© ITV NewsCharlie Rowley
In an exclusive interview with ITV News, the 45-year-old explained how his partner Dawn Sturgess fell ill moments after spraying the liquid on her wrists.
He said: "Within 15 minutes, I believe Dawn said she felt she had a headache and asked me if I had any headache tablets. I had a look around the flat and within that time she said she felt peculiar and needed to lie down in the bath, which at the time I thought was a bit strange.
"I went into the bathroom and found her in the bath, fully clothed, in a very ill state."
Mr Rowley later fell critically ill himself. Dawn died eight days later.
Comment: Assuming Rowley is telling the truth as much as he is able to do so, how this fits into the official narrative of the Salisbury attacks is not at all clear. A "sealed" bottle? Maybe Rowley wasn't clear and the bottle wasn't fully sealed, just still in the previously opened cellophane. Because if this was the same novichok used on the Skripals - as the British authorities are claiming - how could it still be sealed? Was it another, 'back-up' bottle? Was it planted after the fact, in which case it was not connected to the Skripal poisoning?
The novichok was first used in gel form, according to authorities. Now it's liquid? Did the assassins use the perfume bottle to spray gel-turned-into-liquid novichok on Skripal's door handle? See: Evil Russian Novichok: The odorless nerve agent that just so happens to also stink to high heaven
As for Rowley's statements, on the one hand he says he could've sworn it was perfume; on the other he says that it was oily and didn't smell like perfume. It's also odd that he remembers "finding" the bottle, but not where, only that it probably wasn't in the park, as has been reported by other news outlets. Whatever the truth of the whole story, it still doesn't add any clarity to the Skripal poisonings...