Russian ex-spy critically ill
> Former double agent exposed to unidentified substance in UK
LONDON: A former Russian double agent convicted in Moscow of betraying dozens of agents to British intelligence was critically ill in hospital yesterday after he was exposed to an unidentified substance in southern England.
Sergei Skripal, once a colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, was given refuge in Britain after he was exchanged in 2010 for Russian spies caught in the West as part of a Cold War-style spy swap on the tarmac of Vienna airport.
But the 66-year-old former spy and a 33year-old woman who was known to him were found unconscious on a bench in a shopping centre on Sunday in the English city of Salisbury after exposure to what police said was an unknown substance. Both were critically ill in intensive care. While authorities in the United Kingdom said there was no known risk to the public, policemen sealed off the area where the former spy was found and a pizza restaurant called Zizzi in the centre of Salisbury.
Some investigators wore yellow chemical suits.
Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer, Mark Rowley, said investigators needed to be “alive to the fact of state threats”.
“We’re speaking to witnesses, we’re taking forensic samples at the scene, we’re doing toxicology work and that will help us to get to an answer.”
Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder of exKGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006, a killing which a British inquiry said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.
Alexander Perepilichny, who had been helping a Swiss investigation into a Russian money-laundering scheme, was found dead in 2012 in Britain.
Police ruled out foul play despite suspicions the Russian might have been murdered with a rare poison
Skripal was arrested in 2004 by Russia’s Federal Security Service on suspicion of betraying dozens of Russian agents in Europe to British intelligence.
He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006 after a secret trial.
Skripal, who was at the time shown in a cage in court, had admitted betraying agents to MI6 in return for money, some of it paid into a Spanish bank account, Russian media said at the time.
But he was pardoned in 2010 by thenPresident Dmitry Medvedev as part of a swap to bring 10 Russian agents held in the United States back to Moscow.
Since finding refuge in Britain, Skripal lived quietly in Salisbury and kept out of the spotlight until he was found unconscious on Sunday.
“On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl,” witness Freya Church told BBC.
“She was sort of leant-in on him. It looked like she’d passed out maybe.
“He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky.
“They looked so out of it that I thought even if I did step in I wasn’t sure how I could help, so I just left them.
“But it looked like they’d been taking something quite strong.” – Reuters