The Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland
The last 24 hours of the Novichok saga has seen a new twist - European media are widely reporting
that two Russian spies were caught attempting to either hack or break into the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland that was examining samples from the Salisbury poisoning. While this announcement of an event that happened months ago is clearly designed to bolster the British government's account, in reality it does the opposite.
The Spiez Laboratory StoryBeginning with
Dutch and Swiss media on Thursday night, reports claim that Dutch military intelligence (working with other intelligence agencies including British) detained two men at The Hague in late March,
around four weeks after the Skripals were poisoned. They were suspected to be GRU agents and reportedly had equipment to help them break into the lab, which was examining samples from both Salisbury and from suspected chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The two men - who have not been named or identified in any way -
were sent back to Russia so none of this will ever be placed before a court or properly examined. The news reports of the last 36 hours are contradictory on the question of whether this was an attempted
cyber-attack (i.e. hacking into the lab's computer system) or a
physical break-in.
Most of the reports say this was a hacking attempt,
echoing other
reports from late July saying that Russian hackers were either trying to or had successfully hacked the Swiss lab.
Comment: This Swiss government has
confirmed that it was an 'attempted' hack.
Switzerland summoned the Russian ambassador to protest an "attempted attack" as Moscow rejected the allegations, the latest Western claim about Russian spying and other acts of interference.
...
The confirmation by Switzerland's Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) to AP on September 14 came after reports by the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad and the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger that two Russians suspected of working for Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU, were kicked out of the Netherlands earlier this year as part of a Europe-wide investigation.
...
"The Swiss authorities are aware of the case of Russian spies discovered in The Hague and expelled from the same place," FIS spokeswoman Isabelle Graber said in an e-mail to AP. She said the agency helped prevent "illegal actions against a critical Swiss infrastructure," and declined further comment.
Switzerland's Foreign Ministry said on September 14 that it summoned Russia's ambassador to "protest against this attempted attack" and demanded that Russia "immediately" end its spying activities on Swiss soil.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the charges and questioned why it took so long to come to public light.
"I cannot suppose that such an occurrence, in which the specialists of three Western countries participated, could remain out of the field of view of the mass media," Lavrov said on September 14 after meeting with his German counterpart in Berlin, Russian news agencies said.
The AFP news agency reported on September 15 that the two Russians expelled from the Netherlands are also being investigated by Swiss authorities for an attempted cyberattack on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Very interesting news. If Tom Secker is correct, and Lavrov's revelation that the poison used in Salisbury was identified as BZ, perhaps events played out something like this: Russian spies succeeded in either physically penetrating or hacking Spiez, obtaining the evidence that BZ was used. They were caught, but a deal was worked out to keep it covered up. The Russians got sent back to Russia with a light slap on the wrist, as they now had proof that the West was engaging in a vast propaganda war to blame Russia for the Salisbury despite finding possibly exculpatory evidence.
If this scenario is at all plausible, perhaps a similar one could apply to the news that the same spies were caught "trying" to hack WADA. After all, WADA are now being
strangely rational in their decision to reinstate RUSADA despite vociferous calls for them to continue with their previously anti-Russian policy.
Comment: For more background on the kind of person Tony Podesta is, see: Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta's creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate