New IDs likely for Skripals

LONDON: Britain is considering offering poisoned Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia new identities and a fresh life in the US in an attempt to protect them from further murder attempts, the Sunday Times newspaper reported yesterday.

It said officials at the MI6 intelligence agency have had discussions with their counterparts in the CIA about resettling the victims poisoned last month in the English city of Salisbury.

“They will be offered new identities,” it quoted an unidentified source as saying.

The paper said its sources believed Britain would want to ensure their safety by resettling them in one of the so-called “five eyes” countries, the intelligence-sharing partnership that also includes the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“The obvious place to resettle them is America because they’re less likely to be killed there and it’s easier to protect them there under a new identity,” it quoted what it called an intelligence source familiar with the negotiations as saying.

Britain’s Foreign Office had no comment on the report.

Relations between Russia and Britain have plunged to their lowest in decades since the pair were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury on March 4.

Yulia had arrived in Britain only the day before to visit her father, who has been living in Britain for seven years. – Reuters