Novichok poison targets ‘have a new life in New Zealand’
Russian Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who were both poisoned two years ago by the deadly nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England, are believed to have started a new life in New Zealand.
Before a new BBC drama is broadcast which documents the attack, it is understood that Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, have left the safehouse in which they were living in the UK.
According to The Sunday Times, a senior government source said the Skripals had been given new identities and support to start a new life.
On March 4 2018, the two were found unconscious on a park bench after the nerve agent had been smeared on the door handle of Skripal’s home.
Skripal, a former colonel in the GRU who was caught spying for the UK, and his daughter survived the assassination attempt, but Dawn Sturgess, a local woman, died after inadvertently handling a bottle that had contained the poison.
Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defence select committee, said: “Russian authorities follow their citizens’ activities here very closely indeed. If there was a threat to their lives they would be looking to move elsewhere, away from the limelight.”
Ellwood said the event was “a reflection of the character of conflict now”.
“It is done through subtle means of affecting our economy, mindset and interfering with government bandwidth, which is what this attack achieved,” he said.
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, the
Skripals’ former neighbour, Ross Cassidy, said he had received a Christmas card from them last December with no return address.
“It’s nice to know they are thinking of us, but I don’t expect we’ll ever see them again,” he said.
Meanwhile, Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, who wrote the three-part drama series The Salisbury Poisonings, soon to be broadcast on BBC One, said that the city’s experiences had subsequently been echoed across the country in the virus outbreak.
“There are so many resonances with the story we tell in Salisbury,” they said. — The Daily Telegraph