PM ‘just yards from deadly nerve agent’
COLD WAR II: SECOND DEATH ‘IS MURDER’
A HAZARDOUS materials team takes swabs on a fence just yards from where Theresa May stood amid fears it could be contaminated with a killer nerve agent.
The PM stood close to the railing on a visit to the park where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed.
Less than 24 hours after her Thursday trip, a major decontamination operation involving 20 officers was launched.
Shoppers looked on in astonishment as the Scotland Yard officers put on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear suits, before swabbing the metal fence – around 15ft from where Mrs May stood during her visit to Salisbury, Wilts.
They bagged the evidence and were then decontaminated by colleagues who also had protective suits and gas masks.
It is believed CCTV shows one of the Skripals touching the fence in the moments before they collapsed on March 4. A source said: “Everything is being meticulously checked for any possible trace of the nerve agent. Nothing is being left to chance.”
Fresh CCTV footage emerged yesterday of Sergei and Yulia driving into Salisbury on the day they were poisoned.
The former spy’s BMW, which is at the centre of the investigation, was caught on a camera close to his home at 1.33pm.
Counter-terror police are probing whether Russian assassins boobytrapped the vehicle with the nerve agent.
There are fears the deadly Novichok poison was placed in the car’s ventilation system or smeared on the door handles.
Detectives know the Skripals arrived at a car park in the city centre at 1.40pm. They have appealed for help in tracking the BMW between 1pm and 1.45pm.
The car was last night taken to Porton Down laboratory for testing by the hazardous materials team.