LONDON (AP) – The lead lawyer in the public inquiry into the 2018 poisoning of a British woman with a Soviet-developed nerve agent said Monday that the vial she unwittingly opened could have killed thousands of people. He said there was a sufficient amount of poison in it.
Dawn Sturgess and her partner collapsed in the southwest English town of Amesbury after coming into contact with a discarded perfume bottle containing the nerve agent Novichok. She sprayed the contents of the bottle on her wrist and died a few days later. Her partner survived.
“The evidence is that this bottle (which we hear contains enough poison to kill thousands of people) was previously left somewhere in a public place and someone found it and brought it home. It would suggest that it must have created a risk,” lead attorney Andrew said. O’Connor said.
Their revelations came four months after former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter contracted Novichok in a raid in a city near Salisbury.
Britain has blamed Russian intelligence services, but the Kremlin denies any role. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Skripal, a British double agent during his espionage days, a “scumbag” who is of no interest to the Kremlin since he was traded in a spy swap in 2010.
The Skripals do not testify during the interrogation, fearing for their safety.
However, in his witness statement to the interrogation, Skripal said the attack was shocking because it was “not honorable” to kill people who were exchanged.
“I had been granted a presidential pardon and was a free man without any conviction under Russian law. I had no idea that the Russian regime would try to kill me in the UK,” O’Connor read. Skripal said in a statement. “When I was in prison, they could have easily killed me if they wanted to.”
He said he believed Putin “must have at least given permission for the attack.”
“President Putin believes that he makes all important decisions himself,” his statement said.
Lawyer Michael Mansfield, who represented Sturges’ family and partner, said the evidence suggested the danger to the Skripals was foreseeable. He said a central question in the investigation was whether he and British authorities knew he posed a threat to the community.
“If this attack could and should have been prevented by British authorities, Dawn’s family and partners have a right to know, and so does the general public. A chemical weapons attack on mainland Britain could have been prevented. Didn’t it happen?” he told the inquiry. “Would it have put countless citizens at risk and potentially caused hundreds or even thousands of deaths?”
Coroner Heather Hallett, who conducted the inquest into Sturges’ death in 2018, said a public inquiry was needed to fully investigate how the woman died. Unlike inquests, which are routinely held when the cause of death is unknown or when someone dies in a violent manner, public inquests are allowed to consider confidential information.
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This story has been corrected to show that Sturges died four months after the attack on the Skripals, not three.
