In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative explanations.
Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting nerve agent on doorknobs.
The only backing for this statement by Boris Johnson is alleged “intelligence”, and unfortunately the “intelligence” about Russia’s secret novichok programme comes from exactly the same people who brought you the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s WMD programme, proven liars. Furthermore, the question arises why Britain has been sitting on this intelligence for a decade and doing nothing about it, including not telling the OPCW inspectors who certified Russia’s chemical weapons stocks as dismantled.
If Russia really has a professional novichok assassin training programme, why was the assassination so badly botched? Surely in a decade of development they would have discovered that the alleged method of gel on doorknob did not work? And where is the training manual which Boris Johnson claimed to possess? Having told the world – including Russia -the UK has it, what is stopping the UK from producing it, with marks that could identify the specific copy erased?
The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.
It seems remarkable that the chosen target of an attempt that would blow the existence of a secret weapon and end the cover of a decade long programme, should be nobody more prominent than a middle ranking double agent who the Russians let out of jail years ago. If they wanted him dead they could have killed him then. Furthermore the attack on him would undermine all future possible spy swaps. Putin therefore, on this reading, was willing to sacrifice both the secrecy of the novichok programme and the spy swap card just to attack Sergei Skripal. That seems highly improbable.
Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the Skripals.
The nub of the British government’s approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the “novichok” class of nerve agents, the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in Uzbekistan in 2002.
Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States. Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state actors.
As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has been invested, is unclear.
What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.
There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller’s work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.
Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.
The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.
In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the security services put out through Pablo Miller’s long term friend, the BBC’s Mark Urban, that the Russians “may have been” tapping Yulia Skripal’s phone, and the claim that this was strong evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.
But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia’s phone. Indeed, if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.
Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.
The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?
Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6, and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard, some basic security including a security camera on his house.
The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.
Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours, and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the nerve agent ultimately ineffective?
Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknob, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.
Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly substance, of which a tiny amount can kill?
Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks, possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.
If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?
I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies.
My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.
Was it a glass bottle? Would one of the deadliest substances on earth be stored or carried around in a breakable container?
The contents don’t penetrate glass, as opposed to plastic or other materials.
Plastic is porous. Yet glass is sometimes described as a liquid.
A useful metaphor for the complex inner life of humankind.
Plastic is adaptable and can be made either flexible or brittle. These are the ” gora ” or ” gewads ” . They are easily moulded by cruel, conservative, colonial and criminal cunts we call UK governments.
If it is hinted to them that religion and morality are too rigid for the purposes of making millions, or for stealing the wealth of others, or destroying the safety and security of other people’s possessions or families and there is a secret way of perverting the world without getting found out, these gora and gewads will not need a second explanation. They will immediately adapt to and comply with the required deviance. All you need to be a “gora ” is to be Britiish and understand the meaning of a nod and a wink. All you need to be a ” Gewad ” is a desire to sell your own, either your religion, your fellow Muslims, your family or your country for personal reward.
By contrast glass is manufactured from silica at 1500 Celsius. It absolutely refuses to adapt or mould itself to the whisperings of the devil or of colonial government. It resists being dissolved by toxins and acids administered by the nefarious manipulators of the worldly life. It is exquisitely translucent so that the when Divine light is shined into it, it radiates and illuminates that Divine light. The deviant purposes of evil conservative colonialism can be safely contained by it. Craig Murray’s blog is a glass phial in which thousands of state poisons more deadly than novichok are displayed and catalogues. For example, the injustices wrought by British neo-colonialism in Syria, Libya and Iraq. The poison of universal credit and universal spying can be contained by the mind that behaves like Glass.
Laguerre. You remind me of Bakelite.
“In 1907 a Belgium chemist living in America called Leo Baekeland, developed the first truly synthetic plastic called phenol formaldehyde, much better known under the trade name of ‘Bakelite’. Bakelite was used initially in electrical goods but soon began to appear in other consumer products. Since it
was brittle it was strengthened by adding wood dust to it,”
http://www.plastiquarian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/plasticbook.pdf
Novichoks are not remotely as deadly as botulinum toxin, see wiki for the respective LD50’s. Yet doses of injected botulinum toxin (botox) are well-tolerated. Why do people here struggle so much with sub-lethal exposures to novichoks?
Every container is breakable. It is extremely difficult to break a small thick-walled glass vessel. They are commonly used because of the lack of chemical reactivity with the contents. The container here has only been described as a small bottle. One newspaper, citing no source, said glass bottle. Met has emphatically stated no further information will be released on the bottle, eg label, color, manufacturer, eyedropper type, liquor miniature, collectible, eye-catching, recognizable, nothing.
Why no details or photo of the bottle? — if it were distinctive in appearance, someone might have seen it or know how it got to Rowley’s flat. Here the police do not want public input, despite the much publicized call line. I could think of a hundred different reasons here, none more than ungrounded speculation.
And don’t be surprised to if novichoks are someday approved for therapeutic use in Alzheimer’s disease:
Three acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (ACHEIs) are already been approved (in the US at least) for AD: donepezil (Aricept), rivastigmine (Exelon), and galantamine (Razadyne). Donepezil reversibly inactivates both human cholinesterases, thus inhibiting hydrolysis of acetylcholine. Not a cure, does not stop disease progression but increases acetylcholine concentrations at cholinergic synapses with some beneficial memory and behavioral effects, reducing care level needed in AD warehouses.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28974110
“Why no details or photo of the bottle?”
This is a pertinent question as there may well be more such bottles lying around posing a risk to the public. The appropriate response would be to issue a photograph of the bottle as a matter of course to warn the public.
“Why do people here struggle so much with sub-lethal exposures to novichoks?” I guess that it has to do with the fact that the British government and the British MSM kept on saying from the get-go that the Skripals had been poisoned by the Russsian government with a “weapon grade” chemical substance, the lethality of which was ten times that of VX nerve agent. The UK propaganda machine also said on a daily basis that the Skripals were for all practical purposes dead, and that nobody could recover from a novichok attack. And they kept repeating this story even after that ghost policeman returned from the dead a few days after being poisoned himself. You are now saying that “novichoks” may even turn out to be good for your health one of these days. So we now have to believe that the evil Russian agents were so awfully incompetent that they miscalculated the dosage, and took all that trouble carryin around a chemical weapon when they could have killed Segei Skripal the old fashioned way.
Your comment is interesting, but doesn’t it then raise the point of the fact our government and MSM were the ones pushing this diabolical “Novichok” narrative on us. Secondarily if it is a substance that can have varying outcomes depending on exposure and immune system or emergency care then why would a highly trained assassin use it in a extensively planned operation.
Isn’t much more likely that if it has been used then it has been used for one and only one reason. To create and easy story and trial for everyone to absorb that it must be Russia that did it.
As the media virtually blames Russia for the Amesbury event, we still haven’t seen or heard a word from the Skripals. The question is why haven’t we?
Nor have we heard from Victoria Skripal who was denied entry to the UK, or access to the Skripals.
If the Skripals are well and safe, why haven’t the media been as vociferous in trying to interview them or at the very least keep the public informed on their status, as they are at pointing the finger of blame at Russia without any real evidence.
As most of us already know, things aren’t what they appear to be.
Yes, one of the biggest unanswered questions. I have read that Sergei was in the habit of making a weekly phone call to his mother who, if she hasn’t heard from him, must be frantic with worry. And the first/only person Yulia rang when she managed to get hold of a phone was her cousin Viktoria. It makes the silence even harder to understand.
…but both skripals were in on it…new lives in usa if they kept shut…they won the lottery!
“Yulia’s statement” says that she hopes to eventually return to Russia. It was released after UK media mentioned plans to move Skripals to the USA. She allegedly has a fiance in Moscow, so it is plausible that she did not agree to the move creating a stalemate. Curious to see how this unfolds.
Also… If she has access to media she will see for herself how the media attribute blame to Russia with no evidence. Her dad would be used to the anti-Russian media and would take less notice.
Interview with Viktoria here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/viktoria-skripal-salisbury-poisoning-sergei-novichok-amersbury-russia-politics-a8433881.html
Even if one takes the official line, then Yulia wasn’t the target she was incidental to all this. She lived in Russia. Which makes her vanishing act all the more bizarre. No press conferences, no interviews, other than the strictly controlled one. Certainly doesn’t suggest freedom to travel or act.
It is bizzare, yes. But one of the effects of Amesbury is pushing the bizzare things about the original incident into the background.
Were the situation reversed and Russia behaving like this with a British individual, the media and politicians would be demanding immediate access.
True. I wonder why is Russia not pursuing this line. Perhaps there are agreements in this regard that aren’t public.
Russia is hosting the world cup soccer and does not want to disturb that success with British dirt now.
It depends on the source of news, because in russia we see regularly that embassy and ambassador Yakovenko send diplomatic nota, 60 off them by this moment. The notes are declined by British side, appointments denied, full ignore mode.
Press-release here
https://rusemb.org.uk
I share Craig’s views in that It might still be that the Russians are responsible and that the official story is true. But the way things have unfolded is deeply troubling and they would make even the most credulous person start to have doubts about the official narrative.
So many questions. It won’t happen but I would like to see Javid interviewed by Craig on this.
“I share Craig’s views in that It might still be that the Russians are responsible and that the official story is true.”
I think you’ve misunderstood ‘Craig’s views’ which are…
“I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies”
Crag has stated that he doesn’t rule out the Russians but this is contradicted by the overall timbre of his writings which tend towards “anyone but the Russians”.
Kempe
Nobody has to my knowledge yet produced a plausible motive for the Russian state to do this and in such a botched up way at such a time. On the other hand there are many who would like to embarrass the Russian state and have the ability to carry out such an attack.
@Kempe
“Crag has stated that he doesn’t rule out the Russians but this is contradicted by the overall timbre of his writings which tend towards “anyone but the Russians”.”
And yours is “anyone but the authorities”.
Valid position, but you forgot to mention it here.
The question was about Craig’s position on the affair, not mine.
Yes, there are questions as to the motive, we can’t even be certain which one of the Skripals was the target yet; hopefully that’ll become clear in due course. We know Sergei was still involved in intelligence work which might provide a motive. To my mind the Russians are still the most likely culprits, they have previous shall we say, for anybody wanting simply to smear Russia this is a pretty complicated and it has to be said ineffective way to do it.
As for it being some complex “false flag” (for what purpose?); give me a break.
Kempe
You are showing signs of strain ‘give me a break’
If you think that a likely motive for the Russian state to assassinate Sergei because as You state he has not given up espionage. This raises more questions not least of incompetence in that his minders did not appear to give him any security or anonymity whatsoever. Unlikely.
Moreover the Russians are either ruthless professional killers or stupid bunglers to not only fail to attain thier purpose but to leave messy clues everywhere, not both.
OK, so please share your ideas.
One motive is keeping anti-Russian sanctions on. There is a growing pressure in the EU to lift them because to many countries (contrary to the UK or US) trade with Russia is significant. If that happens, it will prop Russia up economically and politically while showing UK/US weakness because sanctions failed to achieve anything. My view however is that that Skripal attack was connected to Syria and the exact situation there at the time. The extreme urgency of the UK goverment to lay the blame and the military connotations it used are hard to explain otherwise.
Meanwhile.
“Scientists at the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down are testing it to confirm whether Ms Sturgess and her partner were affected by the same batch of novichok that poisoned the Skripals.”
In my opinion it will be reported that it is from the same batch. However that doesn’t incriminate Russia in any way, as there’s no evidence to do so, as in the Skripal case, but the press will word the story in a style of association, with Russia. There’s plenty of Cardinal Richelieu’s in the British media.
https://news.sky.com/story/more-than-400-items-found-in-amesbury-novichok-investigation-11436919
It is difficult to think how this can be proven if both are pure chemical reagents with no additives.
Well it’ll really put the cat amongst the pigeons if they turn out to be from different sources!
The cat has always been amongst the pigeons in this case full of red herrings, false leads, disinformation and false accusations before anything is known.
What batch of Novichock?
Winner Men’s Singles @ Wimbledon today £2.25m
Runner up £1.125m
Crazy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/wimbledon-prize-money-2018-breakdown-net-worth-federer-tennis-winner-mens-womens-how-much-rule-a8428706.html
PS Theresa found time to go, along with the royals and some ac-tors and their spouses.
Bring back the days of the amateurs.
France and Croatia will share £66m.
http://www.espn.co.uk/football/fifa-world-cup/story/3566113/world-cup-finalists-france-croatia-to-share-$66m-in-prize-money-from-fifa
Even more crazy.
“Winner Men’s Singles @ Wimbledon today £2.25m
Runner up £1.125m”
So that’s why they bring such large bags onto the court. Imagine the scene at Wimbledon underground…”Ticket to the airport please mate. Got change for a bulls eye by any chance?”
Have to reply here to your earlier point.
Craig, as far as I can glean, is simply saying the official narrative is nonsense, in his opinion. He isn’t entirely ruling anything out, or anyone’s involvement, he’s simply keeping an open mind and posing questions as new info and facts emerge.
He pretty much nailed his colours to Israel early on. Based on, erm, no evidence whatsoever (just a conviction that Israel is evil)
Not true. Not true at all.
How’s your dog? Dug up any bottles?
Yes, it is a crazy world we live in.
It’s noticeable how the typical, pathetic defence by the supporters of the rich elite is to accuse us “lefties” of being envious – they just can’t comprehend the mind set of normal people who, because they live a more fulfilled life, are quite content to have a decent standard of living and nothing more.
Eric Fromm, the psychologist, sociologist, and philosopher, wrote a book entitled: “The Sane Society”.
He of course, was writing about how our aspirations should be for a sane society, rather than the insane society we have become, or always have been. This book was written in 1955 but I think it is even more relevant to today’s world.
I don’t think Donald Trump would like, or understand this book, because Fromm refers to narcissism as a kind of insanity because of the way it isolates the individual from the real world. I think he’s spot on. The most damaging events and dogmas in the world are invariably led by some narcissistic inadequate.
It’s funny though, I only ever hear comparatively rich middle class people condemning materialism. It’s much the same with environmentalism. But the thing that really motivates them more than anything is longevity and that’s where the obsession with food and exercise comes in. It’s all as shallow and selfish as you can imagine.
I know academic activist environmentalist types who literally live in castles. They spend a fortune on their material comforts. In a recent example, I criticised one couple for completely redecorating their living room every two years — they even replace their £10,000 sofas every 2 years.
In their day jobs they are both embedded in the industries of charity work, specialising in sustainable development issues. Between them they clear more than £200,000 per annum. They never stop complaining about council tax rates where they live and absolutely despise the SNP.
They’re also total snobs, despite being from working class backgrounds themselves. They talk a lot about “the masses” who spend too much money on phones, alcohol, and tobacco and not enough on organic foodstuffs. Accordingly, they believe privatising the NHS would possibly help curtail its abuse by people who bring ailments and illness on themselves through their lifestyle choices.
The best thing about these two is that they regard themselves as socialists. Seriously. They are both Labour Party loyalists. They are both from down south, one from Wales and one from London, but they live in Scotland because they love Scotland even if they “can’t relate to most scottish people”. In short they think Scottish people are sort of thick and that they’ve been fooled and seduced by nationalism.
Yes, there’s much snobbery going around…
P.S.
So you are back to commenting here full force?
How about some modest apologia from you, given your rant here a coupe of threads ago.
This is the second time you’ve asked me for an apology without explaining why. The answer, of course, is no, regardless. Since I can’t remember the last time I was wrong about anything, why would I apologise?
Can you give me their number? I’ll relieve them of their 2 year old 10,000GBP sofa and apny other unwanted luxuries they care to dispise of!
THey sound like true philanthropic champagne socialists to me!!
they tried to sell one on ebay last year, it went badly and they ended up paying someone to dump it.. funny thing is they are rarely in their house — spend most of their time preaching abroad, telling poor people how to cut their carbon footprints and die in environmentally friendly ways.
Viewed down the other end of the telescope
the organisations that promote these events make vast sums from the talents of those they engage
it is only fair that the performers extract their due share of the loot
the alternative being that the promoters make even more profit.
This comment to Sharp ears above.
There is an enormous amount of interest in the case – because the official narrative has been so poor. It just encourages questions and doubt. From the comments I’ve read there is a consensus the Skirpal poisoning happened at the bench, so all investigation and inquiry must now be focused on that. Was it a suicide (one theory the Russians offer)? Was it something from the red bag? Was it a passer by? All these theories should and must be followed up by the officials now we have discarded the nonsense ‘door knob’ explanation (see past posts).
The is also confusion about the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in relation to the Skirpal’s. The official narrative makes no mention they visited it. However a report in the Sun states they were there feeding ducks as the police saw them on CCTV giving bread to a child. The kids family confirmed the story. Therefore the police knew the Skirpal’s visited the park but never quarantined it. The same park where it is alleged dawn & Charlie found the small bottle. Some say Skirpal himself discarded a bottle here (possibly while feeding the ducks) but as above the attack was slightly later on the nearby bench.
I believe as this event becomes more highlighted the officials will get Charlie to say they found the bottle elsewhere. I still believe the bottle was planted in Charlie’s house, there was an opportunity to do so as I explained in my previous comments.
Mark Urban and police stated Dawn was killed by Novichok. I thought she died of a heart attack. And the post mortem has yet to be performed. Is this just to inflame the rhetoric?
Police say ‘We believe that Dawn and Charlie handled some kind of container which the nerve agent was in (at QEG)’ A slight implication they may have been infected there. However, they were with friends Craig Pattenden and Sam Hobson who remain totally unaffected. These two could tell police exactly where Dawn and Charlie were in the park so not much to search. As we know there was CCTV there (if tuned on) so they would be on that. Where are Craig and Sam now? In fact the MSN has no new interviews with any witnesses on one of the biggest stories of the year. Stand down order?
Talking of CCTV why have no images other than the grainy one of the suspect couple been released (to my knowledge), I heard the council say CCTV was working and all the venues they visited had CCTV. Releasing images might help with the ongoing enquiry. In a previous post I postulated that would be assassins would have to have shadowed the Skirpal’s to be sure of their murder – so they may be on the CCTV (if the door knob theory was true of course).
Why was all Salisbury CCTV then turned off? Was it all tuned back on and when? http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/15230355.Driver_calls_for_CCTV_switch_on_after__pride_and_joy__car_is_vandalised/
Tony, this article from the Daily Fail on 15th March talks about the mystery couple – dark haired man, blonde woman with red bag – caught on CCTV in Salisbury on 4th March. I am not a fan of said rag, but the comments section is uplifting because the vast majority of folks think that the story is a total crock of s**t.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5503151/Police-probing-Russians-caught-CCTV-Skripal-poisoning.html
However, this article in Salisbury Journal 14th July 2016, talks about the CCTV being switched off, probably for good, due to the site being sold off.
http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/14618931.CCTV_switched_off_as_council_sells_control_room_to_developers/
This article in the same publication from 8th August 2017, talks about new cameras being switched on.
http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/15460507.First_new_cameras_go_live_more_than_a_year_after_Salisbury_s_CCTV_system_was_switched_off/
Interesting comment in that article – The council has worked with Wiltshire Police, Salisbury City Council, Salisbury BID, Citywatch, Salisbury Chamber of Commerce, Wilton Town Council and Amesbury Town Council on this project.
Amesbury is where the latest victims lived.
It also looks like they were going through the old cleanup operation yesterday, with the military and police taking away a couple of ambulances.
http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/16354651.ambulance-station-cordoned-off-again-and-vehicles-removed/?ref=mr&lp=4#comments-anchor
Where is this all going to end?
What is the meaning of life, and is it too early to ask that question particularly as I am relatively sober?
” the comments section is uplifting because the vast majority of folks think that the story is a total crock of s**t. ”
Err, these are Daily Mail readers…
“Err, these are Daily Mail readers…”
The conservative masses, in other words. Usually such people could be relied upon to support the state, Not now.
The govt has lost control of the narrative.
Perhaps they don’t realise it yet, that things have changed.
Could explain why they keep coming out with these cock and bull stories, assuming media will do the rest.
Normally I would agree with that comment, but the comments against the linked articles highlight that they are not swallowing the government/media line.
Anyone can sign up to Daily Mail online.
‘E’s gorn. And pray he doesn’t return. We can’t afford the security which was £15m and counting.
Trump departs UK with ‘low expectations’ for summit with Putin in Finland
The US president jets off having left Theresa May with the job of clearing up a number of controversial comments over Brexit.
https://news.sky.com/story/donald-trump-departs-uk-with-low-expectations-for-vladimir-putin-summit-in-finland-11437802
The fact there is absolutely nothing for the scientific community to debunk is the most sketchy aspect. A minister stating he’s been told something no longer washes after Iraq. And more recently, Straw and Blair’s denials of any knowledge whatsoever about rendition and torture, some of which was literally carried out in their names, via their signatures on documents.
“The fact there is absolutely nothing for the scientific community to debunk is the most sketchy aspect.”
Right. Whenever they attempt that, their credibility get severely burned as with Prof Collum on ease of manufacture anord the gram/milligram ministerial confusion.
The police are caught between a rock (public impatience with an interminable, expensive but empty investigation) and a hard place (interference from ignorant politicized superiors looking over their shoulder, ridiculously assigning blame despite the investigation hardly underway).
Someone made an excellent point earlier, for the police, a murder of a Salisbury citizen is rather different from the earlier incident involving foreigners and false flags. The police may retain a much greater degree of local control, without every scrap of information released having to be vetted or twisted by the Home Office and higher.
This second round of victims seems entirely unexpected and recovery of the bottle is potentially a huge forensics breakthrough. Already though they are making excuses for the nine day delay in searching a small flat for objects of a type they had been looking for since day one. In fairness, they are waiting on PD for advanced chemical analysis of impurities and so forth. PD is swamped with 400+ items sent in for analysis. Those would include Dawn’s purse and Charlie’s pants pockets.
While ‘same batch’ is expected and not terribly informative, the police want to establish linkage. DNA sequencing and glass trace element chemistry will take longer and would not be done at PD. They may, like the FBI, have a reference collection of every type glass around since the Romans. If there is a label or something stamped on the bottom, those are straightforward.
And, it’s not as though those who are sceptical can be dismissed as ‘the usual cranks’.
If authorities think that, then that’s surely an error. Anecdotally, I’ve heard quite a few Tory voting, right-wing people expressing disbelief at events and the explanations, if they can’t be persuaded who can be? The Mail’s comments are full of doubtful comments, as are the Telegraph’s and that’s probably why comments aren’t being opened there. In fact, the only people not expressing any doubt are the politicians , with a few exceptions, most of the printed press and the BBC and Sky. The way the govt can invoke the ‘we don’t discuss matters involving national security in this place’ (HoC) is the ultimate way of shutting down debate too.
This is increasingly typical (becoming commonplace) behaviour. If nothing is done to correct it the government will eventually be beyond reproach as far as media enquiry is concerned and, by extrapolation, the general public. it is to be hoped the Salisbury= Amesbury story being peddled goes ‘tits up’ in such a big way that it embarrasses the media to resume its responsibility to the public.
It won’t be allowed to go “tits up”, I’m afraid, no matter what. The reputational blow to the UK as an international actor would be too massive and long lasting. If Russian state culpability was not presented internationally as a fact with UK allies blindly acting on that premise, perhaps there would be room for manoeuvre. But now the best the UK goverment can do is stick to the line, however much their arguments will be distrusted domestically.
On the science part, yes that’s true.
It’s a bit like when politicians start talking about ‘cyber’, and encryption as if experts and the real tech community experts debunk them very quickly. It’s like this with placing attribution . Server logs can be fairly limited and don’t reveal all the hops from those connecting.
And the scientific aspects are the one thing can disprove or indeed prove the case. If blood concentrations are within plausible survivable ranges etc, to emerge like Yulia and Sergei have with “health is normal and no irreversible things” as Yulia said in that phone call. The science is where amateurs would messed up, if anywhere.
Sorry, meant to say France.
North and west Africa
Macron is there to congratulate the French team who won 4 -2. So is Putin.
Would May have attended if England had been in the final? No. She prefers to mingle with the middle classes and slebs at Wimbledon, the throwback to the days of the British EmPyre.
Sharp Ears, I was arguing today with my husband about Royal Family, may be you can give an opinion?
My side is, that the Queen is away of politics and the Royal Family is not to do any political acts or statements. My husband says, it is not true and Queen Elisabeth in fact can make political decisions.
We were argueing about royal presence at the World Cup, and I said ‘ they could probably send some remote prince or princess to support the team’. My husband says it is impossible due to politics.
The more entrenched one’s base the easier it is to be noble, detached, fair, independent and non-political. The nouveaux appears coarse or corrupt because they are newly arrived. The tree with deep roots does not need to go for a walk with politicians. The others do the work and one may just stay at the centre charing and occasionally offering only the most subtle and oblique indication of pleasure or displeasure and leave it to others to interpret accordingly.
Just showing up is politics for royalty and royalists.
The royals ie Princes William & Harry, who no doubt would have attended, were banned post Skripal as were government representatives. The monarch has no real political powers but in theory could exercise some in some circumstances, though never likely in practice.Constitutional monarchies are complicated for historical reasons. It would have been very embarrassing had England reached the finals and even more so had the team won with no officials on the podium to greet them.I could never imagine any of the royals or even politicians apart perhaps Jeremy Corbyn turning up to the game in a football shirt like the Croatian President or hugging all and sundry. Macron was demonstrative too – oh for a Republic!
The Queen has to do what the politicians decide. ihe would even have to sign her own death warrant If Parliament passed such an Act. In ‘normal’times William would have been there as the honorary head of the FA but May told him it was not on.
I am not playing your games Tatyana.
What goes around, comes around, Sharp Ears.
Surprised you haven’t figured that out by now.
You were hardly pleasant to Tatyana when she first arrived, and now you’re hopping mad that your unpleasant behaviour is referenced for all to see.
There’s no point in spelling it out for you, because you are incapable of recognising fault in yourself.
Oh my, glenn_nl, why making quarrel out of nothing? Let’s make peace 🙂
There’s really not a bit to be angry at. People are people, we all have our opinions, may be prejudices, perhaps we are wrong. It is not a reason for hostility or personal attacks, we can sort it out and stay polite.
I am really very grateful to any support, because it is turns out hard sometimes to get some kind of comments towards me.
But really, I’m adult and healthy, I can manage it. I’m not going to drop tears at rude words. It is OK. It is OK. I’ve experienced much more mischievous events in my life 🙂
I’ve tried a few times myself, Tatyana – there’s no getting through to SE. Once you’re designated an Enemy of the People, there’s no going back. If I’ve offered my hand a few times since and it gets knocked aside, so fair enough – I’m not going to complain.
On the other hand, SE doesn’t get to snipe at people and try to bully others all the time, AND claim to be the victim.
Get off my back Glenn NL You are trolling me. I have had enough of that on here over the years. You are vindictive and are bringing in other trolls.
Here’s the deal, Sharp Ears – you stop making snide references to me, and I won’t respond in kind. Think you can manage that?
You’ll find this policy works pretty well on a general basis. I suggest you try it.
Oh, Sharp Ears, I’m not playing games. I’m sorry if I offended you somehow, it was anyway not intended. I regret that conversation with glenn where I mentioned your virtual persnality, I think it is not decent to speak about persons as if they are not here. I’m sorry.
Yet, I realise I could probably offend more participants of the discussion by ignorant use of words or making silly comments. It may happen because I really don’t know some things very common for you.
Foreigners in Russia do it often, we just have a laugh and move on!
She’s a bitter old thing. Hates the idea of another woman posting too much on “her” blog, hence the little snipes at “Mary Paul” the other day.
There might be some truth to that, Anon1 – recall how much SE hated Dreolin. Wouldn’t talk _to_ her either, just made lots of snide attacks on a constant basis, then whined about how cruel Dreolin was for returning some of the same.
Is there a female poster SE hasn’t had it in for?
Yes Macky!
https://youtu.be/_bMcXVe8zIs
Excellent example.
We’re all onions.
😉
The world cup is over and I’m glad Croatia was soundly defeated.
Congrats to le bleu, on winning the World Cup.
Croatian female president, shrugging off the heavy rain, whilst all the others male leaders includin Macron and Putin, remaining under aides umbrellas.
Kudos to the Croatian president.
She looked like she had a few vodkas in her to keep her warm.
So who got Pussy Riot into the stadium? Uniforms and passes courtesy of MI6.
Somebody going to be sent to the Siberian Gulags for that. ?
These girls are not any smart, ad long as I see. They pretend they can offend people and expect fair play in answer ))) sometime you can run into a cossak…
It is very russian to produce jokes over incidents.
‘Do you know the best treatment for nasty children is the natural eco treatment with herbs? Nettle applied to backside workes wonders’
I read that as “Nettie applied to backside works wonders”.
So how would the brave Tatyana protest against corruption in her own country? Let’s start with the St Petersburg stadium being 500% over budget – where does she think her hard earned tax roubles to pay the extra cost actually went?
Trump leaving Scotland for Helsinki, when asked who is America’s greatest foe, he answered the EU.
There is only one target set by trumpfs Godfather, Adelson, IRAN, will Putin be enticed. This sunni zio alliance developing only needs Russia on board now, and all in good time as 2020 is not far away, the attack has to start within the next year. The real protector of the two mosques under fake wahhabi baqri control is not Allah its the great satan and Iran is intent on evicting the satan from the sands of Arabia.
What’s 2020 got to do with it.
But yeah, Iran is the Germany of that region.
Like Japan in hers.
And what happens to Germanies.
Sorry Hejdi, bad news, Putin doesn’t have to betray anyone especially the Iranian people. He doesn’t have to because Trump meeting is just performance art in a political sense. World leader meets kleptocrat from USA. World leader says comfortable things to reassure kleptokrat that his wealth is safe (for now). World leader knows that the lying, thieving kleptocrat has stolen his money and lots of future investments and has no intention of charming him. The USA kleptocrat is a well known for never honoring any agreement and proved it last week in North Korea, this week in Europe, yesterday in Britain by explicitly saying that Boris the Menace would make a good PM after meeting Theresa May.
Sad to say the world will continue this way until the USA kleptocrat smashes the Permanent State of the USA. Unlikely would be my bet.
More likely is that the partnership between Sheldon Adelson and Semion Mogilevich will totally dominate the USA for decades more.
My previous comment about the Skirpal’s Queen Elizabeth gardens may be rubbish as it doesn’t fit the timescale. The nearby Avon Playground does. So maybe that theory goes. It was due to the parents and boy mentioned being photographed at QED by the Sun. This may have been misleading (why would they wander so far across town and back again)
I was wrong about the CCTV as there may be a couple of images out there. In fact there is one of a couple similar to the Skirpal’s in an alley by Zizzi looking fit and well – walking without any problems – shortly before they were taken ill. Which again leads us to believe the attack took place on the bench. A strange place for a suicide though, in such a public area. That’s why there was such a commotion at the scene from people passing by, The services, (that arrived far too quickly) considered it serious enough for a few ambulances, medics and police cars and a helicopter (although I saw one report that said it took an hour to move them from the bench). As I said before the public need to see the CCTV and eyewitness reports at the time. It could be the Skirpal’s were meeting someone and there may be evidence of that we do not know about – their phones being switched off could be a clue.
There needs to be more information about DS Nick Bailey. How come he ‘rushed’ to the scene of two people passed out on a park bench (why rush)? CID officers are not first-responders. Was he a passerby? If so where had he been? Reports say he was part of the initial response to an unknown incident. Was he first at the scene? Did he call it in? One report says Bailey was one of the officers involved in the initial response when the Skripals collapsed, so how come the others were not affected? The Daily Mail said he had “no direct contact with the Skripals”. An unnamed doctor quoted by the BBC, who allegedly worked on Yulia for 30 minutes, escaped unharmed. She said she treated her for almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on Ms Skripal’s face or body. The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she “feels fine”.
Some reports say Bailey was rushed to hospital, others say he drove himself(?). Why did his (alleged) statement not mention the poisoning, the affects on him, his treatment, or anything else about the case? Are there any other images of Bailey apart from that awards ceremony? He is not going to talk, he said ‘respect my privacy’ (and leave me alone). Bailey did not speak to the press, and no photographs or film of him leaving the premises and going home have yet emerged. He is a BIG clue to what happened but without him going public we will never know.
Salisbury Zizzi is no longer shown on Google Maps. It’s never going to open again. Neither will the Mill pub.
“The doctor said she had been worried she would be affected by the nerve agent, but added that she “feels fine”.”
Can you share a link to the source please? I never came across of reports saying that she was conscious and talking. Agreed that Bailey or is a big clue, the silence around him is unexplainable.
Not Yulia, she was totally out of it by the time Freya Church (assistant manager of the fitness center) first noticed them. He is referencing the never-identified lady doctor who was passing by with her husband and put Yulia on the ground on her left side knee up head tilted back (“recovery position”) which is no longer recommended in the US because it is then more difficult for paramedics to determine if the victim is still breathing. Neither this doctor nor the lad who assisted Sergei, wiping foamed saliva off his mouth with his shirt sleeve, ever reported symptoms of OP poisoning, a bit surprisingly.
Tony, it is on Google maps, but says – Permanently closed.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Zizzi/@51.069884,-1.7967856,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x9107cae2497a24b2!8m2!3d51.069884!4d-1.7967856
I’m a collector of rare Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey Pokemon. Would anybody like to see my collection?
– DSNB went to the hospital two times, not once. He was examined and discharged the first time.
– DSNB was not admitted to hospital until *Tuesday* as his condition deteriorated (highly rare pokemon from BBC Newsnight)
– DSNB was awake sitting up and chatting with his wife and police colleagues on Wednesday or Thursday
– DSNB had attempted to resuscitate Sergei Skripal with mouth-to-mouth respiration (somewhat rare pokemon)
– DSNB was just doing his job and would like everybody to respect the privacy of his family (not so rare pokemon)
“DSNB had attempted to resuscitate Sergei Skripal with mouth-to-mouth respiration”
All but #4 are right on. #4 is an unsupported, improbable invention from a single tabloid in my view. There were and continue to be many tabloid inventions, such at the Guardian’s Russian-made today. No support for this from the 8 people standing around with umbrellas. Not done by detectives on foaming patients, not by paramedics (they have vastly better tech, as was seen on Dawn’s stretcher). Not done with fentanyl or similar users, too dangerous for many reasons. The lady dr, see above, already saw to it that Yulia’s airways were clear. Sergei was catatonic and upright, not put in ‘recovery position” (mouth-to-mouth impossible there). The lad who wiped the foam off Sergei’s mouth has a good online interview.Yulia may have been farther along with diaphragm muscle paralysis, the proximal cause of death with all OPs including this novichok. We don’t know whether Sergei also needed a tracheotomy, he’s not been seen in four months. You are quite correct in that the mysteries of DS Nick Bailey’s exposure and activities that day are highly significant to the narrative but completely unresolved.
I agree that it’s an improbable intervention and also a disgusting one if Sergei happened to vomit on him while performing the procedure. Yulia was already vomiting all over the mysterious ebola army nurse (aka lady dr I think). The sourcing I have for the mouth-on-mouth action is somewhat dubious I suppose and seems to imply Kier Pritchard said so at a press conference and only one reporter was paying attention at the time.
I apologize for that very gross image of an old man puking into a cops mouth. Upon reviewing my notes I believe it comes entirely from my confirmation biased imagination. I blame my deep mistrust for everything the government has ever told me about doorknobs.
“DSNB was just doing his job and would like everybody to respect the privacy of his family (not so rare pokemon)”
Then why did the D-noticed media keep reporting about him?
He became a public figure (aside from being a public servant) at that moment.
If he couldn’t stand the heat he ought to have get out of the kitchen.
What was he doing there anyways.
I apologize for the italics throughout.
I didn’t properly close the tag after ‘pokemon)’.
Ben White
Over the last 48 hours, the Israeli military has killed four Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. Three of them were children.
Shot during Friday protests:
Othman Rami Halas, 15
Muhammad Nasser Sharab, 18
Killed in airstrike Saturday:
Amir al-Nimra, 15
Louay Kahil, 16
https://twitter.com/benabyad/status/1018460416845012993
https://twitter.com/benabyad/status/1017905534631018496
h/t The Lifeboat News
I have heard Ben speak on a few occasions. His concern for the Palestinians is within his heart and being.
Ben White
@benabyad
Journalist, analyst, author. #Palestine #Israel Bylines include @AJENews @IndyVoices @MiddleEastEye; Contributor @AlShabaka; New book: http://www.beyondapartheid.com
Cambridge, England
benwhite.org.uk
I see Seymour Hersh is saying the Skripal case is linked to them supplying information to British Intel on the Russian mafia. He says it is the mafia that tried to kill them.
Sounds like a possible compromise narrative. Enhance it with allegations that the “mafia” had goverment connections, or ex-goverment people were involved, and the damage to UK’s baseless accusations start to look somewhat reasonable, at least in retrospect.
Sorry “the damage to” should have been deleted in the above.
Well if that turns out to be true there’ll be a lot of Russians, including Putin himself, who’ll be looking to put them out of business. Do you have a link to the Seymour Hearsh interview?
Breaking news:It was a chemical weapon made in Russia…!!!
“Sturgess, 44, and her partner, Charlie Rowley, fell ill in Amesbury, about eight miles from Salisbury, on 30 June. It is believed they handled an item contaminated with the Russian-made chemical weapon.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/15/novichok-victims-son-asks-trump-to-raise-mothers-death-with-putin
There’s a “scoop” for the Guardian! Previously we were only told that it was “of a type developed in Russia”. Now we’re told that it’s “made in Russia”. Hopefully the Guardian will now disclose its source for this vital piece of new information. Or will this simply become the “official” line from now on, without any further data to back it up?
I sincerely hope that Dawn Sturgess’s son gets his wish and Trump raises the matter with Putin. I also sincerely hope that we learn Putin’s reply.
Correct spelling must be ‘type developed in USSR, the chemical we ourseves helped to destroy, the chemical we produced for research purpose, the chemical whos inventor betrayed his country and fled to us to share the formula in a book available at Amazon’
A bit too long? I’m sure “Russian Novichok” stands for convenience’ sake 🙂 you know they are paid by words quantity, perhaps it is for financial reason, that they have to cut the phrase 🙂
“you know they are paid by words quantity, perhaps it is for financial reason, that they have to cut the phrase ?”
Priceless.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Note the smiley in italics!
It gets better and better. Novichok not now found in Queen Elizabeth Gardens but in Charlie’s flat all along. As I said earlier the fuss around QEG may make the officials say the bottle was found somewhere else, and voila, it was first found in his flat all along. News reports today state the Skirpal assassins used his flat as a safe house. All the new reporting, as usual, is full of ‘maybe’. ‘could have’ and ‘possibly’ which is not evidence at all.
Another new report states the novichok was in a perfume bottle according to Charlie’s brother, a theory several others here covered. This would contradict the claim above that trained assassins were responsible (why store it in a perfume bottle – the angle her is to point blame back to Ms Skirpal). This just gets worse and worse.
Apparently Charlie Rowley’s first words after recover were ‘they killed my girlfriend’
Igor PP – this is the source of the statement by the doctor who attended the scene of the nerve agent attack and intimately treated Ms Skirpal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43326734
Tony, that link has thrown up this as well
“Part of a business park in nearby Amesbury also remains cordoned off, while the graves of Mr Skripal’s wife and son at a Salisbury cemetery have also been taped off by police.”
A business park in Amesbury where the latest victims lived. I wonder why the business park was cordoned off in the original case?
Independent, dated 15 July 2018 7:01PM, also BBC. No video clip of Matthew actually saying this.
“Matthew Rowley said his brother Charlie, who remains seriously ill in Salisbury hospital, told him that he had picked up the perfume bottle. Dawn Sturgess [possibly] sprayed the perfume on herself, effectively self-administering a lethal [skin] dose of Novichok.
The Metropolitan Police, which is leading the investigation, refused to confirm the claim. Previously the force has said only that it was found in a small bottle.
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the information about the bottle could be a significant clue for investigators trying to isolate the source of the nerve agent and identify who administered it. “Where did it come from, where was it bought, is it something that is very rare, is it something that’s unusual, is it something that was bought in a particular shop at a particular time?” he said.
Weird, earlier Matthew had told reporters Charlie’s room was bracketed with police officers inside and out, with an in-room policeman specifically forbidding him to ask about the how.
If this holds up, it goes back to a much earlier police theory, that Yulia unknowingly brought perfume, cosmetics, and Sergei’s favorite buckwheat in with her on the plane, the idea being these were tainted gifts from the now-vanished fiance hoping to steal her recent inheritance or his uber-patriotic disapproving KGB-affiliated mother. This puts Yulia as the target, with DS Bailey and maybe Sergei as accidental. But how did the perfume get out of her purse and into the hands of Charlie/Dawn without them being immediately contaminated, but then four months later?
If Julia sprayed it on herself then she must have sprayed it on Sergei too as he apparently received a similar dose at the same time. Not unreasonable if it was a unisex perfume. The main diffuculties would be to explain how the bottle got to Charlie and how such a deadly substance could be carried in a perfume bottle. If the bottle turns out to be a specially made container-dispenser, it’ll be hard to explain why it was left to be found. But I won’t be very surprised if we’re soon told that this state-sponsored assassin was so clumsy that he not only failed to administer the poison properly but also lost his weapon.
How about this: the perfume was brought over from Russia as a gift (trojan horse) and rolled out of the red handbag at the bench as Yulia collapsed. The handbag is still seen lying on the ground long after initial clearing of the scene (google “Yulia red handbag skripal”).
DS Bailey picked the purse up and looked for drugs inside as a sensible part of a detective’s response, determined it was part of the drug/crime scene based on pictures and papers inside, found no drugs so made sure it got returned to the hospital to it’s owner Yulia. He got slightly contaminated in the process.
DS Bailey may have noticed the perfume bottle that had rolled off the pavers to the lawn but left it there, having no reason to think it was associated with the purse but was rather just previously accumulated park trash.
Charlie Rowley was drawn to the chaos of the incident response and scavenged the perfume bottle before all the forensic tents came on the scene days later. (It was not recognized initially that novichok was involved.) He managed to slip it in his pocket without serious skin contamination, took it home with an idea of selling it later, washed up and did laundry, put it away somewhere, and months later remembered it and gifted it to Dawn that Friday evening. His right hand got contaminated this time. She misted it and got really contaminated.
This explains the original bafflement of the police: weak traces were found here and there but not anything plausibly the source. If Yulia had tried the perfume a bit at Sergei’s house, it could indeed be contaminated say in Yulia’s bedroom or a bathroom. No reliable information of any kind has been released on test outcomes.
If the novichok was mixed in originally with authentic perfume (thousands of distinct chemicals), it will prove a forensic nightmare to analyze it.
The purse’s current whereabouts are unknown but it was surely tested if retained for the evidence room. Thus the police have known all along there was no direct assailant in Salisbury. (They did consider briefly another woman known to Yulia who had taken the same flight from Moscow.)
No wonder police are refusing to show pictures of the bottle; no wonder standing orders were issued to shut down Matthew’s conversations with his brother.
Interesting theory, but I think it leaves the police with too many clues to not have traced the bottle for four months. First, the area of contamination would give out a spray. Second, if Charlie would somehow manage not to get on CCTV while picking the bottle up, he would surely get on it at some other time and be recognised as present there around the time of the incident. The bottle would soon be in police’s hands.
So Dawn is left handed and misted the perfume on to her Right palm?
Without getting any of the spray anywhere else on her left hand?
Try it sometime , the finger that does the pressing usually gets a good dose.
I really would have thought Charlie would have sprayed and sniffed it first to make sure his gift was worthy
Sounds good Tom but different park to the one now being associated with the current victims. BUT it is the same park the Skripals visited to feed the ducks and the police ‘forgot’ to check and even include in their timeline of the Skripal journey.
see blogmire for more.
“the area of contamination would give out a spray.”
Police dug up and removed the sod quite a ways back from the bench. The pavement was also cut up and removed. As was the bench itself. It’s not known how any of these tested out or at what spatial resolution. It was raining at the time the Skripals succumbed. So, two days later, they would not look or get a distinctive spatial signature for a spray
“Charlie would be seen CCTV while picking the bottle up”
The only cctv camera I see there on Google Street View is high on a corner post, by House of Cards. The whole area is mobbed with pedestrians, eight on the Market Walk bridge alone, old people sitting on benches, market vendors, people coming in and out of popular shops, tourists strolling, kids playin on the grass. Charlie was well-known to police as a registered addict and from his prison case; like Dawn he scavenged cigarette butts for the tobacco as well as bins for small recyclables. So yes he might be somewhere on that 2500 hrs of cctv like thousands of others but all it would show is him stooping repeatedly to pick stuff up. It might have been right after the ambulances, later the evening or the next day. We don’t know where the perfume bottle ended up, it could have been kicked away during the rescue commotion and skidded quite a ways.
In any event, Charlie remembers picking up the perfume bottle so maybe his brother also asked him where and when. Certainly the police have by now.
One does have to wonder, Watergate style, what the police knew and when they knew it — look at these old stories from early March. But search as they might, they could not then find the smoking gun, and lacking concrete support for these theories, they acquiesced to pressure from on high to blame the russian state. And now, rather than a brilliant detective work leading to a resolution, they’ve lost control of the narrative again thx to Charlie’s brother. The whole thing is unravelling very rapidly.
“Skripal’s niece has broken her silence to claim Yulia, who had a bust-up with her boyfriend’s mum, was the real target of the attack. Relatives are pointing the finger at the prospective mother-in-law after it was disclosed she was a highly-ranked Russian security official.
The mum, who has not been identified [now known, see upforum], is said to have been furious that her son was marrying into the family of a man who betrayed 300 Russian agents. Victoria, 45, from Yaroslavl, north east of Moscow, said: “My opinion is that it was done not against Uncle Sergei, but against his daughter.” By Jay Akbar 16th March 2018, 12:25 amUpdated: 18th March 2018, 1:17 pm
Another account, early March date: “Some British media, citing unnamed police sources, are reporting that Yulia Skripal unknowingly brought the Novichok nerve agent to Salisbury in her suitcase on a plane trip from Moscow, arriving in Britain the day before the attack.”
If it was say a 7.5ml Chanel No 5 spray Yulia would have put it in her resealable bag for security at Moscow. The sort of thing magpies like Dawn and Charlie might pick up.
It could happen like you said or have been chucked in Avon after self-administration. Bailey exposed after rooting for keys in handbag.
If the Russians have CCTV of the trays going through the x-ray machine they know all this.
So it could either be Yulia bringing it with/without knowing.
Or the FSB placed a “ringer” with the Skripals forensics on it to implicate them.
I know that british society is famous in it’s contempt for poor people but honestly there must be a more humane way to leak information to the press without gaslighting any homeless people in their hospital beds.
I’m looking forward to the narrative which can square perfume bottle leak with this two day old empty bottle leak in the Guardian:
“Scientists hope there will be enough novichok left in the bottle for them to determine whether it came from the same batch used in the Skripal attack. They will compare whatever is left in the bottle with a small sample recovered from the door of the Skripal’s home. They now have small quantities from both incidents in their possession.”
So there was enough of it in small outdoor sample so diluted that it failed to harm anyone. But there might not be enough in a hermetic bottle with apparently lethal concentration. Weird.
This sounds like a source the reporter talked to at Porton Down. I see two possible interpretations, either the source is saying the bottle is almost or completely empty and the best they can do is swab it out for stray molecules or the source doesn’t actually have any privileged information about the status of the bottle and he’s mentally covering the empty bottle possibility and describing what that would mean.
If the bottle we’re talking about is an empty perfume bottle currently being pondered by a huddle of lab coats at Porton Down then it’s hard to imagine a plausible way in which the final lethal quantity of nerve agent which was inside of the bottle ended up outside of the bottle soon after Ms Sturgess woke up on Saturday morning. Remember you also have to explain where the bottle came from in the first place.
BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner reported already on 6 July when Dawn was still alive:
“The item – or possibly items – are thought to be something found and touched by the pair, possibly something as innocuous as a perfume bottle or other luxury toiletry.” https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44733873
“perfume bottle or other luxury toiletry” is an odd thing to randomly choose off of the comprehensive list of all possible objects a homeless person could hypothetically have touched during an average day of roaming around town doing homeless person activities.
@ Brendan July 15, 2018 at 22:26
Perhaps he’d borrowed (or nicked) Jane Standley’s crystal ball.
This makes it even less believable that the bottle sat in the flat unrecovered for 10 days if it was on the suspect items list.
Amongst the very first theories after the original poisoning in March was that the Skripals were sprayed with an aerosol while sitting on the park bench.
However, it was later reported that the Novichok nerve agent was too viscous to be used in an aerosol – it was described as oily or gloopy. That was apparently the explanation for why it took a number of hours to seep through the skin before the symptoms appear.
But now we seem to be back to the spray-on Novichok. Can’t anyone stick to a single story?
The viscosity could be cut to any level with solvent, for example aliphatic alcohols already present in the perfume. Skin penetration could be enhanced, as someone mentioned earlier, by DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide). The perfume bouquet might not notably be altered given the mg quantities involved. Perfume bottles come with a stout cap over the mister so they don’t accidentally discharge in a handbag or on an airplane when the pressure is lowered.
But the novichok was said to be of exceptional “purity”
No additives
Maureen
July 16, 2018 at 01:23
“No additives” is not what high purity means. High purity means very low in cogeners, unwanted products, formed during the production process.
a cement head
No it doesn’t. It means exactly what it says.
Yes but whose novichok was that? It’s widely assumed that the door handle was treated with Porton Down A234 for the benefit of OPCW sample takers, some rainy weeks after the fact, after numerous police were seen coming and going through the door with no gloves or any protective gear. Not one snippet of scientific backup has been released to date.
“High purity means very low in cogeners, unwanted products formed during the production process.”
That’s correct. In beer or wine fermentations, unwanted congeners (‘born together’) mostly means methanol. In organophosphate synthesis, say the Iranian journal article on novichok synthesis, it include closely related OPs perhaps originating from precursor impurities or breakdown products not the intended target which in this case were removed by subsequent purification steps that would be skipped in producing lower ‘military-grade’ nerve gases.
In our context, the phrase originated from the Spiez Laboratory report. Here it is important to know what an analytic lab can and cannot do on a minuscule outdoor sample with no chain of custody. What they cannot do is determine every single molecular species in the sample. Instead, they work against a list of OPCW proscribed chemicals. As discussed up-forum, they look at peaks coming off specific gas chromatography – mass spectrometry set-ups. Spiez was surprised to see a single peak rather than a main peak and multiple smaller ones that would be seen in ‘bathtub gin’ home-made products like the Japanese subway attack serin. They did not determine what other chemical species (solvents, additives, stabilizers, enhancers) were present because that is way outside their remit.
On the day that the door handle theory was introduced in late March, BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera said that the Novichok could have been administered through a “gloopy substance which could have been smeared on to that door handle”.
Now I wouldn’t believe anything the BBC tells me, but they have good contacts and they wouldn’t publish details that contradict the official position. The message was that the nerve agent would at least partly stick to a door handle, in order to stick to the victims’ hands.
So are there now supposed to be two different versions of Russian A-234 Novichok around the Salisbury area – one in the form of something like a sticky gel for Sergei Skripal’s front door, and another thinned with solvents that Dawn and Charlie sprayed from a perfume bottle in Amesbury?
The government’s experts are going to tie themselves in knots if they try to weave all the details into a coherent narrative.
Brendan, I give you this article from Sciencedirect, which states that Novichok is designed to be dispersed as a powder, not a gas or vapour, which is why it is normally delivered via bomb, shell or missile.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/novichok-agent
This whole story stinks.
Novichok is a family of nerve agents, some of which are liquid, and at least one is powder, if we believe scientists who claim to have developed them.
The interesting thing about it being in powdered form, is both alleged poisonings also involve water. The Skrapals were reportedly found sitting on a bench in the rain, while we’ve heard a witness report that Dawn collapsed in the bathroom after taking a shower in the morning, and then the same thing happened with Charlie later that afternoon.
If Charlie’s was a “safe house” (drug pedlars? Police informers?) then Charlie must have made it so. When did the bottle of perfume appear? If Dawn has just used it, it had probably appeared that day. Dawn came from Salisbury by bus. Did it have to come from Salisbury? There are two main roads between Amesbury and Salisbury and they pass either side of Porton Down… Look at Craig’s map of the area from a previous posting. I’m sure the police have checked this but was there a Porton Down bus stop? Wonder who Charlie was referring to when he said “they killed my girlfriend”?
Yes indeed.
As he was coming out of the coma during which Dawn died, how did he know she’d died.
I don’t believe those were his first words
How could they be?
The script writers need to be sacked.
How could the Russians have used Charlie’s as a safe house in March?
The Russian assassins were said to have arrived one day and then scarpered on the next flight back to Moscow.
Instead of truly doing an investigation, the authorities are trying to shoehorn Russian guilt in to the available information.
His brother was hardly the first to speak with Charlie, who had a tv on in his room and was watching the Salisbury news. Detectives had already interviewed him. No one at the hospital has ever stated he was in a coma, either medically induced or from the novichok. He was not put on a breathing apparatus on the stretcher, unlike Dawn. He is up and eating solid food as of yesterday.
@ truthwillout July 15, 2018 at 23:17
I also had a hunch he looked like an undercover cop or an informer, but that’s all it was, a hunch.
Maybe I’m too suspicious…
My concern about him started when I read that his girlfriend was seriously ill and rushed to hospital early morning, but he carried on life “as normal”, going to Boots in Amesbury and then going to a Hog roast in the town before feeling ill and showing signs of organophosphate poisoning.
@truthwillout
I know, that sounds totally unbelievable. I would have thought the first reaction would be to go to the hospital and stay with her?
Hobson said that Charlie went to Boots instead of following Dawn to hospital because his methadone prescription would expire otherwise. It looked like Hobson was justifying Charlie’s behaviour. Now I’m not familiar with how UK prescriptions work (knock wood, I’ve been living here for a long time), but wouldn’t they expire on a date rather than an hour? It was 11am, he’d have plenty of time to use it. It is possible though that Hobson was not comfortable saying that Charlie needed his opiate fix more that he was worried about Dawn.
Thinking of it now, isn’t it strange that the medics didn’t ring Charlie or Hobson to get them in for an urgent check as soon as they realised what they are dealing with? They must have had their numbers, they were present when she was taken away. This could have literally been a matter of life and death, quite obviously to the doctors. What if Charlie was alone when he fell ill? Still more questions than answers.
A good New Zealander sets off to join the latest Freedom Flotilla in an attempt to break the siege of Gaza.
Union leader Mike Treen to join Gaza-bound ‘freedom’ flotilla
July 11, 2018
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2018/07/11/union-leader-mike-treen-to-join-gaza-bound-freedom-flotilla/
In that piece there is a reference to a previous flotilla that was attacked. That was the Mavi Marmara flotilla. Craig wrote about it – an attack by Israeli military on ships lawfully sailing in international waters. Helicopters delivered armed military down onto the ships and ten people were killed including an American. Israel paid no price for that crime.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=mavi+marmara
Dr Swee Ang, a British orthopaedic surgeon, is also going. She is approaching her 70th birthday. She witnessed the slaughter in the Sabra Shatilla refugee camp in Beirut and ever since has done her very best to fight for the Palestinians. She founded Medical Aid for Palestinians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre The Israelis stood by and let it happen.
Nothing on earth would persuade me to spend an hour listening to Spittle Spatel.
I read a comment the other day about the Tories. A Foreign Secretary who hates foreigners, a Health Secretary who hates the NHS etc. Pritti Patel’s old job was international aid. She abused this difficult task by trying to divert taxpayers’ taxes to help injured Al Qaida terrorists being brain-washed by Israel in USUKIS colonial war against Islam. Oxfam shagging victims of natural disasters is positively angelic compared with this evil cow of this evil Tory administration wrecking the Muslim countries and peoples with terrorists.
Snuff said.
Yes yes I know there’s no such thing as taxpayers’ money, but the evil Tories say there is, and more has to be taken from us to fund the NHS, so we’ll use their evil guilt-speak against them when it suits us.
There are after all 6 whole pages of tripe written about novichok on this post alone, even though it was perfectly obvious it was a false-flag from the start. Someone has now died as if this really proves it is not a false-flag. Really really sick how far the criminal classes are prepared to go to convince the Sauds they hate Russia and Iran. Except of course, like soaps, there isn’t just one soap running at the same time. each soap has its own tripe narrative, and its own tripe characters. The Saudi soap can run at the same time as the Russia soap and the Iran soap. Whatever lifts your skirt up. All of it is fiction, not even fake news.
Thanks for these two gripping comments.
The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.
Is utter fiction and not borne out by any evidence given if as I assume a smartphone it had a data connection via a UK mobile, even encrypted traffic has to have a destination, the analysts would soon have fairly good evidence but we have seen none.
As for her email broken into, wasn’t she on VK? If so I assume she’d have something like a yandex or mail.ru account… the Russian intelligence services don’t need to break into these ffs, they likely have unfettered access, and the NSA and GCHQ have NO access to these servers… they are extremely secure and monitored obsessively. Disclaimer: I have done some consultancy work for Yandex on their mobile app.
Someone is telling porkies on the back of public naivety… that is why they love bringing tech into the story… bamboozles the public.
yandex or mail.ru “they are extremely secure and monitored obsessively”
There’s a bit of contradiction in that, that needs explaining.
monitored obsessively [for unauthorised access]
I would guess that they are extremely secure because of a robust encryption method, and monitored by the people who wrote the encryption method and either know the encryption key or the authors back door entry point (planted dodgy code – this is what the Apple v US lawsuit was about…. Apple refused to put in a back door.
Others having the encryption key is the epitome of insecure.
[beware: off-topic]
Was it someone here?
I don’t recall, but I want to thank the person who referred me to this article:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/11/the-wisdom-of-serpents/
ITV(4) showing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy… Now!
Not entirely off-topic, bj. Thanks for the link – a must-read on US politics and the fate of all of us.
Excellent article. Good for ripple who think that Clinton would have been better.
Your response is so far off the mark, you probably haven’t even read the article.
I have read the article. It does not mention Clinton in name but talks about the Democrats of which Clinton was nominee:
“The anti-Trump fervor is understandable, and justified, but the Democrats are not the opposition. They are better spoken version of the same Imperialist state. And domestically, these veteran CIA operatives and military intel veterans are hardly going to embrace progressive causes. They are hardly going to look to dismantle the racist militarized police apparatus or challenge the racist judicial system. They are not going to seek reforms for mass incarceration. Most of them have experience with black sites and torture, with the pacification of entire populations, and with all manner of counter insurgency tactics.”
So tell me why am I so far out, I stand to be corrected.
This story appeared in The Telegraph a few hours ago, but as far as I can tell it has now been severely edited, and the “safe house” theory has gone done the memory hole, at least for the time being.
______________________________________________________________________
Novichok poisoning: Did Skripal attackers use Charlie Rowley’s flat as a safe house?
The assassins who tried to kill Sergei Skripal earlier this year, may have used Charlie Rowley’s empty flat to prepare for the hit, experts now believe . . .
Initially it was thought Mr Rowley, 45, and Ms Sturgess, 44, had been contaminated when they picked up the container after finding it hidden under a bush in a park in the centre of Salisbury on the afternoon of Friday 30 June.
But experts now believe that is unlikely given the length of time it took the couple to fall ill, with Ms Sturgess not taken to hospital until the following morning and Mr Rowley admitted more than eight hours later
Instead, one key theory now being explored, is that the couple found the bottle in the apartment, after it was left there when Skripal’s would be assassins used it as a safe house while they prepared the attack.
Makes one wonder what sort of “preparation” such a hit might require so a flat would be necessary and worth the risks. No need to prepare the poison close to location. No need to watch him to learn his routes and habits if the doorknob theory is to be believed.
I thought Mr Rowley’s flat had only just been completed and that he was the first occupant.
Behold as President Trump makes peace with Russia and infuriates the entire liberal establishment. Once again the people calling Trump a fascist will be demanding war while he is seen to be making peace.
Funny old world, Anon1
No contest — but your liberal establishment is in fact the MIIC pulling the strings.
It is indeed bj, and Trump now has one of the arch neocons at his side – John Bolton.
Which park was that again? It certainly was not the same park as the Skripals are said by police to have visited in their ‘accurate timeline’ story. And yet it is the same park where the Skripals fed the ducks ably assisted by some young boys. This seems to be a really good comedy sketch if it wasn’t so tragic.
Yet another sideshow to blame Russia for anything so May can distract from her malicious undermining of Trump and foolish support for Hillary Clinton. It is so totally transparent that the May Government enabled the MI6 collusion with Christopher Steele and Sergey Skripal to author their dirt dossier on Trump. May and the UK government set out to smash Trump’s family, his nomination and then his election as president and the entire UK security apparatus ‘leadership’ was in on it. Morons all including Trump!
rumple stiltskin
Your title implies that you will be deceived by arch-Tory coven of which Mrs May calls herself a member. Hillary Clinton too. And then you will bore yourself into the earth’s crust in disgust.
However something tells me you have not spent the entire night spinning Boris hair into gold. Thank God there are some people in the world who can see how deeply sinister the Conservative party and Red Tories are. How come we can see what a witch Hi666ary is, but we lap up the MSM novichok about Mrs May.
Do people really not understand what a toxic brand the neo-conservative neo-liberals are?
Plenty do, fortunately.
Read Counterpunch (don’t miss anything by Jeffrey St.Clair, Nick Pemberton et al.), BAR (Black Agenda Report) and a host of others.
Time for a haiku.
Oh Pee
See you
you!
Anybody else feel like there’s too much talking about the blonde lady with the red bag and not enough talking about the blonde lady with the tiny dog?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5767001/cctv-video-ex-russian-spy-sergei-skripal-daughter-yulia-walking-mystery-woman-before-poisoned/
I know what you’re thinking, just because a woman looks exactly like Yulia Skripal doesn’t mean it’s really her. You have to consider the timeline too, which presents an impossible scenario since we know that Freya Church had already found them on the bench 5 minutes ago. We know this because Freya is on the fitness center camera leaving work at 4:03pm and it’s at most a 30 second walk to the bench from there.
So this restaurant happens to be right next door to the fitness center and what I’m wondering is where is the footage the fitness center camera? It would definitely help clear up any suspicions regarding the intentions of the blonde woman. After watching the dog walking video about 100 times the most I can say about the blonde lady is that her hair is interesting, it’s quite unique actually, and also she has a cool bag which sort of reminds me of a different kind of bag.
Now since Yulia has already been forensically ruled out by simple facts about how clocks work this witness statement also can’t help us identify the dark haired woman from the video, but then why would we want to, since it’s not Yulia.
Georgia Pridham, 25, had been for a hen do lunch and was walking back to her friend’s car when she saw the couple slumped on a bench.
“She was just slumped onto his shoulder. She had a Parka jacket on with her hood up. I thought maybe she was asleep or passed out. He had a jacket and some smart trousers on. He didn’t look like the type to get high.”
Billy novichok
” simple facts about how clocks work ”
Critical to all this bollocks is the lies contained in the Gospels about Jesus pbuh death and resurrection.
About 1400 years ago we were informed by the Qur’an that Jesus pbuh was not the son of God, was not crucified, and will not be in charge on the day of judgement to ” fix it ” for the British empire.
If they have managed to con us for 1400 years after the truth was revealed to help cure the malaise of those who could not comprehend the contradictory nature of “Holy roman Empire”, do you not think they will try to continue the con for a few more poxy millennia?
Queenie squats on an old chestnut of false scripture like Gollum yearning for ring power. Plus sha change
plus sh’est la meme corrupt ” holy roman empire “.
giyane wrote
”Critical to all this bollocks is the lies contained in the Gospels about Jesus pbuh death and resurrection.
About 1400 years ago we were informed by the Qur’an that Jesus pbuh was not the son of God, was not crucified, and will not be in charge on the day of judgement to ” fix it ” for the British empire.
However, turning to Quran we read
“And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.” Quran 5:47
Now what is the Gospel that Allah revealed therein,
15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.
1 Corinthians 15:1-5
Yahushua the Messiah, was without any doubt crucified, died, buried and rose from the dead and fulfiiled the words He had spoken earlier.
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:38-40
giyane, do you disbelieve what Allah has revealed ?
Yulia’s handbag was not initially secured:
The amateur photographer who took key pictures of Yulia’s abandoned red handbag in the immediate aftermath was identified in the Mar 8th Guardian as Thom Belk of Salisbury. The photos were taken two minutes after the air ambulance left by Belk, who had been at a nearby indoor football game when he heard sirens and the air ambulance.
At the time officers had no idea the pair had been attacked with a nerve agent and attended the scene in everyday uniforms, even removing parts of the cordon at one stage. At first police believed they were dealing with a routine drugs incident. Clearly unaware of the severity of the situation, the officers do not have specialist protective clothing and members of the public can also be seen strolling nearby
In one picture two people can be seen strolling through the precinct, metres from where the Russians were taken ill. In another picture a person also appears to be watching events unfold within metres of the scene. Later a major incident was declared and experts in hazmat suits examined the scene and removed material.
Belk, of Salisbury, said: “I went to see what was going on just as the air ambulance was taking off and the land ambulance was leaving. These pictures are the immediate aftermath of what had happened – I don’t think anyone there really had a clue what was going on. The police officer is very close to the area where [Skripal and his daughter] were taken ill.
“The officers had actually lifted part of the cordon and at one point there were two members of the public walking very near to the bench and the bag as well. They started off with quite a big cordon, but did begin to take some of it down.”
Was Yulia’s blurry handbag red or was it pink? Was it even a handbag? I sure can’t tell.
Billy
When Yulia arrived at the hospital – what was the colour of her hair?
She seems appears to be a natural auburn to red haired woman.
If the woman in the video is Yulia it would be a blonde haired woman who
was in the hospital bed.
It could be Dawn and Charlie in the video. The man is pretty skinny for it to be
Mr Skripal in my view.
Interesting stuff re: the ” perfume bottle ” and the theory that Yulia’s boyfriends mum
put something in Yulia’s favourite bottle of perfume.
Surely if it was her favourite perfume Yulia would have sprayed it on before leaving for
the airport ( whilst in Russia ) and after the flight use it again.
Makes no sense yet again.
Then again , nothing in this sorry saga makes sense anyway.
So what you’re all saying is you most definitely want to talk about the video with the red bag and you certainly don’t ever want to talk about the video with an older man, a younger woman with darker possibly auburn hair and a parka with a hood, a blonde woman, and also a dog.
Yes, when Yulia arrived at hospital she had similar color of hair as the woman in the video I encouraged everybody to watch. That is unless Yulia went to the hair salon in the four hour period in which her and her father decided to go off the grid and turned off their cell phones. We know the color of Yulia’s hair that day with near certainty because Russia released CCTV footage from 24 hours prior of her at the airport.
Since nobody will play along, I’ll just skip ahead. My conclusion about this other video is that it’s not really the Skripals, but my reason for saying so has nothing to do with the timeline. I’m not going to share my reason yet because I’m hoping that other people also have interesting observations to make.
I feel the CCTV pictures we have seen showing the older man and a blond haired women are best ignored. While the man does look quite a lot like Sergei, the quality is so poor it could be any number of similar looking people.
There will be hours of high quality CCTV footage available of the movements of the Skripals and others at the bench and other locations around Salisbury. Funny how we haven’t seen them.
If Novitsjok Nr.5 was self-administered by parfum spray to one lady could it perhaps have been self-administered to the other, their respective male companions being collateral damage?
We have a situation here, as they say.
In other news, corpus delicti is being detained by the authorities for “several months” and President Trump has been importuned to raise the matter with Vlad the Prince of Destruction at Helsinki. Good luck with that.
Why is DS Nick Bailey off-limits to the press? My reading of him is 110% Boy Scout. He is not about to rat on the Scoutmaster but neither will he tell a lie. He has sworn an oath like all police — and takes it seriously. Sure, he shuffled through Yulia’s handbag but saw that it was returned to its owner. He did not riffle through the pockets of a presumptive drug addict on the stretcher to extract his house keys, then search his home violating all forensic procedures in the alleged time frame. That is what Bailey will not lie about, the phony door handle contamination narrative. The solution: if no one asks, no one lies.
How much does the Russian Embassy really know? They know first off it was not them wot don it. The endless pleas for cooperation in the investigation that they know will be rejected — what could Russia possibly contribute to an investigation? For starters, a stiff interrogation of three prime suspects back in Russia: the fiancé, the angry mother-in-law, and the woman accompanying Yulia on the flight from Moscow. So the answer is right there in front of British noses but they’d rather flounder about,; with the perfume bottle, now facing global ridicule and humiliation. To the Russia’s great amusement.
Kompromat also has to be considered. Let the UK makes complete asses out themselves with wild allegations, then threaten to pull the plug by producing the perps, bring down the govt.
@Tom Smythe – “My reading of him is 110% Boy Scout. He is not about to rat on the Scoutmaster but neither will he tell a lie. He has sworn an oath like all police — and takes it seriously.”
I wish I had your faith in humanity, that everyone in authority always plays by the rules, no cheating, no lying, play a straight bat and all that, walk away from the crease when you are given out.
Sadly I am more cynical, maybe it has something to do with being born to a Northern Irish Catholic mother, being told what the RUC did to ordinary Catholic folks in Ulster.
Maybe it was the MP’s expenses scandal, when nearly all of them were found to be stealing/cheating, despite their salaries and alloowable extras which the vast majority can only dream about.
Maybe it was the rush to war, which Tonly Bliar orchestrated, and which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and the displacement of millions more. How about the use of depleted uranium mintions and white phosphorous, which are still killing and maiming thousands today.
How about Libya and Syria, the continuing “law of unintended consequences” – US/UK massive ballsups.
I don’t trust a word our government or media says any more, and our elected politicians do not represent us, they represent the highest bidder – the huge organisations who fill their coffers and pockets with £billions.
“I don’t trust a word our government or media says any more.”
You and a great many others of us. What alarms me is the equation: Government + Police + Media = Totalitarianism. As many people were visible in the streets at the time TB declared support for the American invasion of Iraq as you’d see for a royal wedding. Did it sway him? No. He’s just proceeded to enrich himself since, despite being a war criminal’s accomplice. With the police and the media doing exactly what they’re told, the democratic pantomime played out here every few years is no more a meaningful exercise than is the changing of the guard.
Tom
How did the policeman know where Mr Skripal lived or was if he didn’t search his pockets.
Is the possible answer that he knew who he or because someone told him.
A local described Mr Skripals house as ” a police house ”
If he knew then the police would know.
Maybe the police had a spare set of keys anyway?
My question re :the door handle is when was the poison put on the handle?
Before the policeman went round or after?
All only theory though.
“if no one asks, no one lies.”
That is the crux of it all. It doesn’t matter how questioning people become on social media. Unless the issues are fully and properly aired in the mainstream, the majority of those paying any attention to the story (a number which will atrophy over time) will accept what they are told, even if they find it hard to believe.
Was it a ‘blunt’ perfume bottle?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6780454/david-kelly-family-doubt-suicide/
To embellish their story, they decided to plant a bottle with all the ‘right ingredients’ in the public domain.
However, having given it a bit of thought, they realised it would be highly likely for an innocent child to pick up the bottle.
So they planted it in an area of the park where ‘expendable’ homeless people and drug addicts hang out.
Someone who works near the park said: “If a bottle was discarded around there, you can easily imagine someone picking it up thinking it was drug paraphernalia or even that it contained drugs.”