Poisoned ex-spy leaves U.K. hospital

Release comes 2 months after attack that raised tensions between West, Russia

LONDON — Sergei Skripal, the former Russian spy whose poisoning in a sleepy English city touched off a diplomatic storm between Russia and the West, has been released from a hospital, British officials said Friday.

Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, were both in critical condition after they were poisoned with a nerve agent known as a novichok — developed by Soviet scientists for battlefield use against Western troops — in the cathedral city of Salisbury, in southwest England, on March 4.

British authorities said Russia was to blame for the attack, an accusation that significantly raised tensions between the two countries and led to the expulsion of hundreds of diplomats from Britain, its allies and Russia.

“It is fantastic news that Sergei Skripal is well enough to leave Salisbury District Hospital,” Cara Charles-Barks, chief executive of the hospital, said in a statement.

Both victims were put into induced comas, a technique that lowers metabolism and may prevent poison from damaging the organs. They were also given medication to suppress seizures and an antidote, like atropine.

Early reports suggested the Skripals were hovering between life and death, and a court order in late March suggested that one or both may have suffered severe brain damage. But about a week later, to the surprise of many, police announced that Yulia Skripal had regained consciousness. She was released from the hospital in early April. The prognosis for both Skripals has continued to improve.

The attack may have gone awry because of the “substrate” that was mixed with the nerve agent in order to get it to stick to the victims’ skin, said Richard Guthrie, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Police have suggested that the nerve agent was in liquid form, and that the Skripals were exposed at Sergei Skripal’s front door.

“When a hand touches that door handle, you’ve got to have some material coming off on the hand and staying on the hand without falling off onto any other surface,” he said. “It’s very rare for a poison to do that on its own.”

A top health official has said the poison was very potent and “did not degrade quickly.”

“You can assume it is not much different now from the day it was distributed,” Ian Boyd, chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Britain, told Salisbury residents at a meeting April 19.

Guthrie said the substrate — which, in a contact poisoning, could be a substance like hand cream or petroleum jelly — may have prevented the nerve agent from entering the victims’ bloodstream in a fatal dose. He said authorities had released no information about the substrate that was used.

“Clearly, the method of putting it through the skin didn’t kill them,” he said.

Alastair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds, said the exposure “would have killed them if they hadn’t had the right treatment.”

“I have it on good authority that the symptoms were recognized by the medical staff very early, and that enabled them to institute treatment promptly,” he said. He added that the attacker may have expected the two to lose consciousness and die inside the house.

“They wouldn’t have been found if they had stayed inside,” Hay said.

Authorities have not said where the Skripals are now living, and the Metropolitan Police said in a statement Friday that it would not provide any details about the protective and security measures they have employed.

According to the British government, Yulia Skripal rejected an offer of Russian consular assistance, although she has not been heard from or seen since her release from the hospital. Russia has insisted on being allowed access to the Skripals and said that it believes the two are being held against their will.

Lorna Wilkinson, director of nursing at the hospital, said in a statement that Sergei Skripal’s release was an important milestone in his recovery, which would continue with outpatient care.

Speaking at a news conference in Sochi, Russia, President Vladimir Putin welcomed the news about Skripal.

“Thank God he has gotten better, been discharged from the hospital,” he said. “I hope he will be healthy, alive and unscathed.”

But he also used the occasion to dismiss accusations from Britain that Russia was behind the attempt to poison Skripal with a deadly toxin. If a military-grade nerve agent had been used, he said, “then this person would have died on the spot.”