POISONING SUSPECT A GRU COLONEL: GROUP

The investigative group Bellingcat said Wednesday it has identified one of the two suspects in the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain as a highly decorated colonel of the Russian military intelligence agency GRU.

Bellingcat said the suspect, whose passport name was Ruslan Boshirov, is in fact Col. Anatoliy Chepiga, who in 2014 was awarded Russia’s highest medal, the Hero of Russia.

Britain has charged Boshirov and another suspect, Alexander Petrov, with trying to kill Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter on March 4 with the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on Bellingcat’s latest claim.

The two Russian men have appeared on the statefunded RT channel, saying they visited Salisbury as tourists and had nothing to do with the Skripal poisoning.