Russia has its GRU in addition to its KGB (now FSB and SVR). The UK has its Defence Intelligence in addition to its MI6 and GCHQ. Much less high profile, Defence Intelligence is more analytical than operative – as indeed is GRU, Skripal was an analyst.
Defence Intelligence had its proudest modern moment when it refused to endorse MI6’s pack of lies on Iraqi WMD, and earned the hatred of MI6 and of Blair and Straw as a result. This was confirmed by the Chilcot report which stated that MI6 even actually hid some of the intelligence material from the Defence Intelligence Service to prevent their rubbishing it.
I hope you will forgive me for pointing out that the opposition of the Defence Intelligence to the Blair Dirty Dossier was first revealed in my memoir Murder in Samarkand, a decade before the Chilcot report confirmed it. It was one of the many reasons Straw attempted to block publication, and one of the many things revealed in my memoir – including of course the UK’s complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition – which the government claimed to be untrue, but in due course has been proved to be 100% accurate. As it should be, as Murder in Samarkand only recounts things I personally witnessed first hand.
As this is the last day of Banned Books Week, I hope you might further forgive me (and I know I am pushing it) if I mention my prequel to Murder in Samarkand, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. I view it as a much better book, and I was bitterly disappointed when my publisher, who had bravely defied the government lawyers over Murder in Samarkand, backed down and pulled the publication of The Catholic Orangemen due to libel threats from mercenary commander Tim Spicer. It thus became a Banned Book. I privately printed and sold 1,000 copies, and as technology advanced more recently made it available on print on demand. (I know, Amazon…) But it remains a real regret it has reached so few people. You are welcome to download it entirely free here.
Anyway, after that lengthy advertorial let me get back to the DIS. DIS remain rather more attached to the truth than MI6, so when Defence Minister Gavin Williamson tweeted out a thrilled endorsement of Bellingcat’s work on Colonel Chepiga, DIS urgently advised that he delete it. Which he did.
Which is not to say DIS are sure it is not Chepiga; rather they believe – as would anyone with half a brain – that the Bellingcat photo falls a long way short of proof. The British security services have been unable to stand up the ID with facial recognition technology. The experts are describing the Boshirov/Chepiga identification as “possible”.
I have this information from an impeccable Whitehall source, who told me there is a concern in the security services that runs like this. They genuinely believe Boshirov and Petrov are GRU agents and the would-be assassins. (I judge that my source themself believes the security services really do think this). Bellingcat, while they are sometimes fed security service material, did not in fact get fed the Chepiga material by the CIA or MI6, whether or not through a cutout. The security services are worried the Chepiga ID may be a blind alley fed to Bellingcat’s sources by the FSB. If the UK government endorses it, this could be followed by the Russians producing Chepiga and apparently discrediting the entire British narrative.
Hence the fact no charge has been laid against Chepiga, and the charges are still in the name of “Boshirov”, plus the fact that no British minister or official has named Chepiga, with only the fool Williamson stepping out of line and being slapped down.
Please note I am not endorsing the views and beliefs of the British intelligence services; I am reporting them.
Russia is fascinating at the moment. Komsomolskaya Pravda reports Ministry of Interior identification experts unofficially endorsing the Chepiga/Boshirov identity. Now there is no way these experts in the Ministry of the Interior – who would not be hard for the authorities to single out – would have done that for Komsomolskaya Pravda without an official nod. Either the Russians are indeed egging on the British into a false identification, or some inter-agency rivalry is afoot in Russia. This follows on the very open report in Kommersant – which is very close to Putin – that opinion was divided in Chepiga’s home village.
None of which brings us an awful lot closer to the truth of what happened in Salisbury, which I suspect is a great deal more complicated than any official narrative. But it is a fascinating peek into a shadowy world most people never see inside, with which I was once familiar.
Craig
“Either the Russians are indeed egging on the British into a false identification, or some inter-agency rivalry is afoot in Russia.”
I wrote this earlier today. There are other indications that all is not well in the Kremlin.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/boshirov-is-probably-not-chepiga-but-he-is-also-not-boshirov/comment-page-8/#comment-789606
It’s entirely possible, but I don’t see much relation to this case.
Some rift appeared to become visible in Putin’s toned-down response to the downing of the IL-20 and that of the Secretary of Defense (and the subsequent delivery of S-300’s to Syria).
bj
“It’s entirely possible, but I don’t see much relation to this case”
If there is a rift in the Kremlin it would be relevant to this case. As has been commented on by many here, the Skripal story seems to follow the narrative in Syria and related to it. Putin was rather half hearted in his condemnation of Israel despite blatant aggression in an area sensitive to Russia and this was contrasted by a very clear message from Shoigu about the S-300.
http://johnhelmer.net/putin-corrects-mistakes-by-biting-his-tongue-on-telephone-with-assad-and-netanyahu/
Very pleased with HIVE to order books , great alternative to Amazon & i shall use it from now on . Just ordered Sukunder Burnes & it arrived in 2 days . I cant wait to start reading it . Thoroughly enjoyed Murder in Samarkand & The Catholic Orangemen of Togo . Both were page turners , informative & Craigs honest approach is inspiring . I loved them .
As regards the Skripal affair – total psyops . You cant critically analyse it as it dosnt make sense – nothing adds up. Every time new disinformation is released i tax my brain with it for a while & then curse myself for wasting my grey cells energy & i start to wonder what the state is covering up/ not telling us under cover of this smokescreen . Funny the Bellingcat story was timed with the Labour party conference speeches. Coincidence?
“Every time new disinformation is released i tax my brain with it for a while & then curse myself for wasting my grey cells energy”
Agree. Total baloney from beginning to end. Meanwhile, the clinical murder of Nikolai Glushkov on March 12 receives no coverage.
I find it farcical that Matt Rustic (not his real name) has used the not real names Richard Bagnall and Stephen Jones for the real spooks (who we all know real names) in his upcoming book Putin: My Part in his Downfall (not a real book).
I hope Craig has got a ticket for the launch when Duke Softing (not his real name) will be interviewing Matt Rustic at Firemuds bookshop (not its real name) in Piccalilli (not a real place).
Intriguing and ironically appropriate that Matt Rustic (not his real name) should chose the Mainly Fail (not its real name, but really no longer citable at Wikipedia) in which to plug his new book. What a step down from his usual employer, the far more up-market and entirely citable BleeBleeC(ia):
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6220481/Sergei-Skripal-tells-turned-MI6-sharing-secrets.html
Strange coincidence and what a scoop by man from the city. So one interview for a book about spies and spying yielded all this information and copious family photos with no bearing to spying. Was he primed or did he have a Cassandra like powers of seeing the future?
But interestingly also Skripal turned not against the Soviet Union but against the Western facilitated sell off and corruption of the Yeltsin years according to this report. Strange that he also could not see that helping MI 6 is acceptable but not the CIA. Have they not told him in the GRU how the two work closely?Ironically he may probably now be in the US according to an early rumour after his recovery that he and Yulia have been given new identities and gone there. Also interesting how his supposed murderous and thuggish past is so clearly stated. All in all a bit serendipitous.
Excellent post Craig. Thank you. The BBC apparently think they have a major scoop now, because they visited the village where Chepiga grew up, in the Russian far east. They spoke to a woman who “confirmed” that Chepiga and Boshirov are one and the same. Others in the village were not so sure or openly disputed the narrative. Of course the BBC does not mention the fact that Russian media such as Kommersant and Komsomolskaya Pravda have already reported on this. As you say, however, none of this proves that the whole “Novichok” episode happened as the UK Government says it happened.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45694123
Notice in that BBC article that ‘identifies’ is in quotes and that they say the woman asked to remain anonymous just like all those anonymous sources about Iraqs WMD before the invasion. It would be nice if someone could go to that Russian village and ask if the BBC had really been there.
So BBC has free run of the Rudsian Federation to visit where they please ? That is quite remarkable for what we are told is a latter-day Soviet Union repressive and totalitarian
I am still not clear if we are being told that Chepiga (is he the one with or without a beard in the CCTV footage?) is a current or retired GU officer. Anyone know?
Does it matter?
The whole Skripal affair was set up like this:
Mrs. May screamed “Look, over there!!!”.
Everybody looked Eastward.
Then somebody from The West came and picked your pockets.
I think the only thing that we can reasonably accept at this point is that Chepiga exists, he is/was a military man who received his training at the Far East military academy, and he was lavishly decorated for his service in Chechnya.
That Chepiga is “GU”, retired or otherwise, is a conjecture from Eliot Higgins that is completely lacking any independent verification.
That the passport photo being waved around is a photo of the real Chepiga requires us to accept Eliot Higgins claim that this photo was sourced from a passport application form that was hacked from a Russian database.
That this passport application form is not a fake rests entirely on your belief that Eliot Higgins can vouch for its authenticity.
That Chepiga = Boshirov requires you to accept all of the above, which in turns rests entirely upon your opinion of Eliot Higgins professional skills and personal integrity.
There are three possibilities that I can see:
a) Higgins is correct, and his extraordinary deductive skills has allowed him to make quite astounding leaps of logic to land at a discovery that has eluded everyone else.
b) Higgins is being played by someone who faked that passport application form, and Higgins is too vain and too stupid to understand that he has been manipulated into “finding” it.
c) Higgins is a scoundrel who is willingly doing the bidding of some other organization that wants to push misinformation out into the public arena.
I find it amazing, how in Britain they go about criminal investigations. I read somewhere that hundreds of police are investigating the (supposed) crime. And all they come up with after months and months of intensive investigations are a couple of cctv stills showing two russians walking around S., and after (supposedly) having smeared the most poisonous poison on a doorknob hang around window shopping until their train leaves?
And here comes Sherlock incorporated and after a few hacks and infos fro, “sources”provides international media with the real name of one of the (supposed) murderers and the defense secretary is not allowed to…..
Strange habits in Britain you have.
Land of Poirot and Sherlock Holmes as well as Alice in wonderland. The Skript sounds a mixture of all three with a bit of bad James Bond thrown in.
Hundreds of police are booking it on their time sheets no doubt and playing video games
No its not all they have come up with.
It’s all they have released.
Very different.
Thank you Yeah, Right that just about sums it up. For me Elliot Higgins, regardless of the category in your deservedly limited choice, is conspiring to pervert the course of justice. He pretends that no one was murdered perhaps only assaulted. But Dawn Sturgess was murdered according to the Prime Minister and by the same people that assaulted the Skripals. It was Russia wot did it not the UK military exercise that might have gone wrong.
Up jumps Higgins running with tales that are dubious at best and publishing them well before a coroner has made a finding, (indeed interfering with the course of that inquiry) and long before the UK police have completed and handed up their brief to prosecuters for action. By any measure Mr Higgins is meddling to the extent of perverting the course of justice. A very concerted exercise in establishing the source of his income and informants is needed to ensure he doesn’t create the same obfuscation and blame shifting as he achieved in the MH17 murders.
Is there an imposter here ?. The Icon is identical and the name almost identical and this theme is repeated often enough.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/boshirov-is-probably-not-chepiga-but-he-is-also-not-boshirov/comment-page-7/#comment-789306
I thought the issue who Bellingcat claimed was Chepiga was clear. It is Boschirov and Boschirov appeared in the RT video sporting a beard and confirmed his name as Boschirov. It is all here in the first page or so: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/boshirov-is-probably-not-chepiga-but-he-is-also-not-boshirov/
If it is not still clear, say why.
Bellingcat’s provided copy of Chepiga’s passport form lists GRU office as his work address.
“Bellingcat’s provided copy of Chepiga’s passport form lists GRU office as his work address.”
That is true. Now, did Bellingcat get that copy by hacking into the Russian database of passport applications? Or did Bellingcate get that copy from a third party who claimed to have copied it from the Russian database of passport applications?
That is an important distinction, because if it is the former then Eliot Higgins can vouch for the authenticity of that photo, but if it is the latter then Higgins is no more able to authenticate it than are you or I.
I think it is the latter i.e. I think that Higgins was supplied that photo by whoever runs that “The Insider – Russia” organization and was told “Trust us, it is authentic”.
I don’t believe that is simply a wild guess, because if you read Bellingcat’s rundown of its “deductive methods” you will see that it is exactly at that point that the narrative changes from “Bellingcat…” to “Bellingcat and The Insider…”.
I agree that it could easily be fake. I also strongly doubt that there is a central database of such scans. It makes little sense from IT engineering stanpoint: a huge, rapidly growing volume of image data with no apparent use. Common sense approach is for clerks to type it in and keep the paper locally. If it is real, the way of obtaining it should have been much more sophisticated than hacking a database.
Apparently the Russian Federation did merge all the regional passport databases into one central database in 2014. There was considerable discussion about that w.r.t. the passports of Boshirov and Petrov – apparently the merger uncovered massive inconsistency/flaws in the regional databases (as you would expect), with the result being that many extant passports were declared to be in need of replacement.
That was used to explain why the passports of both Boshirov and Petrov share near-sequential numbers: their existing passports needed replacing, and so they went together to the passport office to lodge their applications = those applications were processed at the same time.
But, regardless, I believe you are wrong: the Russian Federation does maintain a central database of passport application forms. Not that this necessarily is the database that was hacked – the now-redundant regional databases may still exist, and it might be that those are easily accessible to anyone with criminal intent.
But is this database on a network that is physically connected to the internet? The Russians cannot be entirely ignorant about the possibility of hacking. A lot may depend on whether the Russians viewed this information as being sensitive or was more the creation of some rusting bureaucratic agency.
“But is this database on a network that is physically connected to the internet?”
It doesn’t really matter. The Insider – Russia can always claim that they bribed a Russian official to copy that document, and that would be an entirely plausible claim.
“The Russians cannot be entirely ignorant about the possibility of hacking.”
Agreed, but then again neither could John Podosta, the National Democratic Party Committee, or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But all ended up on Wikileaks, so go figure….
“A lot may depend on whether the Russians viewed this information as being sensitive or was more the creation of some rusting bureaucratic agency.:
OK, I’ll say it again: the Russians merged a ramshackle hodge-podge of regional passport records into a single central database. So prior to that merger the retention of passport applications was within the remit of not just one rusting bureaucratic agency but of many.
I think it would not unsurprising to suggest that some were better at keeping their records secure than were others. And that some were downright hopeless at it.
DNC isn’t government and in the run up to an election you need to be on the internet to send out emails and probably with lots of new equipment. Easy target. Hillary Clinton is a worse example. She clearly knows nothing about computers – which is why the FBI concluded her failure to follow proper security protocols was just the act of an ignorance – not a crime. A better example would be Facebook. They spend money on security, but are still unable to prevent themselves being hacked. (although unlike many they know when they have been hacked).
Another example would be Inland Revenue. In order for the convenience of being able to communicate with its customers they have connected all their computers to the internet. Have they been hacked? (there are no safe computers on the internet, so the answer is probably in the affirmative). But the Government doesn’t consider basic information about taxpayers to have a national security implication, so it doesn’t really matter.
When Government cares then it takes someone like Edward Snowdon to get the information out. [GCHQ for example, like the NSA probably goes to extreme lengths to protect its information – as in not allowing people to walk in or our of buildings carrying electronic equipment]. Where passport applications fit between the extremes – I don’t know (either in the UK or in Russia).
Data breaches at Inland Revenue seem to be a daily occurrence (and these are just the small percentage they actually know about). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/14/government-breached-personal-data-security-9000-times-in-a-year-nao-watchdog-reveals
Passport office: https://www.theguardian.com/government-computing-network/2011/feb/22/ips-data-protection-breach
The USA seems to be even worse: This is a quote from their tax site: “Not every data breach results in identity theft”.
For the most part, hacking goes completely undetected (until it turns up on Wikileaks or wherever) – because the people who do it professionally don’t leave obvious evidence. (there is no way to tell something has been copied). It also takes a lot of effort to investigate any one suspected intrusion, and so the amount of resource that is put into postmortems is ultimately a budget decision.
Andrew, I don’t quite understand what you are arguing about.
Bellingcat clearly said that the photo was obtained from a Russian database of passport application forms.
If that database was Internet connected then it could be hacked.
If it isn’t then the data can be leaked by bribing an official.
Either way, that is not in Bellingcat’s skill-set as they rely upon open-source information.
Bellingcat has no track record – none – of either hacking or bribing of officials.
So regardless of whether it was a “hack” or a “leak” it seems obvious to me that the passport form was acquired by “The Insider – Russia” and then passed over to Eliot Higgins.
And if that is the case – and I’m certain of it – then Eliot Higgins is in no position to vouch for the authenticity of that photo, other than to say “They tell me it’s kosher, and they wouldn’t lie to me”.
None of you quibbles changes that in the slightest i.e. If Eliot Higgins stole that passport photo then it is probably genuine. If he was handed it by Someone Else who claims to have stolen it then there has to be considerable doubt that it is genuine.
Agreed. I’m not sure I have any specific point on this.
If one if them IS Chepiga and IS a serving officer in the GU, then EITHER Putin lied about him being a civilian, on the assumption his real identity would not be uncovered OR Putin told what he believed to be more or less the truth about him and was himself misinformed.
I can believe one of them IS a retired GU officer and may be called Chepiga but I remain unconvinced by the “matching” photos.I think that is all smokescreen and mirrors. And if he is Chepiga, and even if he is not, I still favour the theory that he works as a sort of courier/ muscle,/ errand boy for hire. That does not rule out him being linked to the Skripal affair but I lean towards the courier theory at present.
As for the matching photos I would emind everyone how quick the Met Police were to finger Jean Charles de Menezes as a bomber and how they stuck to the story long after it was revealed as untrue, because it fitted their narrative.
Are MaryPau! and Mary Paul the same person?
Are MaryPau! and Mary Paul related?
Duplicate posting problems.
no they are both me. I was required for some reason to sign in again around 10 days ago and hit the ! instead of the l. As it brought up my avatar and I quite liked being Pau!, I let it stand.
People, please.
There are extremely short and maybe minimal degrees of separation between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, Sergei Skripal, Luke Harding, Yulia Skripal.
I think that Yulia is the odd (wo)man out.
I think she might have been sent in order to provide him with a plausible excuse to return to Russia. And Pablo Miller caught them at it and played a little game with them, which he perhaps didn’t know would end with their … deaths?
Well, was it The Times or the Daily Telegraph that reported a death in Salisbury on Sunday 4th March, appeared in their early morning edition on Monday 5th March 2018. I guess that was the supposed narrative, a death? Times I think
Not to mention Joe Mifsud….. watch that space.
“Prince Michael of Kent” was in Moscow on 19 Sep, a few days after Britgov released the Boshirov and Petrov photos.
“Kent” was on Boris Berezovksy’s payroll (source) and he has many business interests in Russia. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was close to Nikolai Glushkov.
Different rules always apply in Britain where the royal family is concerned.
The Heil link doesn’t work. It takes me to the D Heil banner only.
Is the content of this similar to that in the Heil? Have they cribbed it from the Heil?
Prince Michael undertook SECRET mission to Russia at peak of tensions
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1024933/Prince-michael-russia-salisbury-novichok-royal-news
30th September 2018
I’m not sure why you’re only getting served the banner at the Heil link. Try this. The Heil article is from 2012 and talks about money paid to “Kent” by Berezovsky and how they were friends (Berezovsky was still alive then). According to Berezovsky, Kent asked him for “help” and so Berezovsky paid him what a friend of Kent called a “stipend”, payments coming in through offshore accounts.
Kent operates where elite British circles, elite Russian state and elite Russian (or “Russian”) exile or overseas-based circles all meet.
The Aeroflot v Glushkov (or after he was murdered, Glushkov’s estate) case was closed in April. Was someone in danger of being “embarrassed”?
Using “покамест” instead of “пока что” in his interview for RT… it shows more of an ignorant village clown, then of a trained intelligence officer. Though, regarding they didn’t manage to smear Novichok properly on Skripal’s doorknob, too…
Well, now those two suspects are not hiding, why not taking their fingerprints?
I don’t agree with this particular remark, but their language caught my attention too. Degree-educated people usually don’t speak like that. I think I even heard a regional accent. I should review the interview…
Igor, it would be interesting to hear any more thoughts you have on this if you do listen to the interview again. A relative of mine told me that a native Russian speaker mentioned in a radio interview that one (or both?) of them had a distinct identifiable regional accent so I feel sure that someone who knows about Russian regions/accents could determine whether Boshirov originated from the area where ‘Chepiga’ purportedly grew up – not that this would prove anything particular, but it would be interesting to know. The interviewee also said that their speech and grammar indicated a relatively low educational standard.
Many SAS guys speak with working class accents, although I don’t know how high up the ranks that goes – surely not as far as the colonels. Certainly in Britain speaking with a private-school accent is considered more effective in charming and cultivating targets. Surely not all Spetsnaz guys in the GRU speak with lah-di-dah accents? If Boshirov is or was in the GRU, he may well not be an intelligence officer.
A guy with a regional accent and a not-so-rich family background who gets into the GRU Spetsnaz through military prowess and then makes himself a bit of money “importing fitness substances” may well be said to have been more successful than a person with rich parents who paid bribes to get them through university.
How many “village clowns” quote Mikhail Bulgakov anyway?
Bulgakov is in the secondary school literature study plan, yet there are some popular movies after his works.
Those two make great difference to Yulia Skripal, I mean their appearance, their accent, the way they put themselves in front of cameras. Comparing to Yulia they are ignorant village clowns.
They would have seen “Heart of a Dog” on TV. It’s marvellous, by the way.
Here it is in one big file (in Russian):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOE_3_Ws4y0
Why can’t a highly trained SAS or GRU Spetsnaz man wear inexpensive clothes, speak with an accent that isn’t posh, come from a region, and not be used to appearing in front of cameras as if they are a middle class university graduate?
Few who believe these guys are GRU and who also know the meaning of the term “intelligence officer” think they are intelligence officers. Craig has mentioned the British DIS but the remit of the GRU is larger and as well as intelligence it covers some roles (as does the FSB’s Alfa group) that are played by the British SAS and SBS.
The GRU’s Spetsnaz units account for a larger number of personnel than the FSB’s Alfa group.
I thought they showed pretty good skill under questioning.
It is all rather absurd. A real case of “Down the Rabbit-Hole”. What does it really matter if a CCTV image matches a photograph in a Russian archive ? Everyone chases around the narrative but forgets the essential: whatever happened in Salisbury, the Skripals vanished !
They went to a chain Italian, had words, ate and went to a bench apparently and were never seen or heard from again………
Meanwhile we are told Russians traipsed around Salisbury and had themselves photographed at a petrol station and a shop window. We are then fed everything but their visa application forms which have been filed away with the Skripals.
The Russians having lax security open up their databases to a former women’s lingerie accounts clerk so he can construe the Who, Where, Why, What……….
The UK Defence Secretary who could well sell ladies’ lingerie announces Royal Marines to Norway – something they have done since 1970s.
It is all becoming rather Misleading Cases and slightly bizarre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAQgWiNPpBw
President Putin was in bad mood.
– Is there no GOOD news from Chechnya? – he shouted. (This happened in an earlier period in his presidency). But only an awkward silence followed, everybody being shocked by this (unusual) display of temperament. Afterwards his closest advisors decided to act urgently to improve the situation, and got a certain writer –known for his vivid imagination – to come up with some encouraging stories from the war. The writer concentrated on one hero, but let him perform several heroic deeds. He made him a good looking fellow, popular with the girls, but who had voluntered for the war for patriotic reasons: Lieutenant A. Chepiga was born. The advisers were satiesfied, but re-wrote the stories to make it look like an official report. After having read it, Putin beamed with pleasure.
– Tell me, is this hero awarded appropriately?
– Yes, he has got quite a few medals.
– But nothing big? I want to make him a Hero of the RF with the usual ceremonial claptrap. Bring him to the Kremlin asap!
This they were prepared for!
-Mr President, they said with a firm voice, – Major Chepiga is now doing extremely important service abroad, in the United….. He is pretending to be from the Ukraine. If he suddenly is absent from his high level service in their defence ministery, it will look strange.
-Very well! Tell him that he is awarded in absentia by me personally. And make him a colonel and put his name on some d… memorial!
Are you aware that you have just told the story of “Lieutenant Kije”, the non-existent hero of the Prokofiev musical suite? (Featured in Greg Lake’s Christmas hit “I believe in Father Christmas”)
Arrhgg ….you beat me to it.
The good and the bad, through the ages, Russia will always be Russia….
and England will always be England as Lockerbie proves
Damn it.Are we all reacting in the same way on this blog or are we from very similar backgrounds,leading us to respond similarly? BTW,Churchill’s comment about Russia ad a mystery wrapped in an Enigma now seems a reference to Polish logic dispelling the clouds of PanSlavic mysticism.
Superb! It’s amazing to know the workings of the English deep state.
??
I hope you will forgive me (lol) for pointing out that this was exactly the scenario I came up with on the Boris isn’t Boris thread. I wrote:
“Why would bellingcat come up with this ahead of any of the investigators in this case? I think it was leaked from a third party (Ukraine?) and the UK whom would normally approve of this before giving it to bellingcat were not previously informed. Bellingcat went public, msm ejaculated early, Joe Blow tweeted his thanks on the revelation, mi456789 whispered to him that it’s shit thus the retraction. Right now things are in let’s wait and see what happens mode.”
Don’t give me those raised eyebrows and deep sighs I wants a medal. What’s that? A free book u say. Good enough.
If Bellingcat ends up with egg on it’s face over this then great and hopefully the MSM will learn a lesson and actually be more critical in it’s reporting. Watching Higgins squirm would be good masturbation material.
I don’t think that’ll work for me, but thanks for the suggestion.
“Murder in Samarkand” is the second most exciting book I have ever read. “The Catholic Orangeman of Togo” is up there too, despite having an atrocious title. Craig drops some of his personal guts there too.
Meanwhile the US Political Parties are becoming even more disgusting if you read through deep into the links – many of which have been deleted, but some still available via The Wayback Machine – see zerohedge
Still Number 1 exciting book in my view is this. I hope she is O.K.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extreme-Prejudice-Terrifying-Story-Patriot/dp/1453642757/ref=sr_1_1/257-0523465-7927634?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1538329035&sr=1-1&keywords=extreme+prejudice+susan+lindauer
Tony
Tony, I eventually saw your question to me, and linked the photo you wanted:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/we-need-to-talk-about-indyref2/comment-page-2/#comment-788133
Sergei Skripal is missing.
I was thinking about issuing a writ of habeas corpus but there is a problem. Presumably I would have to serve the writ on the person who is is detaining him and I don’t know who that is.
Any thoughts?
IANAL, but I think you have to show ‘standing’.
Btw., if there are lawyers or attornies here — does anyone of you know to which line ‘standing’ extends?
For instance, does Yulia’s niece have ‘standing’ wrt. Yulia and/or Sergei?
I think Yulia would certainly have had, had (only) her father disappeared.
Porton Down is the place to look. It has some nice shrubbery where they took the footage of Yulia Skripal before she vanished. Unfortunately no animal has been known to escape from Watership Down or the establishment that experimented on the Plague Dogs.
I suggest contacting the proprietor(s) of the landfill(s) in which several “Novichok” vehicles were reportedly buried.
I presume the burials were conducted by UK military/intelligence personnel under the tightest security, so the proprietor may not know whether or not poor Sergei, or what’s left of him, was concealed in one of them.
The sad thing is that Sergei and Yulia could never go back to Russia even if tehy are alive. What our security services know about this affair makes it impossible. Even our own flaccid press cannot interview them. It is the worst cock-up of all our security services cock-ups. Anybody who has looked into the murder of Dr. David Kelly, the framing of Abdul Basset al-Megrahi must, surely know what our intelligence services are capable of doing, on top of hacking into our computers. None of us. I suspect, will ever hear from either of the Skripals again.
You will find Habeas Corpus might be a reason Viktoria Skripal wanted to visit UK
I see.
Thank you.
regarding games Russia is ranked number 1 in the world for chess while England is down in 12th place, Shut and go away Gavin Wiliamson removing his tweet is a patzer playing against a grandmaster.
Gavin “Woodpusher” Williamson.
Gavin lost his job at Grace Bros.
I thought he looked & acted more like the chap in “Some Mothers Do Have ’em”.
Of rather more importance is the raising of trade sabre rattling by the US against Russia and its trading partners. It isclear that the tone of Russian statements is reaching beyond irritation and toward cold anger and open verbal confrontation.
The fact that Austria is making very strong statements in the UN about the Middle East suggests Russia is mobilising dipomatic allies to raise awareness worldwide of the stakes involved. Bolivia and Iran are also active and even China and India have had some things to say.
Of course, the British Brainwashing Committee is not reporting this, nor are the private MSM mouthpieces. You have to read overseas outlets to learn of this.
That is how the UK populace is kept docile.
With this moronic Interior Secretary (ex-USN) Zinke proposing blockading Russian ports to stop Russian energy exports and Russia stating it is a declaration of war…….it is time to recognise the essential and inescapable – war is coming
The psychological warfare for WW3 has been underway for a few years now.
Unfortunately few have recognised it because a) a highly confused notion of “the cold war” looms large in their minds (the current period is nothing like the “cold war”, which idiots nowadays think ended around 1990 rather than in the early 1960s) and b) they don’t know much about PW, even if they can quote Chomsky on “propaganda”, follow what Carole Cadwalladr has written in the press about Cambridge Analytica, and use words like “viral”, and they may even have read some right wing “conspiracy nut” literature.
I recommend Paul Linebarger’s excellent book Psychological Warfare.
Those low yield tactical nukes finally need some testing.
Personally, I hope Iran has a few.
Something very interesting going on at Chepiga’s brand new Wikipedia page:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/boshirov-is-probably-not-chepiga-but-he-is-also-not-boshirov/comment-page-8/#comment-789615
That article was started by someone who also did two articles on Salisbury joints in June 2017.
His name is Philafrenzy.
Hmm…
“Philafrenzy” rather than “philofrenzy” suggests a philatelist. Never trust an international stamp-dealer, not even one with a shop window in Salisbury in which you can practise your anti-surveillance tradecraft.
That may just be the breakthrough we were all looking for.
How closely did you watch the “stamp shop” video?
“Philafrenzy” has posted images connected with philately to Wikipedia. That was a few days after the stamp shop video came out.
Some who post to Wikipedia consider they have some kind of duty to the existing power relations in society. Welcome to the internet.
“Welcome to the internet”
Thanks, but I am among the first 400 internet users in Holland. 🙂
bj: “Thanks, but I am among the first 400 internet users in Holland. ?”
Really? Have we got 400 of us here using the “Internets” now? 😉
@glen_nl
Holland was among the first countries with 100% internet coverage.
You seem to be a stranger.
N_, 11:55 – “Some who post to Wikipedia consider they have some kind of duty to the existing power relations in society”
Well that’s true of the general population, so it’s no surprise you find it at Wikipedia too.
Christ, BJ – are you so utterly humourless in real life?
And Chepiga’s picture has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Anatoliy_Chepiga.jpg
Another interesting editor of Wikipedia’s pages on the Skripal case is Martinevans123, who has clocked up more than 133,000 Wikipedia edits in total. He does not appear to be acting alone (like in the stereotype image of a Wikipedia contributor).
Two years ago, after he was blocked for allegedly ‘sockpuppeting’, he denied the accusation but he revealed something about the environment that he operates in. He admitted that it’s very likely that he shares an IP address with other people who also edit Wikipedia. He didn’t explain how this IP address sharing happened.
“Given the circumstances of where I do some of my editing, I would be surprised if there were no other accounts using IP addresses within the same range. In fact, I’d be very surprised if there were no other accounts using exactly the same IP address. So I’d like to apologise, on behalf of the blocking Admin, to those legitimate accounts which were blocked for no good reason, other than for the fact that their IP address overlapped with mine at the time.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Martinevans123
His fellow Wikipedians discussed the arguments for either blocking or unblocking him.
http://en.gowikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive930#p-search
I don’t know who Martinevans123 is, but could he be the same person as his namesake, the Telegraph’s crime reporter? “Martinevans123” on Wikipedia mostly edits pages about music, but some of his other contributions are related to crime and politics, such as the Skripal case.
Better link than the last one I gave: http://en.gowikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive930#Request_unblock_of_User:Martinevans123
Thanks for that Brendan. Anything more you can come up with would be appreciated.
**MODS** – You might like to search this site’s comments for (Russian) IP address 5.139.78.68
[ MOD: Nothing found. ]Someone in Taganrog, Russia, near the border with Ukraine, has been trying to edit the Chepiga Wikipedia page, and is being outright censored – the edit history is being removed, so it can’t be seen. I have never seen this before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/5.139.78.68
That user has edited three other pages. What is the links between these?
Andrey L. Kostin
– “one of the most active representatives of the Russian banking sector and is a frequent guest on CNBC, Fox News, CNN, BBC and Bloomberg TV-channel”
– Arnold, Martin; Buckley, Neil (30 May 2017). “Putin ally accuses US elite of ‘paralysing’ Trump”. Financial Times:
https://www.ft.com/content/d2b22a9a-4078-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58
Sergey Chemezov
– “CEO of Rostec Corporation (formerly the Director General of Rosoboronexport), chairman of the Union of Russian Mechanical Engineers, and a lieutenant-general”.
Dmitry Peskov
– “Russian diplomat, translator and turkologist. Since 2012, Peskov has been the Press Secretary for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin”.
State-owned Rostec has an “Industrial Director of Conventional Armament, Ammunition and Special Chemistry”. Rostec established Tecmash, the holding company for companies which develop and produce “special chemicals” for the military, among their other activities.
I don’t see where you got Taganrog.
I’m getting Rostov (region).
I got Taganrog by looking up IP geolocation on the IP address of the editor that was blocked.
Yes, sorry bj, you are right. In my haste I missed that Taganrog was merely the first entry in a list.
That’s where I get Rostov.
Anyway, they’re close together.
I often get lots of things from Chelyabinsk despite knowing noone there. It may simply be a VPN
From Chelyabinsk .
As long as it’s not descending upon you from outer space…
VPN.
Yes, we shouldn’t draw too far reachng, overexcited conclusions from geo-locating an IP.
I have no idea if the following is relevant, but it looks intriguing.
“Ymblanter” is the username of the Wikipedia Administrator editor who blocked the mystery editor. On 29 September, Ymblanter created a Wikipedia page about a Russian “work settlement” called Bazarny Syzgan. It had a population of less than 6000 in 2010:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazarny_Syzgan
This is a very odd thing for a Wikipedia administrator to do; the place seems insignificant, and Ymblanter added nothing noteworthy about the place to the article s/he created. Such an article would be liable for deletion as “not noteworthy”.
On the other hand…
Chepiga’s home village is given as “Beryozovka”, but Wikipedia lists over two hundred places with this name! The page lacks citations entirely.
Maybe we will hear more about Bazarny Syzgan in the coming days…
Let’s create a trail and then we can lure some BBC hacks there and hand out some dunces’ caps when they arrive.
Seems to be a rather innocent STEAM player: http://intech.pw/rankme/?category=showplayer&id=249
Considering the unsteady hand, this may actually be one of the ‘Salisbury murderers’.
Somehow got the wrong link there (character dropped off):
Should be http://intech.pw/rankme/?category=showplayer&id=2497
MOD: Thanks. Judging from the History of Chepiga’s Wikipedia page, that user also used 87.117.53.56 which geolocates to the same region, but I’m pretty sure you won’t find that IP either.
[ MOD: Again, no match. ]Clark this is very interesting because someone contacted me about the activity of “philafrenzy” a few weeks ago in relation to the Philip Cross affair. I didn’t really look into it because I was overloaded and it seemed complicated, but I don’t think it was Salisbury related.
“but I don’t think it was Salisbury related.”
You mean “the request at the time wasn’t Salisbury related”??
Oddly, amongst the trove of pictures submitted by Philafrenzy is one of an ex Guardian reporter – the man who helped them expose the initial surveillance extent by GCHQ – Duncan Campbell: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListFiles&offset=20180727111148&user=Philafrenzy
Must just be a co-incidence.
Around April 2014 the love of stamps suddenly faded.
Craig, credit to bj and N_ for flagging up Philafrenzy; I hadn’t noticed any odd editing from whoever that is. It was Administrator Ymblanter’s complete deletions and strange page creations that puzzled me.
I’m delighted that you linked to my copy of Catholic Orangemen. Still no libel threat or take-down notice, after all these years…
Can we have the book as an ePub please? PDF’s are so old hat (and a pain in the a*se). Might even give you some money for it.
ePub’s are a crime.
I hate Adobe, but PDF rules.
I hate ePubs too and always convert them to pdfs using Calibre, crop if necessary, and then print them out, usually double-sided and two pages to a side, and then comb bind them. Sorted. Did that with Samarkand earlier today.
Books rule. Printed sheets of paper bound together at the edge – that’s my favourite format.
Imagine when the electricity goes off and carriers of microwave trackers can’t charge their batteries. I can’t wait!
I often find PDF-Exchange Viewer better at handling pdfs than Adobe’s Acrobat or Reader,
PDFs rule OK!
Ah, N_. I’d long suspected you hadn’t discovered the joys of Free Software.
PDF is a publicly defined format, whereas the format of, say, M$ Word .doc files is M$’s trade secret.
Here, this is where I started; give it a try, on USB stick, without installing or changing your installed system:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
If you get bored with that one, there are flavours for all tastes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg
@Clark
I personally run Linux Mint Cinnamon these days.
That’s after years & years of running my own — compiling kernels, gcc’s, glibc’s, X11, etc. every so often.
That’s what real men do, but it started to cost me too much time.
Hence the above mentioned, which still allows for enough tweaking.
Open Source advocate since 1991.
Happy Hacking, bj
For those who don’t know, that’s Richard Stallman’s salutation, and “hacking” isn’t what you think; that’s cracking:
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
Yes, books rule.
I have 13000+ of them.
On an iPad I opened the book from the link and every second page was blacked out, but a box popped up inviting me to open it in iBooks which I did and it’s working perfectly.
Nothing like telling the NSA, voluntarily, exactly how long you’re looking at each page and where you’re doing it.
Trust Apple to ship a broken PDF reader, thus forcing you to use their favourite choice.
Apple. Bad for your freedom:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/apple
https://stallman.org/apple.html
https://nypost.com/2017/08/21/how-apple-and-google-are-censoring-the-mobile-web/
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has compared the EU to the USSR and accuses it of wanting to punish the monarchist British regime by breaking up its territory. He’s f***ing gaga!
“But if the only way to deal with the UK leaving is to try to force its break up, as someone much more distinguished than me once said, the answer is ‘No No No.’”
Is he referring to Ian Paisley?
“Punishing Britain for Brexit is dealing with the symptoms of the problem and not the cause, which is the failure of political elites across Europe – including people like me in Britain – to deal with people’s concerns about migration.”
So listen here, bankers and corporate bosses in Frankfurt. Charterhouse head boy Hunty is telling you to lay off the Brits and kick the Arabs out instead. This is almost Monty Python.
Hunt is supposed to be Foreign Secretary. Brexit is supposed to let Britain “take back control” of its borders. Doesn’t he know that if Britain wants to do without border posts, it’s up to Britain. And if the Republic of Ireland has treaty obligations with Germany, Poland, Lithuania, etc., which require it to put some border posts up on its side, that’s up to the Republic of Ireland. You don’t get to negotiate separately with Dublin, because the Republic of Ireland is in EU27, you moron. You want an open border? Then stay in the customs union and stop blaming immigrants. The government’s clearly stated aim is to leave the customs union, which necessarily makes Britain’s only land border an EEA external border.
N_
Gravy-trainer Jeremy Hunt knows a thing or two about borders. My G.P.’s pharmacy gets stuff cheaper from abroad. It is an age-old pastime of British government ministers to understand and profit from procurement. Aka Pepys. Chatham has given its name to the central planning office for wonky thinking in London.
These Tories are not even remotely interested in working for the UK. The only thing we have heard from these greed-bags for over two years is that it’s in the EU’s interests to give the UK free trade without free movement. yes it might be in my interests to save time and energy by doing all my Muslim prayers together but that’s not the rules, and nobody can pick and choose the rules. Not only do the Tories fail to understand why a civilised society should look after the sick and disable, they don’t understand why wogs should be allowed to move.
Nobody can stop Tory insanity. the best you can do is kick Nick Clegg everyday for shoe-horning the buggers back into power, and vote for Tom Watson, who is who’ll you’ll get after Corbyn.
I wonder too – if the UK doesn’t enforce its side of the border and the EU decrees that Ireland must, but the border post people are lax and just waive everyone through whether there is too much the EU can do about it. None of the Irish people want a border, and for sure there will be some profitable “smuggling”, but not on a scale that will really affect anything.
Margaret Thatcher 30 Oct 1990
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP1Xk2UcQpY
Talking of shadowy worlds I passed the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies yesterday. Oxford University is spook paradise so it’s not surprising in this Muslim-bashing age to have a white limestone white elephant for the study of infiltrating and indoctrinating Muslims. After you have bombed the shit out of a country like Libya, you need to be able to re-populate the collapsed government with “recognised, licenced and genuinely credible Muslims ” loyal to USUKIS and their enslaved porn-stars Saudi Arabia and Qatar. I remember both Benazir Bhutto and Aung San Suu Kyi having been groomed for colonial power near to here.
Oxford did have St Anthony’s funded by a French arms dealer Antonin Besse before it found Wafic Said as Saudi arms dealer to fund the Said Business School and St Anthony’s was reputed to be an MI6 off-site…….but CIA had its agents there too like William Clinton as Rhodes Scholar.
A nest indeed. They all end up there.
Now over seen by Milord Patten, ex the Tory partei, Hong Kong, the BBC and Jimmy Savile, the Pope’s visit to the UK, the EU Commission and ….a position on the board of Bridgepoint – a US private equity outfit (amongst his financial interests) and now as Chancellor of Oxford University. The main man!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Patten
https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-patten-of-barnes/1136 (Register of Interests)
Another occupant of a seat in Oxford is the ex DG of the National Trust, Dame Helen Ghosh who is now Master of Balliol College.. She left the civil service at HMRC Her salary at the NT was £185k. At Balliol, she gets a free house like Patten. Her predecessor at the NT was Fiona Reynolds who is Master at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Great.
See the names – Dilnot, Damazer. Rusbridger, Royall, Lord Macdonald and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Heads_of_Houses,_University_of_Oxford
Do you equate incorrect spelling with humour?
Are you only here to dig at Sharp Ears again? A bit predictable… It’s called trolling. Content-free; intended to discourage.
I posed a legitimate question, for which there was no response. Let’s not start on predicability of posts, shall we?
Check this album of Chepiga’s class in 2011:
http://www.dvocu.ru/photo/albom_vypusknikov_dvoku_2001_goda/69
Is the man in the orange shirt Chepiga?
No idea, but I do know that if he was a GU Colonel who goes around assassinating people then he wouldn’t pose for a photo, much less pose in five of them.
So whoever he is, he had nothing to do with the incident in Salisbury.
A GU Colonel wouldn’t run around in Salisbury.
He’s probably in a war zone right now, somewhere in Syria.
Check Chepiga’s body. He is very athletic. That’s how a man from GU must look like.
Do you have any photos of the SAS men who killed the 3 IRA men on Gibraltar in March 1988 during Operation Flavius ? You must have access to their passport files and school photos and unit photos and selfies, surely ?
What about the Syrian files on SAS men captured in Aleppo and Ghouta and those at Al-Tanf?
Scripal is an agent of MI6.
It didn’t take much time and money to find his location.
His daughter was probably followed.
Also, you can find his pictures on social networks.
Skripal was of no consequences just as Litvinenko was not. They had no value to their previous employers.
Skripal was probably in the phone book. ukphonebook.com
Sergey Skripal
Last verified: 4 Apr 2018
Salisbury, SP2 Show full address
Not listed
More details
also on 192.com
SAS are more like whippet Scotsmen who will have cut your throat before you’ve had time to underestimate them.
flatulence
SAS are those the ones who blew out the back of a Basra prison rather than endure the traditional Abu Graib -style hospitality of Iraqi jails?
They also end up secretly dead with no admission by the UK Govt. They are usually from the Parachute Regt.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c5e_1267952845
Perhaps cast your eyes over this site:
http://www.dosaaf28.ru/stati/patrioticheskaja-rabota/gerojam-otechestva-posvjaschaetsja.html
Higgins claims that page is the place where he first set eyes on the name “Chepiga Anatoly Vladimirovich”, and the translation of the text implies very heavily that this person was in the audience that day and spoke briefly to the author.
Look at the first photo, and at the crowd photos. There is a man in a blue suit/blue tie who looks to be an important guest.
Not saying that is Chepiga but, then again, if it isn’t then I’m not sure who else it could be based on the rough translation of the text.
I compared the photos of young Chepiga and of the man in the orange shirt.
He looks like Chepiga to me.
Further to this, I’ve read through that web page again and it is clear that the man in the blue suit/tie is the person referred to as “Golovanchuk V.A.”
But reading the article confirms to me that Chepiga is in that audience somewhere. Three Hero of the Russian Federation winners are identified in the article, but two received their awards posthumously. So if there is any photo on that page showing a man with a small gold-star medallion worn high on his chest then that is going to be Chepiga.
Can I know draw everyone’s attention to the first picture on that web site, and in particular to the burly, balding soldier immediately to “Golovanchuk V.A” right side? Is that a small gold medal sitting high on his chest?
Maybe that soldier is the elusive Chepiga?
I think you’re right. I came back here as I remembered the man with what looks like his wife and young son. I would like to see someone place his picture beside the guy in the orange shirt. Could someone try and get a date for both pictures as well? I’d useless at that stuff, especially on the tablet.
“Check this album of Chepiga’s class in 2011:
http://www.dvocu.ru/photo/albom_vypusknikov_dvoku_2001_goda/69
Is the man in the orange shirt Chepiga?”
Dunno, but someone posted a picture of him before. I think it was the “sitting down” one in the bottom right. Could have seen it here or somewhere else.
It’s been around for a couple of days. Either here or on the Chepiga Twitter thread.
Hmm, interesting. This would, of course, explain the “why doesn’t Russia produce the two of them side by side?” argument.
As in: they will, but not to make a fool of Eliot Higgins. That’s too easy, so they are waiting to make a fool of Teresa May.
Still, hearsay evidence.
I don’t doubt Craig Murray’s integrity but, then again, I don’t know where or how his source in Whitehall got their scuttlebutt.
seems the logical assumption given the reluctance of govt and police to give any credence to bellingcat’s revelation (despite a desperation to bolster the credibility of their putin dunnit narrative.)
We’ve seen this before. The govt and police are reasonably careful in their language.
The fake msm media slings all sorts of nonsense about the place.
The police are irrelevant to a degree.
This is Propaganda for the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex (MIIC).
What’s important is to have Bellingcat acked as a credible source.
It gets quoted in Wikipedia now.
Wikipedia == The Guardian.
Yeah, Right, you seem to have misread Craig’s integrity. He will be more interested in discovering and exposing what’s really going on than in discrediting Teresa May.
The discrediting herself she can do by herself fine.
I had a closer look at Bellingcat’s passport form pic and can share a few findings. This is a form “1P” (форма 1П) which is for a domestic passort, not a travel passport. Domestic passports look and work similarly to travel passports but are only used in country to establish citizen’s identity. The form must be filled by the applicant so we can assume this is Chepiga’s handwriting.
The odd thing is the stamp. It has “Войс…” letters which can only mean “military” (“войска” – troops) and looks like a stamp of the regiment (“войсковая часть XXX”). However, the military has no role to play in this process. Domestic passports are a completely civil thing, the serving military were not even allowed to have them traditionally. When they were allowed (by 2003 about half of the serving members had passports) they had to apply through civil channels. The only kind of stamp I could find on such forms online is the stamp of Ministry of internal affairs which accepts applications and issues the passports. BTW, getting unauthorised access to their databases wound’t be easy as they are basically police.
I like your rationale. I am still perplexed because not only do our friends need a passport for foreign travel but they need a visa for the UK and that is not easy to obtain. You have to show you have funds for return trip, and cannot fly at short notice. So clearly they either have open visas or applied long before they flew since they could not board a plane without a visa.
So their arrival was flagged long before they were photographed in Gatwick which means border security could easily have delayed anyone following them into the CCTV area. It means there was no way they could arrive surreptitiously. Anyone wanting to undertake wet work in England would use a passport not requiring a visa, probably a Cyprus or Malta or Irish one readily available for non-residents with cash – or even a stolen one.
The whole thing is a red-herring that needs constant dragging to keep interest alive. It will not doubt be scripted in the next slew of Hollywood-BBC-CIA funded movies
The visa angle has just got more interesting with a bunch of new info published in Russian papers today. People who know Petrov alledge that they may have travelled on business: semi-legal high-end nutrition for highly placed clientele. If they came by invitation from their supplier it becomes clear why UK police “doesn’t know” the type of their visas.
This is https://theduran.com/theresa-may-convinces-trump-to-not-release-fisa-docs-video/
This is an interesting analysis of the involvement of the British security services in the Trump/Skripal affair.
Precisely.
The Stansted Fifteen defendants are back in court today, so I’m heading to Chelmsford to join the rally to support them. Please publicise, and join us if you can:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/16/anti-deportation-activists-trial-facing-potential-life-sentences-stansted
https://www.opendemocracy.net/graeme-hayes-steven-cammiss-brian-doherty/deportation-and-direct-action-in-britain-terrorist-trial-o
They’re facing terrorist-related charges. The trial was adjourned back in June, and has become ‘old news’, depriving them of publicity.
That’s terrible Clark as we see the march of fascism in this country. These three anti-fracking protesters have been jailed.
Blackpool activists jailed for anti-fracking protest
Three protesters given prison sentences for blocking Cuadrilla lorry convoy
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/26/anti-fracking-activists-jailed-for-blackpool-cuadrilla-protest
The same judge who sentenced them gave a suspended sentence to someone convicted of having thousands of animal and child abuse images in his possession.
‘They were given their sentences by a judge who had handed down a suspended sentence to someone . Priorities? Or just making sure the bottom lines of his VIP paedophile gaffers in Westmonster are well looked after while setting a precedent of handing out lenient sentences for deviants? Coincidentally, Judge Robert Altham’s family business services offshore rigs. Would that make his sitting in judgement over these men a conflict of interest as an oil and gas investor?
https://feed-the-birds.com/news/anti-fracking-protesters-gaoled-judge-robert-altham/
Sharp Ears, bless you. Thanks, thanks, thanks. You have found exactly the piece of information I was looking for:
– “Coincidentally, Judge Robert Altham’s family business services offshore rigs”
Fifteen months for “causing a public nuisance”.
Fracking is undoubtedly being treated as a National Security issue, because we came within 24 hours of the lights going out during the cold snap last March; I already commented about it:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/spy-games/comment-page-3/#comment-790184
The anti-frackers’ support group was at today’s protest. I was explaining these issues to as many of them as I could. The real criminals are Centrica Storage, who, in breach of their contract with the government, performed zero maintenance upon the UK’s gas storage facility at Rough in the North Sea off the Yorkshire coast.
The government should sue Centrica Storage for the billion pounds it would take to repair the Rough storage facility. Instead the troughers let them get away with it, and bang up direct-action protestors trying to save our geology and groundwater.
Centric Storage is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centrica, who are a gas supplier. When there are gas shortages the gas supply spikes and Centrica make a fortune:
https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/comment-page-100/#comment-29158
Such a conflict of interest should never have been permitted in the first place.
The whole fiasco was entirely ignored by the MSM. The only coverage I know of was by our very own Squonk:
https://squonk.tk/blog/2015/03/15/the-general-discussion-thread/comment-page-94/#comment-28388
Williamson is speaking now. First ‘oop’ at the partei conference. He is distinctively unimpressive.
Sorry. That was a recording.
This is the crib sheet.
http://press.conservatives.com/post/178604958270/gavin-williamson-speech-to-conservative-party
Today – https://conservativepartyconference.com/agenda
AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR EVERYONE
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Secretary of State for Transport
Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Session to include contributions from Party members
14.00 – 16.30
Symphony Hall
OPPORTUNITY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly for Wales
Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Session to include contributions from Party Members
16.30 – 17.30
Symphony Hall
MEMBERS’ Q&A
For Party Members only
Q&A with Ministers of State
Theresa on Wednesday
Your masochism knows no bounds.
Nor your spitefulness towards me. What’s your prob?
Come come, Sharp Ears.
Spiteful we all are, incl. yourself, now & then.
No bj. There is history.
@Sharp Ears.
Ok.
like last conference it seems some letters have fallen off the title again, it should read >>
an economy that works for everyone ”that is rich”
opportunity for future generations ”has declined under tories”
Tory bribes week.
Here are several examples of anti-Russian rhetoric in Hunt’s speech yesterday. He is supremely confident and I am sure he sees himself as Theresa’s successor.
‘One of those simple British ideas was free trade, a stroke of genius that was written into life by Adam Smith in Glasgow and exported across the seas by the Royal Navy.
Another British idea was the fragile and beautiful insight that power should pass from leader to leader not by force, but peacefully through a franchise expressing the will of the people.
The long journey to parliamentary democracy that started with Magna Carta.
One of the best-preserved copies of Magna Carta is in the cathedral in Salisbury.
Somehow I don’t think that’s why Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, those two famous tourists, went there on 3 March. Which is a shame because if they had they could have taught their boss in the Kremlin a lesson or two about the dangers of absolute power.’
‘At the same time countries like Russia walk across the borders of Ukraine and Georgia as if they didn’t exist. Whilst their puppets in Syria use chemical weapons to poison defenceless children.’
‘Because Russia shares his anti-western world-view, he (Corbyn) couldn’t even bring himself to condemn them for the first ever chemical weapons attack on British soil in Salisbury this year.
The people who did this are not comrades. They’re killers.
And if you won’t stand up to bullies abroad, if you won’t even stand up to bullies inside the Labour party…then don’t ever claim you stand up for ordinary people and you’ll keep us safe because you won’t.
One person of course did stand up to Russian bullies.
Our Prime Minister Theresa May.
Thanks to her leadership, 153 Russian diplomats were expelled from 28 countries, inflicting massive damage on their spy networks – and we’re now going to close the net on the GRU.
Because under the Conservatives Britain has a simple message for the Kremlin.
If you try to intimidate this country, if you use chemical weapons, if you don’t play by the international rules, the price will always be too high.’
https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2018/09/never-mistake-british-politeness-for-british-weakness-hunts-conference-speech-full-text.html
Says Jeremy Hunt, who made a fortune doing business in China using a company called “Hotcourses” which signed big contracts with the British Council. Ah, state contracts for your private business and then a top government post – what a clean model. Then he “oversaw the Olympics”.
So the “Royal Navy” in the British empire was all about genius and spreading the beautiful idea of free trade. This kind of sh*t goes down well in much of the partei, and I think yes he is positioning himself for a leadership bid.
Royal Navy and British Empire, Slavery, colonialism, exploitation of local people etc. Tory smugness knows no bounds. I am hoping that these people get their just deserts. The Salzburg summit showed just how friendless they are in Europe. Dreading 29th March and its consequences, short and long term
I dont even get what UK trying to gain by now, is it just another way to attack Russia? Or what do they seek to accomplish with this ongoing circus.
Lets say it is the Russian gov. – ok,…. then so what comes next? Do UK want to attack Russia? Or what is the point of all this?
Ridiculous.
I dont even get what UK trying to gain by now
Donald Tusk ?
Vladimir Putin ?
Xi Jingpin ?
there are so many asking the question
Where do most of your taxes(a) go these days? To social programs? To health care? To education maybe?
Who are the ones that rule your country, that have the most influence on policies at home and abroad?
What is produced in great numbers, unfortunately only to be expended under some eventualities that can bear the OK of the group that provides (a) ?
What then, if more, or longer, or more perpetual such eventualities could be created?
Who has the power to do so?
Several ideas
a. Bogey man to distract from Brexit, Grenfell, windrush and other issues
b. Virtue signalling
c. Self righteousness
d. Ingratiating with anti Russian Americans
e. Lobbying by defence interests to increase share of the government expenditure cake
f, Lobbying by security / police interests to increase the share of the government expenditure cake
g. Paint Jeremy Corbin as a commie
I do not think that the UK is stupid enough to take military action against Russia, but you never know how stupid the politicians can get. The UK’s military adventures have been relatively low cost (about 770 dead, mostly professional military recruited from a marginalised portion of society), with effective defeats in Basra and Helmand, and this ma give politicians a belief that we are invulnerable. The Brits have not fought anyone capable of defending themselves or of actually striking Great Britain for a very long time. God Pray that these dumb politicians never try.
I*raeli intelligence officer on the sheer absurdity of official UK narrative on Skripals. Apologies if already posted.
https://en.news-front.info/2018/09/28/skripal-case-israeli-expert-on-the-work-of-the-special-agents/
Ruth Davidson declares that veto of a 2nd Scottish Indyref should be written into a future Conservative manifesto and under a Conservative, Westminster government there can be no revisit of independence ’till 2027.
A matter of hours earlier, Jeremy Hunt states in reference to the EU, “The lesson from history is clear: if you turn the club into a prison, the desire to get out won’t diminish it will grow.”
A primary task of a football agent is to edit a highlights video of their client to increase their potential value to clubs on the lookout. Westminster Tories have seen the carefully stage managed photo ops of Ruthie sitting on a buffalo, tank or whatever and bought into the notion that she is in some way sure footed. Without the knowledge that the Ruth, public bubble is never challenged by a supine Scottish MSM, they are liable to commit to the the equivalent of signing George Weah’s cousin.