Police: Ex-spy hit with nerve agent
Former Russian spy and daughter remain in critical condition
LONDON — A Russian ex-spy and his daughter were attacked with a nerve agent in a targeted murder attempt, British police said Wednesday. Both are fighting for their lives in an English hospital.
Britain has said it will respond strongly if the Russian government is linked to the attack.
The use of a nerve agent in the latest attack follows the use of the banned nerve agent VX to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader last year.
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in the southwestern English city of Salisbury on Sunday, triggering a police investigation led by counterterrorism detectives.
“Having established that a nerve agent is the cause of the symptoms leading us to treat this as attempted murder, I can also confirm that we believe that the two people who became unwell were targeted specifically,” Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Mark Rowley said.
Police said the two “remain in a critical condition in intensive care after being exposed to the substance.”
Police have declined to speculate on who might be behind the attack. The Russian government has denied any involvement in the attack on Skripal is a former Russian agent who had served jail time in his homeland for spying for Britain before being freed in a spy swap.
Rowley said a police officer who treated Skripal and his daughter at the scene was in serious condition. Police and forensics officers continued to scour several sites in and around Salisbury on Wednesday. Police kept residents away from an Italian restaurant and a pub in the city.