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BRITAIN-RUSSIA-POISON
UK police rush to solve Novichok nerve agent death
SALISBURY, United Kingdom, July 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – British police rushed
to solve a murder mystery on Monday after a woman died following exposure to
the nerve agent Novichok, four months after the same toxin was used against a
former Russian spy in an attack that Britain blamed on Moscow.
Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked” by the death
of Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three who had been living in a
homeless hostel in the city of Salisbury in southwest England.
Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, 45, fell ill last weekend in the town of
Amesbury, near Salisbury, the city where former double agent Sergei Skripal
and his daughter Yulia were attacked with the Novichok nerve agent in March
and have since recovered.
Local MP John Glen said the local community was “anxious” after police
opened a murder inquiry, although health officials have said the danger to
the general public is low.
Glen told BBC radio the two may have handled a contaminated object because
of their “habit of looking into bins” and police were trying to work out “how
they came into contact with this nerve agent and when”.
Britain and its allies accused Russia of trying to kill the Skripals,
prompting angry denials and sparking an international diplomatic crisis.
Police said they would be led by the evidence but confirmed a link between
the Amesbury case and the Salisbury attack was a main line of inquiry.
– Hospital staff ‘worked tirelessly’ –
Interior minister Sajid Javid last week demanded answers from Moscow,
saying he would not accept Britain becoming a “dumping ground for poison”.
Russia hit back, denouncing Britain for playing “dirty political games”.
Police said the British couple were believed to have become exposed to
Novichok by handling a “contaminated item”, with speculation that it could
have been the container used to administer the nerve agent to the Skripals.
However, police and public health officials insist the risk to the wider
public remains low.
A police officer was tested for possible exposure to the deadly nerve agent
over the weekend but was given the all-clear.
Christine Blanshard, medical director at Salisbury District Hospital, where
Sturgess and Rowley were being treated and where the Skripals were
hospitalised, told the Daily Telegraph that staff had “worked tirelessly to
save Dawn”.
“Our staffs are talented, dedicated and professional and I know today they
will be hurting today,” she said.
– ‘Reckless and barbaric act’ –
The prime minister said: “Police and security officials are working
urgently to establish the facts of this incident, which is now being
investigated as a murder.”
Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the head of Britain’s counter-terror
police, said Sturgess’s death “has only served to strengthen our resolve to
identify and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for what I
can only describe as an outrageous, reckless and barbaric act”.
He added that the other victim “remains critically ill in hospital and our
thoughts are with him and his family as well”.
Residents of the homeless hostel in Salisbury where Sturgess lived, which
was evacuated after the couple fell ill, expressed their devastation at the
news of her death.
“It could easily have happened to anyone, to me or my partner,” 27-year-old
Ben Jordan told AFP late Sunday. “We are really, really sad. I am praying for
Charlie.”
Around 100 counter-terrorism officers are helping in the investigation,
which police said Friday could take “weeks and months”.
So far, there is no evidence that the couple visited any of the sites
involved in the Skripal case.
“Detectives will continue with their painstaking and meticulous work to
gather all the available evidence so that we can understand how two citizens
came to be exposed with such a deadly substance that tragically cost Dawn her
life,” Basu said.
Sturgess collapsed on the morning of June 30 and was taken to hospital.
That afternoon, Rowley fell ill at the same address in Amesbury and was also
hospitalised.
It was not until the Wednesday, however, that the government’s Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down confirmed their exposure to
Novichok.
“Detectives are working as quickly and as diligently as possible to
identify the source of the contamination, but this has not been established
at this time,” police said on Sunday.
“We are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same
batch that the Skripals were exposed to.”
The Skripals were released from hospital but the investigation into the
attack on them continues. No arrests have been made.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1422 hrs