Boris in ‘robust’ warning to Russia
Kate James and Tom Evans. Three Court of Appeal judges upheld the decision yesterday.
Barrister Stephen Knafler QC – leading Alfie’s parents’ legal team – said “the State” had wrongly interfered with “parental choice”. A WOMAN was found dead in south west London less than an hour after police discovered the bodies of her husband and two young boys 80 miles away.
The woman, believed to be in her 40s, was found dead with stab wounds at her home in Twickenham shortly before 6pm on Monday. Police tried to trace her husband, 57 and two boys, seven and 10, and were contacted by Sussex Police who found bodies of a man and two children at the foot of cliffs at Birling Gap, East Sussex, at around 5pm that day. PICASSO’S “sexually charged” nudes are the highlights of a new show at Tate Modern.
The paintings depict the then-married artist’s much younger lover, Marie-Therese Walter, 28 years his junior. The exhibition, focusing on his work from 1932, opens as a painting of Picasso’s mistress sold for nearly £50 million – the highest auction price for any painting sold in Europe in sterling.
Picasso and Walter’s granddaughter, Diana Widmaier-Picasso, who was at the exhibition, said she was “happy and astonished” by the focus on Walter in recent years. She said of the FOREIGN Secretary Boris Johnson has vowed that Britain will respond “robustly” if evidence of state responsibility emerges after a Russian double agent was left fighting for his life following suspected exposure to an unknown substance.
Sergei Skripal, 66, was found unconscious in Salisbury, Wiltshire, along with his 33-year-old daughter Yulia shortly after 4pm on Sunday.
Answering an urgent question in the Commons, Mr Johnson said he wanted to address speculation about the “disturbing” incident.
Noting that the case has “echoes” of the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who was fatally poisoned in London in 2006, he told MPs: “While it would be wrong to prejudge the investigation, I can reassure the House that should evidence emerge that implies state responsibility, then Her Majesty’s Government will respond appropriately and robustly.”
If suspicions about the events in Salisbury prove to be well-founded, the Government may be forced to look again at its sanctions regime, he added.
Scotland Yard said the investigation is £49.8 million sum fetched for the portrait: “People want to rely on works that are important for art history. If you think about history, it’s always going to be Picasso.”
Star pieces in the Tate Modern show include The Dream, Nude In A Black Armchair and Nude, Green Leaves And Bust. WidmaierPicasso being led by the counter-terrorism policing network because of its “specialist expertise”, adding: “It has not been declared a terrorist incident and at this stage we are keeping an open mind as to what happened.”
Mr Skripal was convicted in 2006 of passing state secrets to MI6 before being given refuge in the UK as part of a spy swap in 2010. He was found with his daughter on a bench in The Maltings in Salisbury after police were called by a concerned member of the public at 4.15pm on Sunday.
The pair did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital, where they are being treated in intensive care for “suspected exposure to an unknown substance”. On Monday night dismissed any notion Picasso objectified women.
“It’s a respect he pays to women,” she said. “He’s using them to move forward... to explore a different medium, including sculpture and print.”
The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy, runs from March 8 to September 9 at Tate Modern. officers “secured” a number of scenes – including the Zizzi restaurant on Castle Street and the Bishop’s Mill pub in The Maltings.
A CCTV image of a man and woman walking through an alleyway between the Zizzi restaurant and the bench near a shopping centre where Mr Skripal was found is believed to be of interest to police.
While the incident remains shrouded in mystery, it comes at a time when ties between Russia and the UK are under severe strain.
Former Scotland Yard counter-terror chief Richard Walton said: “The investigation must take its course, but if this is statesponsored terrorism it will have grave consequences for UK-Russia bilateral relations.
“The UK cannot and will not tolerate state-sponsored terrorism of any kind.”
A former associate of Mr Litvinenko alleged the incident in Salisbury bears the hallmarks of a state-ordered assassination.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia did not “have any information” and had not been approached for help in the investigation. He added: “Moscow is always open to co-operation.”