© REUTERS/Dylan Martinez; Global Look Press; Getty Images / Finnbarr WebsterYulia Skripal and father Sergei Skripal (insets) Salisbury Cathedral
The targets of the Salisbury poisoning have fled Britain after two years in an MI5 safe house.
Former Russian double-agent
Sergei Skripal, 68, and his daughter
Yulia, 36, have started a new life in a secret location overseas, their family believe.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia have fled Britain more than two years after they were targets of a chemical poisoningCredit: Rex Features
The pair nearly died after Russian agents smeared the deadly chemical
Novichok on their front-door handle in Salisbury, Wilts, in
March 2018.
They were found unconscious on a park bench together and rushed to hospital, where doctors put them into a coma to stop the
poison ravaging their bodies. Both left hospital within a couple of months, and security services have since kept them safe.
British mother
Dawn Sturgess, 44, died and her boyfriend
Charlie Rowley, 45, was seriously ill after she used the contents of a perfume bottle he found seven miles away.
It contained Novichock discarded by the Russian poisoners.
Spymasters still do not understand why Skripal was targeted because he had been pardoned for sharing secrets with MI6 and allowed to leave Russia for Britain.
Yulia's aunt Natalia Pestsova, 67, said he rang her last summer to say "farewell".
She added: "We heard so many things about their destiny — that they went to live in New Zealand. I just feel they're alive, somewhere, somehow, and that we're very unlikely to see them again." She said Yulia had looked at the family's social media in March but did not make any comments.
She said: "I know she went around all our family profiles. I wonder if this is because she's been missing us."
Sergei's niece Viktoria, 47, said that he told her he wanted no more contact. She added: "He was saying goodbye."
Comment: While the Skripals appear to have given various 'proofs of life', such as an unnamed source receiving a Christmas card from them, as
reported by the
Sunday Times, there has been no confirming evidence.
Dances with Bears
comments that Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand
says the Skripals are not in the country. One presumes she would know. Australia has also denied hosting the Skripals. Neither want to become embroiled in the US/UK/Russia tussle over the fate of the family. Unfortunately, the legal position of New Zealand vis a vis the Hague Convention, make it an attractive place for the UK to stash them out of reach of British courts.
Kay Weir of the Pacific Institute of Resource Management in Wellington commented that NZ has been trying to avoid being drawn into political targeting by the US, UK, Australia and Canada, the other members of the "Five-Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance:
"The Skripal story is an unwanted complication right now. NZ did not sign on to a Five-Eyes statement condemning China over its new security legislation to deter foreign interference in Hong Kong. Separately, NZ did express some concern, but didn't sign on to the Five-Eyes Joint Statement."
Legal experts in London suspect the press leaks may be a scheme by British officials to deter lawyers from seeking a British court order for the Skripals to appear and testify in court. For the first time since the Novichok attack by Russian military assassins allegedly occurred in Salisbury on March 4, 2018, a High Court hearing will open next month in London to review the evidence of what happened, assembled by the Wiltshire country coroner; for details, read this.
"They would need to try to get a witness summons to secure their [Sergei and Yulia Skripal] attendance and apply for service overseas," a London lawyer said. "Typically that is done through Hague Convention, but New Zealand doesn't seem to be party to the relevant part on securing evidence abroad and has its own procedures." The Hague Evidence Convention can be read here.
According to this review of NZ legal practice in 2005, so long as NZ stays outside the Hague Convention, "overseas counsel who wish to have a person in New Zealand examined for the purpose of a foreign proceeding will need to determine whether that witness is willing to give evidence." The NZ courts lack the power to order unwilling witnesses to give evidence in foreign courts. There is no precedent for tracing witnesses like the Skripals if the British authorities refuse to reveal their identities.
NZ remains outside the Hague Evidence Convention still. So too, Canada. The three other Five-Eyes states have signed the convention. To keep the Skripals in hiding but outside the reach of the British courts, NZ and Canada remain legal options for the British secret services. So long as they are hidden there, a lawyer adds, "it is unlikely that a London court would compel the Government to produce them and if they have been given new identities, then there could be separate litigation around that point."
Comment: While the Skripals appear to have given various 'proofs of life', such as an unnamed source receiving a Christmas card from them, as reported by the Sunday Times, there has been no confirming evidence.
Dances with Bears comments that Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand says the Skripals are not in the country. One presumes she would know. Australia has also denied hosting the Skripals. Neither want to become embroiled in the US/UK/Russia tussle over the fate of the family. Unfortunately, the legal position of New Zealand vis a vis the Hague Convention, make it an attractive place for the UK to stash them out of reach of British courts.