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AMESBURY, UK – British police said "a major incident" Wednesday after two people were exposed to an unknown substance in a town near where a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a neurotoxic agent.
Wiltshire police reports that a man and a woman – both in their forties – are in critical condition after being found in Amesbury, 13 kilometers from Salisbury, where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned on March 4th.
Police circled the places that both people visited before falling ill, but public health officials say that there is no greater risk. They were hospitalized Saturday and the authorities initially thought that they could have taken a contaminated batch of heroin or crack.
"Additional tests are underway to establish the substance that has led these patients to become sick and we are keeping an open mind to the circumstances surrounding this incident," police said. "At this point, it is not yet clear whether a crime has been committed."
A major incident is a designation allowing the UK authorities to mobilize more than one emergency agency.
Britain accuses Russia of poisoning the Skripals with a Novichok nerve agent, a group of chemical weapons developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Moscow denies the allegation. The poisoning sparked a cold-war style diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West, including the expulsion of hundreds of diplomats from both sides.
Anti Terrorist Teams of the London Metropolitan Police were called upon to badist local Wiltshire forces with Skripal poisoning. On Wednesday, however, Scotland Yard returned calls to the Wiltshire Police
. The Wiltshire police made a statement only a month after police from 40 departments of England and Wales returned home after months of intoxication. The Wiltshire police spent about 7.5 million pounds ($ 10 million) to deal with the after effects of the Skripals' poisoning and to believe that his front door was contaminated by the agent neurotoxic
Sergei Skripal, 66 years old. was convicted of espionage for Britain before coming to the UK as part of a prisoner exchange in 2010. He was living quietly in Salisbury, a cathedral town located 145 kilometers in southwestern London, when he was beaten with his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia.
After being found unconscious in the street, the two weeks spent in critical condition in the hospital. The doctors who treated the Skripals said at the time that they were expecting them to die. They say that they still do not know what their long-term prognosis is.
The Skripals were taken to an unknown place for their protection.
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This story corrects Amesbury's spelling in the timeline.
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