Police ‘identify the hit squad who poisoned the Skripals’
POLICE are believed to have identified the hit squad who poisoned double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
The would-be assassins – said to have included a woman – were tracked down by investigators painstakingly trawling through hours of CCTV footage, it was reported.
Police are working on the theory that the military-grade Novichok nerve agent used against the Skripals was concealed in a perfume bottle which was later discarded.
The bottle was found last week in the home of Charlie Rowley, 45, who was poisoned by the substance along with his partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, who later died. She is said to have been exposed to ten times more of the nerve agent than the Skripals – and it is possible she sprayed it directly on to her skin.
Using facial recognition technology, investigators are said to be concentrating on ‘fresh identities’ responsible for the attack – individuals not previously known to have been spies. Investigators then cross-checked the IDs with a list of passengers on a flight which left Britain soon after the attack in March. The attackers are said to have travelled using fake names.
It was also claimed that a British outpost in Cyprus intercepted a coded Russian message to Moscow after the poisoning which said the would-be assassins had left Britain.
An Aeroflot flight at Heathrow airport was searched on March 30, an action the British Government described at the time as ‘routine’.
The claims were made in two sep- arate reports yesterday – one via the Press Association and another by American outlet CNN.
But security minister Ben Wallace, writing on Twitter, dismissed the claims as ‘ill-informed’ and ‘wild speculation’. The Metropolitan Police, who are leading the investigation, declined to comment.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, said: ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have the official statement of the British side. I want to hear that from the Scotland Yard or from the Foreign Office.’
Mr Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury on March 4. They have since been released from hospital and taken to an undisclosed location.
It came as an inquest into the death of Miss Sturgess heard that she never regained consciousness from the moment she fell ill.
Doctors decided to turn off her life support machine after spending a week trying to save her. David Ridley, coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, said a post-mortem examination had been carried out, but added: ‘The cause of death will not be given until further tests are completed.’