Police still searching for answers on how attackers got their visas

POLICE and the security services were last night searching for answers to a series of questions surrounding the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

Scotland Yard yesterday identified Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov as the aliases of the GRU officers who carried out the attack, and released a timeline of the men’s movements.

But it remains unclear how the spies secured visas to travel undetected, smear Novichok on to the door handle of Col Skripal’s home in daylight and then discard the bottle it was carried in.

The bottle was found by Charlie Rowley in a bin four months later, resulting in the death of his partner, Dawn Sturgess. Officers believe they know the true identity of the Petrov and Boshirov, but Neil Basu, the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner, said: ‘‘There are significant lines of inquiry, but I need evidence.”

The two Russians travelled to the UK on legitimate passports and were issued with official visas, meaning that they were waved through security at Gatwick.

Biometric data including fingerprints and iris data would have been collected as a prerequisite for the visas.

Mr Basu declined to answer any questions about the type of visa. Sources said officials would have had “no reason” to suspect the men of criminal intent because they were not trav- elling under their real names and had official documents.

Since the Salisbury attack, the Gov- ernment has given security services more power to stop people entering the UK if they suspect spying, meaning new arrivals can be treated in the same way as terrorism suspects and detained before entry. Ministers have also ordered a review of all tier 1 visas. The Home Office was not able to supply figures for how many, if any, visas have been revoked as a result of this action.

Questions have been raised about whether the new powers would prevent further Russian agents from entering the UK.

There were also scant details about how and why the men smeared the nerve agent on the door handle of the semi-detached home at lunchtime when both Col Skripal and his daughter Yulia would have been inside the house. Whitehall sources said that the timing of the attack was “unbelievably brazen” but did not offer an explanation.

After applying the nerve agent, Petrov and Boshirov headed back to Salisbury town centre, CCTV shows, but what followed is a missing 45 minutes in which they apparently dumped the counterfeit Nina Ricci bottle.

It remains unclear how the perfume bottle ended up in a charity bin more than half a mile past the station in the opposite direction.