Rush to solve toxin death

British police rushed to solve a murder mystery on Monday after a woman died following exposure to the nerve agent Novichok, four months after the same toxin nearly killed a former Russian spy in an attack Britain blamed on Moscow.

Prime Minister Theresa May said she was appalled and shocked by the death of Dawn Sturgess, 44, a mother of three who had been living in a homeless hostel in Salisbury in southwest England.

Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, 45, fell ill just more than a week ago in Amesbury, near Salisbury, the city where former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with Novichok in March. The Skripals have since recovered.

The Kremlin said it would be absurd to suggest that Russia was involved in the death of Sturgess.

“We don’t know that Russia has been mentioned or associated with this,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said.

“We consider that in any case it would be quite absurd.”

Britain and its allies accused Russia of trying to kill the Skripals, prompting angry denials and sparking an international diplomatic crisis.

Police said they could not yet say whether the nerve agent in the Amesbury case was linked to the Salisbury attack, but it was their main line of inquiry.

The head of Britain’s counterterrorism police also said he could not rule out further contaminations.

“I simply cannot offer any guarantees,” assistant commissioner Neil Basu, who is leading the investigation, said.

He said people in Salisbury should not pick up strange items like needles, syringes or unusual containers.

Police and public health officials insist the risk to the wider public remains low.

Police said that given the deadly dose, the British couple were believed to have become exposed to Novichok by handling a contaminated item.

Christine Blanshard, medical director at Salisbury District Hospital, where Sturgess and Rowley were being treated and where the Skripals were treated, said staff had worked tirelessly to save Sturgess.

Basu said Rowley remained critically ill in hospital. –