Parents of Novichok victim ask why UK settled ex-spy in Salisbury

LONDON: The parents of a British woman who died in an alleged assassination attempt on a Russian double agent criticised Saturday the UK government for settling the ex-spy in the English city Salisbury. Stan and Caroline Sturgess, whose daughter Dawn died after coming into contact with a nerve agent allegedly used in last year’s poisoning of Sergei Skripal, said they believed British authorities were withholding details of the incident. “If anyone, I blame the government for putting Skripal in Salisbury,” Stan Sturgess told The Guardian newspaper in the family’s first interview since her death last July. “I want justice from our own government. What are they hiding? I don’t think they have given us all the facts.” Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found on March 4 slumped unconscious on a park bench in the centre of the quiet cathedral city Salisbury in southwest England. Britain and Western allies have accused Russia of carrying out the poisoning using a Soviet-era nerve agent called Novichok, but Moscow has furiously denied any involvement.