UK Police Say No Video Evidence of Russians’ Involvement in Salisbury Case

According to the report, CCTV cams were not installed on Christie Miller road in Salisbury, where former spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia lived at the time of the attack, TASS reported.

At the same time, the police suggests that the perpetrators smeared the doorknob with the Novichok agent on March 4, 2018, during their second visit to Salisbury.

The document says that Petrov and Boshirov arrived in Salisbury at 11:45 a.m. on March 4, 2018. Police suspects them of using Novichok between 12:00 and 12:15 p.m., but have no evidence to substantiate their claims. Only at 12:16 were Petrov and Boshirov caught on a CCTV cam at a nearby road. Sergey and Yulia Skripal were at home over that period, the report says.

According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergey Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, were exposed to an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident.

Moscow strongly rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such a substance. Experts from the United Kingdom’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down were unable to identify the origin of the substance allegedly used in the attack on the Skripals.

On July 4, 2018, the British police reported an incident in the town of Amesbury where two people had been taken to the hospital in critical condition after being affected by an unidentified substance. London’s Metropolitan Police later confirmed that the man and the woman had been poisoned with the same nerve agent that had been used on the Skripals. The woman - 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess - died on July 8, while her partner - 45-year-old Charlie Rowley - survived.

London claims that the Russian government was involved in the Skripal poisoning, using the A234 nerve agent, while Sturgess became an accidental victim after getting a bottle that Rowley had collected in a park thinking it contained perfume. Moscow strongly rejected the allegations. The Russian Foreign Ministry has sent dozens of diplomatic notes to the British Foreign Office, demanding that London provide Moscow with access to the investigation and the affected Russian nationals, as well as requesting legal assistance and offering cooperation, particularly in a joint probe.

The public inquiry hearing has begun in Salisbury on October 14, and later continued in London. It is expected to be completed in the first half of December.