Skripal niece: We can’t believe UK claims

SERGEI Skripal’s niece was yesterday wheeled out by the Russian press to refute claims made by the British authorities.

Viktoria Skripal, who has twice been denied a visa to visit her relatives in Britain, said the photos of the two novichok suspects released by Scotland Yard might have been ‘tampered with in Photoshop’. In newspaper interviews and in a press conference, she told how she was ‘sceptical’ of Russia’s involvement in the attempted assassination of her uncle.

Her cousin Yulia Skripal has previously released a public statement in which she asked Viktoria to stop

speaking on her behalf and not to contact her. Viktoria said: ‘The photos [of the suspects] cannot be trusted. We are told to take their word for it, but we can’t believe what they say, because we have already been deceived more than once in this saga. Photos of the suspects could have been tampered with.’

She said she did not recognise the men in the photographs, adding that Yulia had told her she was planning to return to Russia.