UK police on Skripal Saga: 'We haven't got a case yet. We have to go with evidence', not conspiracy theories about Russia

Vikram Dodd
The Guardian
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 16:40 UTC

© REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

(L) Sergei Skripal Global Look Press; (R) Yulia Skripal speaks to Reuters in London, Britain, May 23, 2018.

Russian president is assessed as 'likely' to have approved of nerve agent attack on Skripals

The UK has issued a European arrest warrant for two men charged over the Salisbury novichok poisonings. Photograph: Kirsty O'Connor/PA

Scotland Yard has examined the role of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the novichok nerve agent attack in Salisbury, it has been revealed.

Putin is assessed by UK intelligence agencies as having been "likely" to have approved of the attack in March 2018 on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer, and his daughter, both of whom were left seriously ill but survived.

Comment: How would intelligence assessments ever get written these days without the blessed word "likely"? What they're really saying is "We don't really have a clue, but we know this is what you want to hear."

The US intelligence agencies are rife with the same weaseling:

• Faced with lack of public trust, US National Intelligence Strategy issues report that manufactures ambiguous threats from Russia, China, and N Korea
• Scott Adams: How 'confident' are intel agencies re: Russian election interference?

Dawn Sturgess later died after coming across a discarded perfume bottle used by two Russian intelligence agents to carry the military grade nerve agent.

Two Russian agents have been charged over the attack, and Britain wants them extradited and has issued a European arrest warrant (EAW) and Interpol red notice for their detention.

The Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, the head of UK counter-terrorism policing, said the investigation into the attack was continuing.

Basu said the issues involved in bringing charges over the attack were complex. "You'd have to prove he [Putin] was directly involved," he said.

Comment: The Guardian buries the relevant bit, in hopes that you only read the headline:

"In order to get an EAW, you have to have a case capable of being charged in this country. We haven't got a case capable of being charged.

"We're police officers, so we have to go for evidence. There has been a huge amount of speculation about who is responsible, who gave the orders, all based on people's expert knowledge of Russia. I have to go with evidence."

The two Russian intelligence agents charged are still in Russia and liable to arrest if they leave. They were named by UK police as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, believed to be aliases.

British prosecutors said there was enough evidence to charge the Russian pair with conspiracy to murder Skripal, who sold Russian secrets to Britain before settling in the UK. They have also been charged with conspiracy to murder his daughter, Yulia, and DS Nick Bailey, who fell ill after going to the Skripals' home.

But there is speculation that more people may have been involved in the attack.

Comment:

• Skripal case is work of UK intelligence, helps conceal failures at home - Russian ambassador to UK
• The OPCW, the Douma gas attacks & the Skripals
• Joe Quinn on Sputnik: 'Skripal Saga is Part of Ongoing Anti-Russia Defamation Campaign'
• Craig Murray on Skirpal affair: UK and NATO tried to step up Cold War with Russia

Basu said: "The two that we announced in the press conference are wanted by us for extradition to be charged in this country. The whole of the investigation is still a live criminal investigation."

The two Russians charged are believed to be part of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency. They were further charged with the use and possession of novichok, contrary to the Chemical Weapons Act.

Sturgess and Charlie Rowley became unwell on 30 June in Amesbury, Wiltshire. They are believed to have been unwitting targets of the Russian plot.

Comment: RT comments:

Right from the start of the whole affair, the UK government and mainstream media proclaimed that it was the work of Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU. As the plot thickened, London claimed the two Russians, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were sent to use a military-grade nerve agent called 'Novichok' on the Skripals.

Later, the UK issued a European arrest warrant (EAW) and an Interpol "red notice" for both men, but implementing them would be no easy task, Basu explained: "In order to get an EAW, you have to have a case capable of being charged in this country. We haven't got a case capable of being charged."

Although the lingering investigation produced no tangible results so far, it didn't stop the UK government from slapping Moscow with sweeping sanctions and downgrading political ties. Other Western nations, most notably the US, followed suit, embarking on a war of words, ordering diplomatic expulsions and economic restrictions.

However, it didn't help bring the world closer to solving the Salisbury puzzle. "It shows their need to find a culprit for this tragedy, but it also shows their weakness in trying to pinpoint who was actually responsible," commented Klisman Murati, political analyst and director of the London-based Pangaea Wire consultancy.

"They're stuck between a rock and a hard place in trying to explain themselves with only inferences and expert opinion guiding their finger towards Putin and the Russian government."

Calling the poisoning "an undercover operation," he told RT that it will be "very hard to connect the dots to really prove who did this in the first place."

Remember that, despite zero evidence that 'Russia did it', that was what the UK govt has been telling the whole world was the case since March 2018.