Nothing is simple in the Salisbury poisonings. Nothing makes much sense. The reason for this is not because no credible explanation exists which might make sense of it all. It is because the authorities have sold us a narrative which is not credible, which does not make sense, and they have done so whilst withholding crucial details about the case from the public.
Here are three pieces of key information that they have withheld, which they could easily release, and which may well help with the investigation:
- The connection between Mr Skripal and Christopher Steele of Orbis Business Intelligence, which is the organisation behind the infamous "Trump Dossier"
- CCTV footage of Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4th March 2018, which undoubtedly exists (see below)
- Mr Skripal's movements between the hours of 9am and 4pm on 4th March 2018.
Of these three pieces of information, the first may or may not be important to the case. However, whether it is important or not, I can well understand why the authorities do not wish it to be made public.
If it ever did become common knowledge, regardless of whether it is directly connected with this case or not, it would be hugely embarrassing to the British Government, since it would inevitably lead to the suspicion that the real interference story of the 2016 US election was not the Russian Government's alleged attempts
to get Mr Trump elected (apparently done with the sinister method of placing a few innocuous adverts on Facebook), but rather the attempts of British intelligence (and possibly the Government)
to try to stop him being elected. So I can see why they don't want this to be common knowledge.
But with regard to points number 2 and 3,
no such excuse can be considered reasonable, unless there is an alternative explanation to the one offered by the British Government.
They want the culprit(s) to be caught, don't they? They want the case to be completed to everyone's satisfaction, don't they? Right, so why is it the public haven't been shown any CCTV footage of Mr Skripal from 4th March (except a second or two of a car driving down Devizes Road), even though it exists? And why don't we know with any certainty Mr Skripal's movements that day, even though this information should be extraordinarily simple to obtain. They could just ask him, couldn't they, since he is apparently in their care?
Bit strange that he apparently doesn't want the details of his movements known, even though they could help catch the perpetrators, isn't it? Draw your conclusions accordingly.
Comment: Slane's output on the Skripal case has been worth reading. Here are some of his previous writings on the subject: