury hospital’s Deputy Chief Executive Christine Blanshard said, adding that the 33-year-old Russian had asked for privacy.
She said that while Sergei Skripal, 66, is “recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he too will be able to leave hospital in due course”.
The pair were found collapsed on a bench in the southwestern city of Salisbury on March 4 in what British authorities have said was attempted murder by the Russian state.
There were initially fears that the Skripals would not recover, but last week hospital and police officials said they were both improving. In a statement issued through police last week, Yulia Skripal said: “I woke up over a week ago now and am glad to say my strength is growing daily.”
She said she had found the incident “disorientating”, without providing any further details on the attack.
The following day, the hospital said her father was also “improving rapidly and is no longer in a critical condition”. The BBC reported thatYulia had been dis- charged on Monday and was moved to a secure location.
Police have said they believe the Skripals came into contact with the nerve agent at Sergei Skripal’s front door.
The former Russian military officer was recruited by British intelligence in the 1990s and later charged with treason in his own country. But he was pardoned in 2010 and moved to Britain as part of a spy swap between the US and Russia.
His daughter was visiting at the time of the poisoning, the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since World War II.
British scientists have identified the chemical as the Sovietdesigned Novichok, although the international Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has yet to verify this.
Blanshard said nerve agents work by attaching themselves to particular enzymes in the body, which then stop the nerves from functioning, leading to sickness and hallucinations.
“Our job in treating the patients is to stabilise them, ensuring that they can breathe and that blood can continue to circulate,” she said in a statement. “We then needed to use a variety of different drugs to support the patients until they could create more enzymes to replace those affected by the poisoning.
“We also used specialised decontamination techniques to remove any residual toxins. Both patients have responded exceptionally well to the treatment we’ve been providing. But equally both patients are at different stages in their recovery.”