Policeman sickened by nerve agent
BRITAIN: A British police officer is seriously ill in a hospital intensive care unit after being poisoned by a nerve agent when he came to the aid of the Russian spy targeted in Salisbury.
The unnamed officer was one of the first on the scene on Monday when Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were attacked by would-be assassins at a shopping arcade in the cathedral city in western England.
The policeman was initially treated in hospital as a precaution and then discharged, but his condition deteriorated and he was readmitted on Wednesday.
The disclosure of the officer’s condition will add to growing pressure on the British government to take a hardline approach against Russia if state involvement in the attack is confirmed.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson yesterday described the events as ‘‘very troubling’’, adding: ‘‘If this does turn out to be in any way the result of hostile activity by another government, or directed, led, by another government, then the people of this country can be absolutely sure that the UK will respond robustly.’’
There is growing speculation that the Russian ambassador may be expelled from London. Kensington Palace also said that the Duke of Cambridge had no plans to attend this year’s football World Cup in Russia.
Counterterrorism specialists have confirmed that the substance used in the attack was a known nerve agent, and have said they are treating the incident as attempted murder. It has been reported that the nerve agent may have been developed in the notorious Yasenevo laboratory of Russia’s foreign intelligence service near Moscow. Security sources said the substance was only held in a ‘‘very small number of places’’.
Skripal, who was recruited by Britain to spy on the Russian military during the 1990s, remained in a critical condition in hospital yesterday, alongside his 33-year-old daughter.
Scotland Yard’s Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the head of national counterterrorism policing, said hundreds of detectives had been deployed to the investigation.
It has also emerged that the British operative who recruited Skripal to work for MI6 has links to Christopher Steele, the intelligence agent who helped to compile the infamous Donald Trump dossier.
As detectives continued to hunt for the attackers, Whitehall sources said there was now a widespread feeling in government that ‘‘(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s hands are all over this’’.
Sir Andrew Wood, who was Britain’s ambassador to Russia between 1995 and 2000, said the fact that a police officer had been injured intensified matters.
‘‘This makes the assassination attempt even more serious. If it is true that this is, in some fashion, the Russian state, it obviously makes it even harder to believe the Russian state is worth anything or is to be trusted.’’
Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident murdered in London in 2006, said: ‘‘It is awful. It is absolutely shocking. If the British authorities had taken my husband’s case more seriously when it happened, then maybe this would not have taken place. I didn’t want this to happen again on British soil, and now it has.’’
Skripal was convicted of spying for Britain in 2006 and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. However, he was pardoned in 2010 and granted asylum in the UK as part of a prisoner exchange.
A fellow political refugee claimed that Skripal was still working in cyber security and was in regular contact with military intelligence officials at the Russian embassy.