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Posted: July 5, 2018 7:32:52
A British police officer keeps a cordon outside Queen Elizabeth Gardens Park in Salisbury, England. (AP)
Two British citizens are seriously ill after being exposed to Novichok, the same nerve agent that shot dead a former Russian agent and his daughter in March, Britain's top counterterrorism official said on Wednesday
. The couple, a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, was hospitalized after being found sick Saturday in Amesbury, a few miles from Salisbury where former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked in March. . "I received test results from Porton Down (military research center) that show that both people were exposed to Novichok's neurotropic agent," Neil Basu told the press. one of the highest anti-terrorist leaders in the United Kingdom. Russia has poisoned the Skripals with Novichok – a nerve agent developed by the Soviet army during the Cold War – in what is the first known offensive use of such a chemical weapon on European soil since the Second World War World. Russia has denied any involvement in their poisoning.
The British Anti-Terrorism Police is now conducting the investigation, although Basu has stated that the way the two people are in contact with the nerve agent or if they have been specifically targeted is not clear. "I have no information or evidence that they have been targeted in any way," Basu said. "Amesbury is located seven miles (11 km) north of Salisbury, where Skripal – a former Russian military intelligence colonel who has betrayed dozens of British MI6 foreign espionage agents – March 4, his daughter was found unconscious on a bench.
About 100 anti-terrorist officers are working on the case and the police cordoned off at least five different zones, including a park and property in Salisbury, the attack on March has provoked the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War as allies in Europe and the United States, with the view of Prime Minister Theresa May that Moscow was either responsible or had lost the control of the neurotoxic agent.
The mystery surrounds the attack and the motive is not clear, as it is the logic of the use of the nerve agent. such an exotic nervous agent who has openly ties with the Soviet army p during the cold war. Russia, which currently hosts the World Cup soccer, denied any involvement in the March incident and suggested that Britain had perpetrated the attack to fan anti-Moscow hysteria
Moscow also fought back by expelling Western diplomats. that Russia was responsible and offered rival interpretations, including that it was a conspiracy of the British secret services. Russian officials asked why Russia would like to attack an aging defector who was pardoned and then exchanged for a Kremlin-approved spy exchange in 2010.
NOVICHOK AGAIN
The public was low, although the exposure of two people apparently unrelated to espionage or with the former Soviet Union would stir up the fear that traces of the nerve agent remain in the region. "As the country's chief medical officer, I want to rebadure the public that the risk to the general public remains low," Prime Minister Spokesman Sally Davies told reporters. discuss the incident. Interior Secretary Sajid Javid will chair a meeting of the Emergency Response Committee on Thursday. "The Amesbury investigation is ongoing and the police must have the space needed to continue to establish all the facts," Javid said.
The head of the British counterterrorism police, Neil Basu, right, and England's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, at a press conference at New Scotland Yard in London. 19659003] "My thoughts right now are with the two individuals affected.The first priority of the government is the safety of the residents of the area, but as clearly stated Public Health England, the risk to the general public is low "
After the Skripal intoxication, police investigators are wearing protective swimsuits." The former city of Salisbury's English cathedral, Basu warned that police in protective gear would return to the city.
The paramedics were called to a house in Amesbury on Saturday morning after the woman, named by media Dawn Sturgess, collapsed and returned later in the day, and Rowley also became ill. , who are being treated at the Salisbury District Hospital, would have initially taken heroin or crack from a contaminated lot, police said.
But tests showed that they had been poisoned in Novichok. "We are not able to tell if the nerve agent came from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to," said Basu. "The possibility that these two investigations may be related is clearly an investigation for us."
The hospital is where the Skripal also spent weeks in critical condition before slowly recovering and being released. Yulia told Reuters in May: "We are so lucky to have both survived this badbadination attempt.Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful."
Russia has declared that she did not possess such neurotoxic agents, that she did not develop Novichok and that President Vladimir Putin rejected as absurd the idea that Moscow would have poisoned Skripal and his daughter. ] For all the latest world news, download Indian Express App
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