British website plays vital role in Skripal case

LONDON: Bellingcat, the investigative website unmasking the Skripal affair suspects, grew out of one man’s efforts to track the origin of Syrian civil war weapons — from the comfort of his sofa.

The latest revelations from the Uk-based citizen journalism group on the nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal have made global headlines — and they are promising more to come.

Bellingcat reported on Wednesday that Ruslan Boshirov, one of the two Russian suspects wanted by British police, was actually Anatoly Chepiga, a military intelligence colonel decorated in 2014 with the nation’s top award, the Hero of Russia.

Previous major Bellingcat investigations have included a report claimING LIGHT MH17 was shot Down over Ukraine by a Russian missile system, as well as others on the wars in Syria and Yemen.

The recent allegations have enraged Moscow, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying earlier this month that the site was “close to the secret services.”

Zakharova said Bellingcat “intentionally pumps out disinformation disguised as investigations.”

The driving force behind Bellingcat is 39-year-old founder Eliot Higgins, who came to prominence for his investigations into the Syrian civil war as the blogger “Brown Moses.”

An unemployed OFICE worker, HE had no journalistic training and his weapons knowledge was entirely selftaught — indeed, any he already had was GLEANED From ilms like Rambo.

Looking at clips of footage from SYRIA, “I wanted to SEE IF I Could igure out something from these videos, and what weapons they had was one thing,” HIGGINS SAID. HE was Among THE irst to track and report on the Syrian regime’s use of barrel bombs through analysing the strikes using open-source material.

The Brown Moses name was taken from a Frank Zappa song, but Higgins has long since given up concealing his identity, partly to avoid conspiracy theory suspicion about who he is.

Branching out, he launched Bellingcat in 2014 and it made its name almost immediately with investigations into the downing of Malaysia Airlines LIGHT MH17 In UKRAINE.

“I wanted to launch a site that brought together a lot of people who were also doing open-source online investigations like I was, as well as giving guides and case studies for people to learn from so they can do it themselves,” Higgins said.