Novichok smuggled in by Russian diplomats
Nerve agent arrived in diplomatic bag
POLICE and MI5 fear the Novichok used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal was smuggled into Britain’s Russian embassy in a diplomatic bag.
And assassins Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Bohirov were probably handed it by a staff member at a prearranged drop off point near their East London hotel or a swift hand to hand exchange before they set off on their mission.
Discovering the murky world of Russian espionage was being played out on the streets of the capital is bound to spark fury. It comes just a day after Theresa May vowed to crush Vladimir Putin’s GRU intelligence network in revenge for the Salisbury poison attack.
An intelligence source said: “The Novichok will have been brought in by diplomatic bag because that carries the least risk as it won‘t be searched. This enables GRU residency officers, who are declared to British authorities, at the embassy to distribute it even on British soil.
“It will also have been brought in some time before the assassination team arrived and arrangements would be made for them to collect it either by dead letter drop [left hidden] or brush contact [quick handover].
“The hotel the GRU team stayed in is a little out of the way so the dead letter drop may be round there somewhere so they could walk to the place where it was hidden.”
Embassies are protected from being searched or entered under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which also covers diplomatic bags. A bag can be any size, a wallet or even a shipping container.
The Novichok may have been brought in by diplomatic bag as it carries least risk INTELLIGENCE SOURCE ON HOW THE POISON COULD HAVE GOT INTO BRITAIN
The Mirror has learned residency GRU officers at the London embassy – who have all been thrown out of the UK – had their own diplomatic bag waiver.
Police yesterday named Petrov and Boshirov as suspects in the Salisbury poisoning that left Sergei, 63, and 33-year-old Yulia seriously ill. And the spies, probably operating under aliases, were charged with attempted murder and possessing poison. International arrest warrants are being filed against the pair. But we can reveal as many as 10 spooks may have been directly involved in the operation. MI5 are trying to trace the others. The intelligence source said Yulia’s phone was “almost certainly bugged” in the