New novichok alert at Salisbury restaurant
999 teams in chemical suits swoop as two diners fall sick
EMERGENCY workers in chemical protection suits swooped on a Salisbury restaurant last night after two diners fell ill.
Police closed Prezzo and nearby roads after the ‘medical incident’ at 5.30pm near to where ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with novichok.
Witnesses described police ‘covering someone up with a blanket’, and there was a suggestion that the victims – a man and a woman – were Russian.
Police took diners to an empty shop after the incident, and they were still being kept there six hours later.
Amanda Worne, who was at Prezzo, tweeted: ‘ Salisbury leaps into action again as two Russians are taken ill in Prezzos showing the same symptoms as before. We were next to them.’
Sam Proudfoot, 16, tweeted: ‘Trouble in Salisbury again near the cathedral. There’s a man in a full white body suit with a mouth-mask.’
Another witness told the BBC that one of the people taken ill was a blonde woman in her late twenties.
The female appeared to be at the table on her own and ‘ kept going away, getting up and coming back again’. The witness added: ‘When she came back she was hysterical.
‘She called paramedics and the next thing an ambulance turns up
‘Two Russians are ill’
and they come rushing in.’ The source added that the man the woman had been with had gone to the toilet and had had a fit.
Amanda Newton, who was in the restaurant, posted on Facebook: ‘Two people sitting next to us take seriously ill and the whole area is closed. We may need blood tests at hospital.’ Prezzo is less than half a mile from the Zizzi restaurant where the Skripals ate before falling ill on March 4. They were poisoned after novichok was smeared on Mr Skripal’s front door. Police officer Nick Bailey was also admitted to intensive care after becoming contaminated in the aftermath. Almost four months later, locals Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley were taken to hospital after handling a discarded perfume bottle used to carry the nerve agent. Miss Sturgess died and Mr Rowley remains in hospital fighting meningitis after his body was weakened by the poison.
The incident comes days after two suspected Russian spies appeared on pro-Kremlin TV to deny being behind the attack on the Skripals. Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov said they were in Salisbury to visit the cathedral after CCTV showed them close to Mr Skripal’s home.
But traces of novichok were found in the hotel room they shared in east London.
British intelligence officers believe the fallout from the attempted killing has angered Vladimir Putin. Petrov and Boshirov – allegedly members of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service – are thought to have been hauled before the television cameras as punishment.
In another humiliating revelation, it was reported yesterday that a phone number on Petrov’s passport was linked to Russia’s defence ministry.