Friend who picked up Skripal’s daughter furious at delayed testing
THE family friend who picked up Sergei Skripal’s daughter from the airport is furious he was left to drive his car for a fortnight before it was impounded yesterday and tested for nerve agent.
The decision to seize the Isuzu pickup truck reinforces the growing belief that the nerve agent used in Col Skripal’s attempted assassination was
planted in the luggage of his daughter Yulia.
Miss Skripal arrived at Heathrow airport on Russian state-owned Aeroflot flight AFL2570 from Moscow, landing at 2.32pm on Saturday, March 3. Her luggage was then loaded into the back of a silver Isuzu D-max pickup truck.
A little over 24 hours later, Col Skripal, 66, and his daughter collapsed in Salisbury city centre, after being exposed in the hours beforehand to a nerve agent. They remain in a critical condition, fighting for their lives.
Miss Skripal, 33, was collected at Heathrow by Ross Cassidy, one of Col Skripal’s closest friends, who drove her back to her father’s house in Salisbury.
Col Skripal asked the favour of Mr Cassidy because he feared his rearwheel-drive BMW – would not make it to the airport in the snow. Intelligence sources, as previously disclosed by The Daily Telegraph, have suggested that the nerve agent may have been hidden in her luggage, possibly impregnated in an item of clothing or cosmetics, or else in a gift. That suggests the Kremlin, which is being blamed for the attack, deliberately targeted Miss Skripal to get at her father. Col Skripal came to the UK in a spy exchange in 2010. Mr Cassidy, 61, confirmed to The Telegraph that his 4x4 pickup truck had been seized at the concrete plant in Amesbury, Wilts, where he works. “You are absolutely right. My car is being taken at work,” he said. Mr Cassidy’s stepson Russell Loveridge, 37, said: “It’s a farce. It’s 15 days later and they take the first car away.
“It was the first car they were in, in this country and it’s the last car the police have taken away.
“All the luggage goes in the back of the pickup truck not in the cabin. If it
‘It’s a farce. It’s 15 days later and they take the first car away. It was the first car they were in, in this country’
[the nerve agent] was in the luggage then it wasn’t inside the car with them. I just think it’s stupid how they’ve taken so long to take it away.”
Yesterday, inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons visited the laboratory at Porton Down to collect samples of the nerve agent used in the attack for independent testing. The tests are expected to take at least two weeks.
Scotland Yard said yesterday the in- vestigation “is one of the largest and most complex” undertaken by counter-terrorism police, and admitted it “is highly likely to take many months”.
The European Union’s foreign affairs council said it condemned the “reckless and illegal act” and said it took the UK Government’s view “extremely seriously” that it was likely that Russia was responsible.
It added: “The use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances is completely unacceptable and constitutes a security threat to us all.” ♦ A cash-for-visas scheme popular with super-rich Russians could be tightened as the Government pledges to carry out “better due diligence” on “where the money comes from”.
The “investor visas” are granted to people who stake £2 million or more in the UK. Citizenship applications can be fast-tracked for those who invest £10 million or more.
Ben Wallace, the Home Office minister, said the Government will look into the gold-plated visas.