Spy and daughter were poisoned

Anti-terror chief appeals to the public: Did you see anything?

COUNTER-TERROR detectives today urged members of the public to come forward to help with the investigation into the suspected poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.

The ex-spy and and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain fighting for their lives in hospital after being exposed to a mystery substance in Salisbury.

The attack, with echoes of the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, has triggered a huge diplomatic row and prompted crisis talks in Whitehall.

Today counter-terror police issued a plea for witnesses and urged anyone with information to come forward urgently.

Detectives said they were seeking anyone who visited Salisbury town centre and the surrounding area on Sunday afternoon to get in touch, especially if they had been in Zizzi restaurant in Castle Street and The Bishop’s Mill pub in The Maltings.

Police have also cordoned

off an ambulance station at Solstice Park in Amesbury.

Today security officials were briefing members of the Cabinet at a Cobra meeting before Theresa May answered questions in the Commons this afternoon.

The Cobra meeting was expected to hear about toxicology tests to determine how the pair were poisoned but officials cautioned that definitive results were likely to take longer.

A source said: “They were poisoned

by something because of the condition they were in. As to what that was, and whether it was maliciously motivated, is what the investigators are looking into.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd was planning to make a short statement to the media after Cobra finished, but officials said they doubted she would be pointing any fingers of blame at this stage.

But Treasury minister John Glen, MP for Salisbury, today said he “feared foul

play” with the evidence pointing to “poisoning with a very rare toxic substance” and he added that a “robust” Government response would be needed if it was proven it was an assassination attempt.

Mr Skripal, 66, convicted in Russia in 2006 of passing secrets to MI6 before being given refuge in the UK as part of a spy swap, was found slumped unconscious on a bench in Salisbury at about 4pm on Sunday with his daughter.

Russia’s foreign ministry said allegations of Russian involvement in the suspected poisoning were aimed “at complicating UK-Russian relations”, as scientists at the Porton Down chemical weapons laboratory near Salisbury examined the poison theories. One expert claimed decontamination at the scene suggested a chemical source.

The death of Mr Skripal’s wife Ludmila from cancer in 2012 aged 59 and his son Alexander’s alleged death in St Petersburg last year will also be looked into. Assistant Commissioner