Russian spy fights for life after ‘poisoning’
Double agent who sold secrets to Britain found collapsed on bench in Salisbury
A RUSSIAN agent convicted of spying for Britain was fighting for his life last night amid suspicions he was poisoned in a shopping centre in Wiltshire.
Sergei Skripal, 66, was in intensive care after being exposed to a mysterious substance as he sat on a bench in the city of Salisbury.
A 33-year-old woman who was with him is also in a critical condition. Both had collapsed and were unconscious when they were discovered.
The incident in Salisbury bears similarities to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent who was poisoned by radioactive polonium in a London hotel.
Reports last night suggested Col Skripal, a former intelligence agent with the FSB, had recently gone to police claiming he was fearing for his life.
Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, warned yesterday that Vladimir Putin’s posture towards the UK had become more “hostile and aggressive”, and said Britain must be clear that it would “stand up to bullying”.
Col Skripal was jailed in Moscow for spying for Britain but was brought to this country in 2010 as part of a prisoner exchange. Anna Chapman, a Russianborn secret agent who had acquired British citizenship and who was detained by US authorities, was sent back to Russia along with nine other agents. Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, told The
Daily Telegraph last night: “It looks similar to what happened to my husband but we need more information. We need to know the substance. Was it radioactive?” Col Skripal and his companion were discovered on Sunday afternoon. Georgia Pridham, 25, saw the couple slumped on a bench. She said: “He was quite smartly dressed. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him. He had a woman sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder.”
She said she thought they did not look the type to be on drugs, “but he was staring dead straight. He was conscious but it was like he was frozen and slightly rocking back and forward”.
The couple were taken to Salisbury District Hospital where authorities declared a major incident and the A&E unit was closed. Last night police wearing protective suits examined the area around the bench, while officers closed off a nearby branch of Zizzi.
One source said officers had also been treated for possible contamination, although this remains unverified. One report suggested a “specialist chemical response unit” had removed an “unknown substance”.
The suggestion that the incident was a state-sponsored assassination attempt was raised by the Russian president’s opponents. Garry Kasparov, former chess world champion and critic of Mr Putin, said: “After the UK’S pathetic response to Litvinenko’s assassination with polonium in London, why wouldn’t Putin do it again?”
Col Skripal is thought to have been living in Salisbury for seven years. He was jailed in 2006 for “high treason in the form of espionage” in Moscow. Russia alleged Col Skripal was paid £72,000 by MI6 for passing them the identities of Russian secret agents in Europe. He was branded a traitor and a disgrace. Igor Sutyagin, a Russian nuclear
AFTER arriving in Britain eight years ago as part of an extraordinary “spy swap”, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent, had been leading a life of quiet anonymity in Salisbury.
Grateful to have been pardoned by the Russian authorities for his decades of espionage, he was enjoying an unexpectedly peaceful retirement.
But all that came to an abrupt end on Sunday afternoon, when the 66-yearold collapsed in a shopping centre in his adoptive home town, having allegedly been deliberately poisoned with an unknown substance.
Mr Skripal, a retired army colonel, had been jailed in Moscow in 2006, having been convicted of spying for Britain. He was arrested in 2005 after his cover was blown and charged with “high treason in the form of espionage”. At the time of his arrest, he was known as “the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag” after photos showed him at an airport preparing to meet one of his handlers.
Mr Skripal was found guilty of passing the identities of Russian agents operating throughout Europe, to MI6.
He appeared in a high-profile trial in Moscow’s military court in August 2006, paraded before the cameras on Russian television. Prosecutors claimed he had been spying for Britain since the Nineties and had been paid tens of thousands of pounds by MI6.
Mr Skripal was reportedly caught by agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) passing intelligence to MI6’S James Bond-style “spy rock” – a fake stone packed with receiving equipment – in a Moscow park. He pleaded guilty to all the charges and reportedly cooperated fully with the FSB.
He was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the term was later reduced to 13 years, because of his willingness to cooperate.
Branded a traitor and a disgrace to his country, he was stripped of all his military decorations and honours. Despite being in poor health he was sentenced to serve his time in a tough, maximumsecurity prison in Moscow.
The sense of hatred for Mr Skripal was summed up in an interview by the Russian secret service historian Nikolai Luzan, who described the double agent as “this bastard – I’m not scared to use this word” over claims he gave MI6 hundreds of names of spies. He added: “Just imagine what muck this man did to other people.”
But in 2010, in an extraordinary development, he was pardoned by Dmitry Medvedev, then the Russian president.
In a scene straight out of the Cold War, he and three other Western agents were exchanged for 10 Russian spies being held by the FBI in the US.
Among those returned to Moscow was Anna Chapman, the secret agent, who had previously lived in the UK.
Miss Chapman moved to London in 2001, after meeting Briton Alex Chapman at a party. After a whirlwind romance, the pair married and she spent five years living in the UK, before she moved to New York City. She was arrested by the American authorities in 2010 and charged with spying offences, only to be deported back to Moscow as part of the spy swap.