‘Overwhelming’ evidence that Russian state planned attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal that led to Sturgess’s death in 2018, says chair
Vladimir Putin is “morally responsible” for the death of a British woman killed after she sprayed herself with a nerve agent smuggled into the UK by Russian agents to assassinate a former spy, an inquiry has concluded.
Lord Hughes of Ombersley, the chair of the inquiry, said the assassination attempt on the former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018 must have been authorised by Putin.
He said he was sure the Russian men took the fake perfume bottle containing the nerve agent novichok that killed Dawn Sturgess to Wiltshire and left it in Salisbury after the attempted hit on Skripal, which he described as “an astonishingly reckless act”.
Hughes said the evidence that it was a Russian state attack was “overwhelming”. He called it a “public demonstration of Russian state power for both international and domestic impact”.
