‘Salisbury attack suspects not criminals’ – Putin

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has escalated the war of words over the Salisbury nerve agent attack by claiming there is “nothing criminal” about Britain’s prime suspects.

Police and prosecutors last week said Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov had been identified as members of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.

Authorities believe the pair smeared the highly toxic chemical Novichok on a door handle at the Wiltshire home of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, leaving him and his daughter Yulia critically ill in March.

The allegations are staunchly denied by the Kremlin and yesterday Mr Putin said the men had been discounted as members of his shadowy security network.

In an address to the Easter Economic Forum in Vladivostok, he said: “Of course, we looked who these people are. We know who they are, we have found them already.”

He added: “There is nothing special and nothing criminal about it, I”m telling you.”

Questioned on whether the pair were civilians, he replied: “Of course they are civilians.”

The Russian president also made the bizarre move of asking Petrov and Boshirov to appear in public to dispel doubts about their true identity.

“I hope that they will emerge [in public] themselves and tell about themselves. It will be better for everyone,” he said yesterday.

Mr Putin’s intervention risks widening the gulf between Russia and the UK over the attempted assassination, which triggered a wave of diplomatic expulsions by both sides.

Detectives believe it is likely the two Salisbury suspects, thought to be aged around 40, travelled under aliases and that Petrov and Boshirov are not their real names.

Prosecutors deem it futile to apply to Russia for the extradition of the two men, but a European Arrest Warrant has been obtained and the authorities are also seeking the assistance of Interpol.

Officers formally linked the attack on the Skripals to events in nearby Amesbury when Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, were exposed to the same nerve agent.

Ms Sturgess died in hospital in July, just over a week after the pair fell ill.

A police officer who visited the home of the Skripals shortly after the attack, Nick Bailey, was also left critically ill from exposure to the substance.