Two people were found poisoned with the same nerve agent used on the former Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned with in March
July 5 (UPI) — Two people were found poisoned with the same nerve agent used on the former Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned with in March, London Metropolitan Police said Wednesday.
The couple, believed to be Charlie Rowley, 45, and Dawn Sturgess, 44, were found unconscious at a house in Amesbury, Wiltshire, on Saturday, the BBC reported. That’s about 10 miles from where Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who later went to work for the British government, and his daughter Yulia, lived and were poisoned.
The Skripals survived their incident after weeks of hospitalization. Rowley and Sturgess are still being treated.
In both cases, the poison believed to have been used is a Novichok agent, a group of chemical weapon substances developed by the Soviet Union during the 1970s.
“Following the detailed analysis of these samples, we can confirm that the man and woman have been exposed to the nerve agent novichok, which has been identified as the same nerve agent that contaminated both Yulia and Sergei Skripal,” said Neil Basu, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer, The Guardian reported.
Both incidents are still under investigation, including whether they’re connected.
“I would add that the complex investigation into the attempted murders of Yulia and Sergei remains ongoing and detectives continue to sift through and assess all the available evidence and are following every possible lead to identify those responsible, for what remains a reckless and barbaric criminal act,” Basu said. “However, I must say that we are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to. The possibility that these two investigations might be linked is clearly a line of enquiry for us.”
