Novichok: Police know which two Russians did it
Extradition request is expected ‘within days’
TENSIONS between Britain and Russia are set to be reignited with prosecutors reportedly ready to request the extradition of two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury nerve agent attack.
A five-month investigation has apparently concluded that a two-strong hit team from Russia was responsible for the atrocity that left one dead and three seriously ill.
Counter-terrorism detectives are said to have tracked the movements of the pair in and out of the UK around the time of the attack in Wiltshire in early March.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has completed the paperwork for a formal extradition request to the Russian authorities and it is expected to be filed ‘within days’ via the Foreign Office, it was reported last night.
But police and legal sources admit privately the request doomed, with the Kremlin certain to reject it.
There is no bilateral extradition treaty between Russia and the UK and legislation passed in Moscow to deal with requests by European countries rules out the removal of Russian citizens.
The possibility of more tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions has not been ruled out.
Last night Russia’s embassy in Britain dismissed reports of an extradition request as ‘bogus’.
The development in the Salisbury nerve agent attack, reported in The Guardian, came two weeks after it emerged that police had identified the hit team that poisoned double agent Sergei Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 33, who were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury on March 4.
They have since been released from hospital and taken to a secret location.
Their would-be assassins – said to have included a woman – are believed to have been identified by investigators trawling through hours of CCTV footage and checking flight passenger records.
Police have been working on the theory that the militarygrade novichok nerve agent used against the Skripals was concealed in a perfume bottle that was later discarded.
The bottle was found last month in the home of Charlie Rowley, 45, who was poisoned by the substance along with his partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, who later died. She is said to have been exposed to ten times more of the nerve agent than the Skripals.
UK intelligence chiefs have blamed Russia for the attack. The Kremlin has denied any responsibility.
For more than a decade, the UK has sought the extradiis
‘Hit team had a woman’
tion from Russia of suspects Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, wanted over ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko’s murder in London in 2006.
In 2016, a public inquiry concluded Lugovoi and Kovtun killed Mr Litvinenko. Both deny this.
The Metropolitan Police and CPS declined to comment last night on the extradition request over the Salisbury attack.