SAYS HITMAN TRIED TO KILL HIM CROSSHAIRS Injured cop: I was just doing my job
four months later, still in New Zealand.
He arrived home to a strong chemical smell – and mysterious crystals on the carpet which melted away. He says: “Black spots appeared on my skin.”
Abdominal, chest and groin pain followed, accompanied by dizziness. Toxicology tests in New Zealand and London could not pinpoint the cause.
He fears the latest death threat is for posting the names of FSB agents on the Latvian website Kompromat.
Karpichkov says his contact is a senior officer in the FSB, Russia’s equivalent of MI5, “somewhere in Eastern Europe.” They communicate by so-called burner phones, pay-as-you go mobiles destroyed after each call.
Karpichkov recalls: “He told me something bad was about to happen to me. Extra-judicial killing is typical of the Russian state. It is used against anyone considered to be a traitor, political opponent, or even a critic.
“My contact gave me the list of marks who were to be hit and each of us falls into one of those categories.
“The Russian state poisons people all over the world and the hit on Skripal was an FSB op, no doubt about it.”
Karpichkov has learned of a meeting of the FSB Kolegia, a gathering of its high-ranking officers, last Monday – the day after Skripal was attacked.
Vladimir Putin was also present and Karpichkov alleges he was briefed the hit had been a “success”. That verdict THE police officer left fighting for his life after rushing to the aid of poisoned former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter yesterday insisted he was not a hero. Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, 38, remained in hospital last night but was awake and engaging with his family. A police spokesman said: “Nick would like us to say on his behalf that he and his family are hugely grateful for all the messages of support. “People have been so kind and he has expressed that he will never forget that kindness. He also wishes to say that he was part of a group of officers and other emergency services colleagues who dealt with the initial incident. “He wants to say that he does not consider himself a ‘hero’, he states he was merely doing his job – a job he loves and is immensely proud of.” Wiltshire police officer Det Sgt Bailey was contaminated by a nerve agent as he helped Sergei and his daughter Yulia after they collapsed in Salisbury a week ago. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said both remained in a “critical but stable condition” at Salisbury District Hospital. She confirmed more than 200 witnesses and 240 pieces of evidence have been identified as police probe the poisoning “at speed”. At least 250 counter-terror officers are will need revising if Skripal survives.
Karpichkov was a 24-year-old mechanical engineer when he joined the KGB, so had never met Skripal – a colonel in GRU military intelligence.
He rose to major in the Second Chief Directorate which mounted intelligence ops abroad. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991, he transferred to KGB successor, the FSB. Had he shown a flair for assassination he might have ended up in Department 13, the so-called Department of Wet Affairs, whose agents had a licence to kill.
Karpichkov insists that although he was a trained killer he never became one – and refused orders to murder.
Raised in the then-Soviet Baltic state of Latvia he says he was brainwashed by Communism adding: “I thought it was the future for the entire world. I fancied myself as James Bond, but once now involved with what Ms Rudd said was a“major investigation”.
Chemical warfare teams were yesterday seen testing for deadly nerve agents at the graves of Sergei’s wife, Lyudmila, and son, Alexander, at a cemetery in Salisbury.
One theory is that flowers left there were planted with poison.
Soldiers were also seen entering Zizzi, the Italian restaurant where the pair dined shortly before collapsing. Det Sgt Bailey’s police car has been seized for examination.
Meanwhile, Sergei was yesterday branded a “traitor” by fellow former Russian spy Anna Chapman, 36.
She was part of a prisoner swap between Russia and the US in 2010 which also involved Sergei, who was jailed in 2006 for leaking secrets to Britain.
Chapman, seen as a propagandist for the Kremlin, ranted on Instagram: “As always Russia is guilty by default... despite the fact that traitor was pardoned by the President and released.” I realised what the KGB/FSB was really about I became disillusioned.”
He claims to have spied on Latvia for the Russians and on Russia for the Latvians, the CIA and the French.
By 1998 the FSB had rumbled him and he was thrown into jail. On temporary release he fled to Britain using false travel documents for himself and his family – a wife and two children.
The defection, he says, earned him a death sentence from his ex-bosses.
Karpichkov hoped MI5 would pay for a cosy new life in exchange for the two suitcases full of top secret documents he brought with him.
But the agency was awash with defectors by then and could not afford another. A traitor to his own country and shunned by the British, Karpichkov became the spy left out in the cold.
He says now: “All I can do is look over my shoulder. I don’t care about myself, but I do care about my family.”