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LONDON – Police swept the area around Salisbury, England, for a container of a lethal chemical weapon on Monday, while senior British officials suggested for the first time that Russia was probably responsible for A second poisoning by nerve agents
British officials said that a couple who had been sick this month in the Salisbury area, one of whom died Sunday, had been poisoned with the same powerful neurotoxic agent used in March, a few kilometers away. A former Russian spy and his daughter
But while government officials accused the Kremlin of responsibility for the first poisonings, until Monday they refrained from blaming the second, although They have recognized a strong possibility that the two are linked. 19659002] "The simple fact is that Russia has committed an attack on British soil that has seen the death of a British citizen," Defense Minister Gavin Williamson said in the House of Commons. mons. "I think the world will unite with us to truly condemn."
Said Javid, the Minister of the Interior, who was the main spokesman for the government, was more cautious in addressing Parliament a few hours later. The investigation is still ongoing, he said, and the government will not jump to conclusions.
But when asked directly whether Russia was responsible for the latest poisonings, he said that it was difficult to see another plausible explanation. Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 45, became ill on June 30 at Rowley's in Amesbury, a town near Salisbury, and were hospitalized. Mrs. Sturgess, a mother of three who lived in Salisbury, died Sunday, and the case is now an investigation into a murder. They had been exposed to an agent known as Novichok,
. Neil Basu, made a sobering admission: Even after repeatedly searching the homes of the two recent victims and places they were shortly before they became ill, hundreds of law and other people are raking the Salisbury area.
"At the present time, our priority and priority is to identify and locate any container that we believe could be the source of the contamination," said Mr. Basu. . Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, told reporters outside New Scotland Yard.
This means that it remains possible that someone else could be poisoned. "I simply can not offer guarantees," he said, reiterating the government's view that people are not picking up any unknown object.
"Their reaction was so severe that it resulted in Dawn's death," he said. "That means they have to have a high dose, and our hypothesis is that it's not that bad. they must have handled a container we are looking for now. "
Javid said, "the nerve agent that was used in this incident is the same as the incident of March 4, but we did not do it, the scientists were not able to identify or determine if it's the same lot. "
On Monday, the authorities evacuated a bus into the city center and, for a few hours, established a wide cordon around him, raising fears of another neurological incident. Police later said that nothing unusual had been found
. A policeman was hospitalized for fear of showing symptoms of poisoning, but that too was a false alarm and he was released.
The March attack made ill Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian intelligence agent who had sold information to Britain and was living in Salisbury; his daughter, Yulia S. Skripal, who came from Russia; and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey of the Wiltshire Police, who was one of the first officers to investigate the case. All three have survived; Laboratory tests showed that the substance that poisoned them was Novichok, according to the British government, part of a class of nerve agents first developed in the Soviet Union and later in Russia. This conclusion has been confirmed by other tests carried out by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body responsible for monitoring the observance of a chemical weapons prohibition treaty. .
The organization – at the request of Britain and the objections of Russia – recently he will not only investigate whether chemical weapons have been used, but he will try to determine who used them.
The attack against the Skripals aggravated the already strained relations between Russia and the West, causing the expulsion of Russian diplomats and embassies from several countries. The British government has also pledged to tighten controls on wealthy Russians who have moved their assets in and out of Britain, a blow seen as a blow to the powerful business circle. allies of Mr. Putin, many of whom have ties to Britain.
British officials said they would raise the Novichok attack at a meeting of NATO leaders. ntries.
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