Politics
20:38, 05-Jul-2018
Latest UK poisoning is same nerve agent used against former Russian spy
Updated
20:18, 08-Jul-2018
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Britain's interior minister Sajid Javid confirmed on Thursday that the poison that struck down two Britons has been identified as the same strand of Novichok nerve agent that was used in the attempted murder of an ex-Russian double agent and his daughter in March.
And Prime Minister Theresa May called the matter deeply disturbing.
“To see two more people exposed to Novichok in the UK is obviously deeply disturbing and the police, I know, will be leaving no stone unturned in their investigation,” May told reporters in Germany where she was meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A man on a stretcher is put into an ambulance by medics and police outside a residential address in Amesbury, southern England, on June 30, 2018. /VCG Photo
A man on a stretcher is put into an ambulance by medics and police outside a residential address in Amesbury, southern England, on June 30, 2018. /VCG Photo
Four months after ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned, two Britons – a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man – are critically ill after an apparent chance encounter with the poison near the site of the March attack.
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Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal attends a hearing at the Moscow District Military Court in Moscow on August 9, 2006. /VCG Photo
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal attends a hearing at the Moscow District Military Court in Moscow on August 9, 2006. /VCG Photo
“My thoughts are with the people of Wiltshire,” she added, referring to the county where the victims live and where the latest incident took place.
Javid said it is likely that the pair came into contact with it at a different site from Yulia and her father Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence.
He said it has not yet been possible to ascertain whether the nerve agent is from the same batch of Novichok.
Source(s): Reuters