Ex-Russian spy won't testify in UK nerve agent death: 'Overwhelming' risk
Sergei and Yulia Skripal, a former Russian double agent and his daughter who survived being poisoned with nerve agent in 2018, will not testify at an inquiry into the related death of a British woman to protect them from another attack, a U.K. judge ruled last week.
The Skripals would be at an "overwhelming risk" of a "physical attack" if they spoke at the upcoming investigation into Dawn Sturgess' death, wrote Anthony Hughes, Lord of Ombersley and lead judge in the inquiry.
"There is every reason to be satisfied that an attack similar to that which appears to have taken place in 2018 remains a real risk, either at the hands of persons with the same interest as the 2018 attackers, or via others interested in supporting the same supposed aim, if either Sergei or Yulia can be identified and their current whereabouts discovered," Omberly ruled Sept. 23.
Sturgess, 44, a mother of three, died three months after the Skripals were found unconscious on a park bench. Her partner had found and given her a discarded perfume bottle believed to have held the Russian nerve agent.
British authorities later charged two suspected Russian agents with conspiring to murder the Skripals.
Sturgess' family had requested the testimony of the Skripals, believed to be victims of Novichok, the same Soviet-made nerve agent that killed Sturgess in July 2018.
But the Skripals asked not to be called because of their "risk of physical danger."
Hughes concurred – if the two were seen or their voices were heard, they could be recognized and identified through social or other media, making the risk of attack "not properly controllable," he wrote.
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What happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal?
Sergei Skripal, 73, is a former colonel in Russia's Military Intelligence Service who was convicted in 2006 of acting as a double agent and sneaking the identities of other Russian agents to MI6, Britain's spy service.
Russian prosecutors said Skripal collected $100,000 from British intelligence over the course of a decade for handing over code names, addresses and other secret information about Russian spies working undercover across Europe.
In 2010, Russia freed him along with three other prisoners in exchange for 10 Russian sleeper agents held in the U.S. Yulia Skripal moved from Russia to London the same year but later moved back to Moscow.
The pair were found collapsed on a park bench in Salisbury, about 90 miles west of London, in March 2018. Russia's Kremlin denied any knowledge of the attack, but the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany said there was "no plausible alternative explanation" to Russia's orchestration of the attack.
The Skripals spent months in the hospital recovering.
The U.K. later charged in absentia two Russian nationals believed to be intelligence officers – Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – with conspiracy to murder and other charges in the Skripals' poisonings. The pair flew back to Russia the same month the Skripals were found and have yet to be arrested. A third suspected Russian agent was charged for his alleged involvement three years later, according to the Guardian.
The U.S. sanctioned Russia in response to the attack, and the U.K. expelled Russian diplomats.
What happened to Dawn Sturgess?
Investigators believe Sturgess and her partner, Charlie Rowley, were accidentally exposed to the same poison. The two were found unconscious in Amesbury, about 10 miles from where the Skripals were found.
British police traced the poison to a Nina Ricci perfume bottle, which they believe was left on Sergei Skripal's doorstep before Rowley picked it up and gave it to Sturgess, who sprayed it on herself.
Authorities said Sturgess was exposed to the poison at a level at least 10 times greater than the Skripals. She died about a week later. Rowley was discharged after weeks in the hospital.
An inquiry into Sturgess' death was opened in 2021 and will officially begin in Salisbury in October before moving to London, the BBC reported.
The court has received transcripts of police interviews with the two after they were discharged from the hospital after the poisonings, according to Hughes' ruling.