UK police name two suspects in nerve agent attack
British police named two Russian nationals on Wednesday as suspects in the March poisonings of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
Prime Minister Theresa May said the two prime suspects are agents of Russia's military intelligence agency.
The Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service said they have "sufficient evidence" to charge Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov in connection with the attack in the small English city of Salisbury.
Police said the men arrived at Gatwick Airport from Moscow on March 2 and stayed at the City Stay Hotel in London, before traveling to Salisbury.
The news followed a team of independent experts confirming that the substance that killed a woman in Amesbury in July was the Novichok nerve agent - the same chemical that poisoned the Skripals.
The intergovernmental Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is based in The Netherlands, could not say whether the two incidents, which happened four months, and 13 kilometers, apart, were attributable to the exact same batch of Novichok.
The British government has blamed Russia for Dawn Sturgess's death and the poisonings of the Skripals and Britain's foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said this week that Russia's actions were "appalling".
Moscow has consistently denied any involvement.
The BBC reported that Hunt said the poisonings were a reminder of the importance of the global ban on chemical weapons.
"The recklessness of the Russian state in bringing a nerve agent into the UK, and total disregard for the safety of the public, is appalling and irresponsible," he said.
Sturgess fell ill on June 30 after handling a perfume container found by her partner, Charlie Rowley, who also fell ill but who has since recovered. Investigators believe the container had been discarded by the people who poisoned the Skripals.
They are working on the theory that the Russian authorities ordered the attack because Sergei Skripal had worked for the British as a double agent during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Russia has complained that the United Kingdom is refusing it access to the Skripals, who retain Russian citizenship. The nation's embassy in the UK said the pair had been "kept in isolation and under full control of British authorities".
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(China Daily 09/06/2018 page11)
