RUSSIAN SPY BUYS LOTTERY SCRATCHCARDS DAYS BEFORE POISON ATTACK
DOUBLE agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a deadly nerve agent, investigators revealed last night.
Toxicology tests have revealed the former Russian spy and his daughter Yulia, 33, were struck down after being targeted by a would-be assassin armed with a chemical.
Yulia, who lives in Moscow, had been visiting her father. Both are now fighting for their lives in intensive care at a local hospital.
Police investigating the attempted murder also revealed that one of the first police officers on the scene is seriously ill in hospital.
It is believed Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter may have been ambushed in broad daylight after enjoying lunch in Salisbury.
They were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a city centre shopping centre.
Police declined to specify how the nerve agent was administered but experts said the pair are likely to have been sprayed, or the substance was absorbed through the skin.
Nerve agents – the most toxic and rapidly acting of known chemical warfare agents – can also be delivered through contaminated food or drink. They stop the nervous system from working and lead to vital organs shutting down.
One theory was that the attacker was armed with a lethal chemical known as VX which was used in high-profile assassinations including the murder of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last year.
The chemical, developed in the 1950s in Britain, was used by Saddam Hussein in deadly attacks against his own people and the Kurds.
Its use heightens suspicions that Colonel Skripal and his daughter were the victims of a statesponsored assassination attempt.
CCTV footage emerged yesterday of him behaving normally, buying groceries and up to £40 worth of lottery scratchcards from a shop close to his home just five days before the attack.
But one Russian exile claimed yesterday that Colonel Skripal was still working as an agent.
Scotland Yard counter-terror chief assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said: “Having established that a nerve agent was the cause of the symptoms, leading us to treat this as attempted murder, I can also confirm we believe the two people were targeted specifically.”
He said hundreds of forensics officers and detectives are working round the clock on the case.
The deadly substance was identified after being examined by scientists at the top secret Porton Down weapons research laboratory, just eight miles from Salisbury.
The police officer who is being treated is being supported by his family. He has not been named. He was among 10 emergency services workers also assessed by medical staff after treating the Skripals. Detectives believe the would-be assassins may have been captured on camera. Scotland Yard launched an appeal for the public to hand over images or footage that could prove vital in the investigation. Police have set up a special secure website where mobile phone and digital camera images can be uploaded along with video footage.
Detectives want to speak to daytrippers, workers and locals who were in the medieval Wiltshire city on Sunday afternoon and may have information to come forward.
They also want to speak to diners at Italian restaurant Zizzi where Colonel Skripal and Yulia had lunch after arriving at around 1.30pm.
The former spy is said to have flown into a rage during lunch over the time it took for his food to arrive – said to be around 40 minutes.
The pair headed to the Bishop’s Mill pub which is situated nearby on the banks of the River Avon before being found in a “catatonic” state at 4.15pm, with no visible injuries.
Colonel Skripal had apparently slipped into obscurity moving to Salisbury where his family settled in 2011. He paid £260,000 in cash for his four-bed semi-detached house.
Yesterday afternoon police teams arrived at his property carrying equipment from three parked vans.
A yellow tent was erected outside the house at around 6pm.
Officers in full biohazard suits and respirators continued to work inside Zizzi’s restaurant. Police teams have removed furniture, including the table and chairs the couple sat at for lunch, for further forensic tests.
At one point yesterday police and paramedics rushed to an office building next door where a darkhaired woman was taken from the scene in an ambulance.
The pub was also sealed off and cordons were thrown around a series of “secured” scenes.
They included Solstice Park in Amesbury, a business park eight miles north of the city where an ambulance station is situated.
Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, said the risk posed to the public was “low”. She said: “All the sites that the patients were known to have visited have been secure, so the public are protected.”
Colonel Skripal, who was arrested in Russia in 2006, came to Britain after a spy swap deal in 2010.
His wife Liudmila died in the UK from cancer aged 59 in 2012.
Then his son Alexander, 43, died last year from liver failure while visiting Russia. His body was returned to Britain and they are buried in the same cemetery. Police are thought to be re-examining their deaths.
Colonel Skripal’s brother Valery also died aged 68 in mysterious circumstances on March 6, 2016 – almost exactly two years before Sunday’s attack.
Analysts believe Colonel Skripal may have angered Russian presi-
‘Colonel was seen on CCTV spending £40 on scratchcards’
dent Vladimir Putin because of his alleged continued involvement with British intelligence. In recent years it is thought the colonel gave lectures at British military academies.
He is also said to have acted as an advisor to intelligence agencies, providing insights into the GRU – the most powerful and secret of Russia’s three spy agencies.
Mark Galeotti, an expert in Russian security and politics, said: “If the Russians were behind this, and it looks plausible, then it is because they assumed Skripal was still working for British or other Western intelligence and not simply retired.”
Colonel Skripal, who worked for Russian military intelligence, was jailed for treason in his home country for passing secrets to MI6.
After the spy exchange Putin issued a chilling warning saying: “Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers in arms.
“Whatever they got in exchange, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them.”
Mr Galeotti added: “Skripal was not just any spy but a former insider, a GRU officer who allegedly blew the cover of 300 Russian agents.”
Fellow Russian exile Valery Morozov said Colonel Skripal was in regular contact with military intelligence officers at the Russian Embassy in London.
He said he met the colonel several times but felt the company he was keeping was dangerous and he decided to keep clear of him.