Poisoned by nerve agent
AMESBURY: Britain’s security minister has called on Russia to give details about the Novichok nerve agent attack on a former double agent and his daughter after two British citizens were poisoned with the same substance.
The two Britons are critically ill after what is thought to be a chance encounter with the poison after the March attack on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.
Britain has accused Russia of poisoning the Skripals, a charge Russia has repeatedly denied.
‘‘The Russian state could put this ‘wrong’ right; they could tell us what happened, what they did and fill in some of the significant gaps that we are trying to pursue,’’ Security Minister Ben Wallace told BBC radio yesterday.
‘‘They [Russia] are the ones who could fill in all the clues to keep people safe.’’
Dawn Sturgess (44) and Charlie Rowley (45) were admitted to hospital after being found unwell on Saturday in Amesbury, near Salisbury where the Skripals were attacked in March.
‘‘I have received test results from Porton Down [military research centre] which show that the two people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok,’’ Neil Basu, Britain’s most senior counterterrorism officer, told reporters.
Novichok, developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, takes effect within minutes, blocking messages from the nerves to the muscles, causing bodily functions to collapse.
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UK counterterrorism police are leading the investigation, although Basu said it was unclear how the two came into contact with the nerve agent or whether they had been targeted.
‘‘I don’t have any intelligence or evidence that they were targeted in any way,’’ Basu said. ‘‘There is nothing in their background to suggest that at all.’’
Amesbury is 11km north of Salisbury, where Skripal — a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 spy service — and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in March.
Around 100 counterterrorism officers are working on the case and police have cordoned off at least five different areas, including a park and a property in Salisbury and a pharmacy and a community centre in Amesbury.
The March attack prompted the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War as allies in Europe and the United States sided with Prime Minister Theresa May’s view that Moscow was either responsible or had lost control of the nerve agent.
Mystery surrounds the attack and the motive is unclear, as is the logic of using such an exotic nerve agent which has overt links to the Soviet military during the Cold War.
Russia has suggested Britain carried out the March attack to stoke antiMoscow hysteria.
Moscow also hit back by expelling Western diplomats, questioning how Britain knew Russia was responsible and offering rival interpretations, including that it amounted to a plot by British secret services.
Health chiefs said yesterday the risk to the public was low, although the exposure of two people apparently unconnected to espionage or the former Soviet Union will stoke fears that traces of the nerve agent remain in the area.
‘‘As the country’s chief medical officer, I want to reassure the public that the risk to the general public remains low,’’ England’s Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies told reporters.
Prime Minister May’s spokesman said the Government’s emergency response committee had met to discuss the incident.
‘‘The working theory is currently that this exposure was accidental, rather than a second attack along the lines of that on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury earlier this year,’’ Javid said.
After the Skripal poisoning, police investigators in protective hazmat suits scoured the ancient English cathedral city of Salisbury. Basu cautioned that police in protective clothing would return to the area.
Paramedics were called on Saturday to a house in Amesbury after Ms Sturgess collapsed and returned later in the day when Mr Rowley also fell ill.
The pair, who are being treated at Salisbury District Hospital, were initially believed to have taken heroin or crack cocaine from a contaminated batch, police said.
But tests showed they had been poisoned with Novichok.
‘‘We are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to,’’ Basu said.
‘‘The possibility that these two investigations might be linked is clearly a line of inquiry for us.’’
The hospital is the one where the Skripals spent weeks in a critical condition before recovering. — Reuters