I am currently away for a few days and so haven’t been able to study the interview of Petrov and Boshirov in any great detail, though I have read the transcript and seen something of the reaction from a number of different quarters. I don’t really want to comment much on the credibility or otherwise of their claims, but rather on something far more important, which seems — not for the first time in this case — to have been largely forgotten (please do forgive any rough formatting on this piece — I’ve had to do it on an iPhone as I don’t have my laptop with me).

For some time now, I have been concerned that our generation has been busy burying some of the most cherished legal concepts that many of our forebears seemed to instinctively understand, and which were enshrined into English Common Law. Concepts such as innocent until proven guilty, and that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove its case against the accused, rather than on the accused to prove his or her defense against the accusations.

My biggest initial gripe in the Salisbury case was that the British Government completely discarded these concepts and simply presented unsubstantiated accusations as if they were fact. Not only did this prejudice the investigation from the outset, but it went a long way towards poisoning the wells of justice. So much for their much vaunted “British Values”.

More recently, the same has been done again. The Metropolitan Police, The Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Government (TMP/CPS/HMG) named two suspects in the case, stating that they had enough evidence to prosecute the men. They then presented at least some of that evidence, before — at least in the case of the Government and the media — then going on to treat the suspects as if it had been proven that they had brought something called “Novichok” into the country and had carried out an assassination attempt on 4th March at the home of Sergei Skripal at 47 Christie Miller Road, Salisbury.

But it has not been proven. Very far from it. Accusations are not convictions. Suspects are not culprits. And if we are going to pretend that the extraordinarily flimsy evidence against the two men — at least that presented in public — is enough to claim “case closed; culprits caught”, then we have basically torn up 1,000 years or so of legal history, and are pretty well lost as a nation.

All of which is a prelude to saying that whatever the two men said in their interview with Margarita Simonyan, the onus is absolutely not on them to make their case, nor to sound convincing, nor to defend themselves. No, the onus is absolutely on their accusers — TMP/CPS/HMG — to present the evidence they claim they have for their assertion that these men attempted to kill Sergei Skripal, Yulia Skripal and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey.

And so if Petrov and Boshirov had stated in their interview that they went to Salisbury to see St. John’s Church in Lower Bemerton, where the great 17th century poet, George Herbert was minister, the Salisbury branches of Waitrose and Marks and Spencer’s, and Dauwalders coin and stamp shop, yes it would have been jolly strange, but it would also have been neither here nor there as far as the claims against them are concerned. Whether we find their claims plausible, totally implausible, or somewhere in between, I repeat: they are not the ones who need to convince us why they came to Salisbury and what they did there; it is TMP/CPS/HMG who need to convince us why they came to Salisbury and what they did whilst they were there, since they are the ones accusing.

I am aware that some will say this is not a courtroom, and that the claims so far have been made in the media and are therefore not subject to the same thresholds of evidence. However, the problem is that TMP/CPS/HMG:
A) Has presented its evidence (or at least part of it) in public, and
B) Has sent no further evidence to the Russian Attorney General, calling for the extradition of the men.
Which means that the accused — Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — have presumably seen as much of the evidence against them as you and I have.
This is disturbing, and the reason given — that the Russian constitution does not allow for the extradition of suspects — is as pathetic as it is disingenuous. It is not TMP/CPS/HMG’s issue if the Russian Government refuses to extradite the suspects. The British side should simply present its evidence through the proper channels, but has instead chosen to do it through a press conference and the media, naming two men who under the law of the land are innocent until proven guilty. Having taken this course, they now have a duty to present the evidence they have against the men to the public.
As far as the interview itself goes, it was at least helpful in that it narrows things down to the following three possibilities:
1. The men are GU Intelligence Officers who came to Salisbury to assassinate Sergei Skripal by placing nerve agent on the handle of his front door. If this is the case, they were therefore lying through their teeth.

2. The men really did come to Salisbury on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th March as tourists. In which case not only are they telling the truth, but the claims against them are utterly false and contrived.

3. The men came to Salisbury, not as assassins, but to do something else which they cannot reveal, but they did so posing as tourists. In which case, there is an element of truth behind the tourist claims — they really did see the sights — but there is also an element of deception as they have not told the full story, even though it is not the one their accusers claim.

Much of the commentary in the British Press seems to assume that the onus is on Petrov and Boshirov to prove that 2 is true, and that 1 and 3 are false.

Not so. The onus is on TMP/CPS/HMG to
back up their claims with evidence, which basically means proving that number 1 is true, and that numbers 2 and 3 are false.
And so when a Downing Street spokesperson dismissed the men’s story, saying it was an insult to people’s intelligence, this is a mealy mouthed smokescreen, and an insult to our intelligence, designed to obscure the basic fact that it is for TMP/CPS/HMG to back up their accusations, not for the two men they have accused to back up their defence.
So although the question of what to make of Petrov’s and Boshirov’s claims is interesting, it is not the real one we should be asking. The real question is simply this: Have TMP/CPS/HMG presented credible evidence to back up their claims against the two? Let’s see.
The basic evidence they have advanced against them is as follows:
1. That they flew into London from Moscow on 2nd March, and flew back on 4th March.

2. That they visited Salisbury on 3rd and 4th March.

3. That they are GU Intelligence Officers.

4. That they visited the home of Sergei Skripal on 4th March, and there applied “Novichok” on the front door handle.

5. That traces of “Novichok” were found in the London hotel they were staying in.

Regarding points 1 and 2, both men have admitted that they are true. They did indeed fly into London from Moscow on 2nd March, and then back on 4th March. They did indeed visit Salisbury on 3rd and 4th March. So far then, the men agree with the assessment of TMP/CPS/HMG and the claims are therefore not incriminating.

Regarding point 3, although Theresa May claimed in her speech to the House of Commons that these men were GU officers (well, she said GRU), in his press conference of that same day, Neil Basu did not do the same. So far no evidence has been presented to back up Mrs May’s claim that the two men are intelligence officers; on the contrary, the fact that they turned out to have travelled under their real names, rather than using aliases, as alleged by the Metropolitan Police, if anything undermines the claim. As things stand, the assertion that they are GU officers is just that: an assertion backed up by nothing.
Regarding point 4, the Metropolitan Police showed a CCTV still of the two men walking near the Shell garage on Wilton Road at 11:48am on 4th March. Is this evidence that the two men went to Christie Miller Road to apply nerve agent to a door handle? No, it isn’t. It is evidence that they were on the Wilton Road at 11:48am and nothing more. Real evidence would be footage showing the two men at 47 Christie Miller Road just after noon on that day. If the Metropolitan Police want us to believe that the two men were there, they are going to have to do better than showing an image of them on a different street altogether. Perhaps even an image from the CCTV camera that Mr Skripal’s niece, Victoria, claims Mr Skripal had on his house.
And regarding point 5, if “Novichok” (or “Novichok or related agent” as Porton Down have referred to it) was found in the hotel room on 4th May:
Firstly, how on earth would the two men have left traces of it there and not in other places they visited?
Secondly, how did they themselves manage to avoid contamination?
Thirdly, why wasn’t the hotel immediately cordoned off when the discovery was made?
Fourthly, why were the guests who stayed in the hotel between the 4th March and 4th May not contacted and checked over?
Fifthly, why was the OPCW not informed?
And sixthly, why was the hotel owner not informed about nerve agent being found in his hotel until 6th September, when TV crews turned up outside his hotel?
In other words, unless a reasonable explanation for this clear negligence and failure to act responsibly can be given, we have every right to dismiss the claim that “Novichok” was found in the hotel room. I’m certainly not prepared to just accept the word of people who have acted in such a shoddy way as to not even inform the hotel owner of what was apparently found on his property, and nor should you.
To conclude, I don’t entirely know what to make of Petrov’s and Boshirov’s claims. The images of them in Salisbury City Centre, after the Metropolitan Police claim they had put “Novichok” on the door handle, do not remotely fit the bill of assassins having carried out their deed, but do possibly fit the bill of tourists looking around a city. On the other hand, their wandering up the Wilton Road certainly looks odd.
But as I say, they are under no obligation to prove their defence. The obligation is entirely on the shoulders of TMP/CPS/HMG to prove their case against the two men. And so far they have spectacularly failed to do so.

731 thoughts on “Petrov, Boshirov and the Burden of Proof”

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  3. “Perhaps even an image from the CCTV camera that Mr Skripal’s niece, Victoria, claims Mr Skripal had on his house.”
    I’m curious if Christopher Steele, Professor Halper or the elusive Mr. Mifsud might have shown up on that footage or any other footage of any Salisbury surveillance cameras.

  4. Liane

    Could you tell me whether you took a screen shot of the SJ report of the joint news conference on the 5th March where it was stated that the Counter Terrorism Network were aware that a Nerve Agent was known to be involved in he day before, ie it was known on the 4th a Nerve Agent was used on the 4th
    If it was just a copy and paste do you have source details?

  5. Why would an agent become dangerous for Russia ten years after treason? To find out what happened on that day, we must first of all find the answer to this question. The rest is just wilderness of mirror, smoke screen to deform reality. Facts, locations, times, all of this can be falsified. I do not want to enter in mined land of suspicions.Success Rob.
    Who is Skripal?.He betrayed his country for money. A picture of the FSB surveillance shows him how he puts money in a luxury bag, friends and prison colleagues reinforce this suspicion. Can a man driven by greed,to live a quiet life with a pension that he certainly finds unsatisfactory to be content with? I do not think so. And here the Russians come in, maybe the country forgives you if you help us, of course, for money , we are no longer communist.Perhaps other intelligence services have worked with him. Triple agent is nothing new in this world of mirrors.
    Everything that happened on that day seems to me to be a quick action to block an event that surprised British services. Something went very wrong.I have the feeling that Skripal did not survive an assassination attempt but rather was arrested, not to create a scandal within British services.Maybe was under surveillance,he was trained to detect surveillance and perhaps when he was at the toilet he felt something was terribly wrong.Maybe that’s why it was suddenly annoyed in the pizzeria. There, in pizzeria somebody did something terribly wrong and that was the moment when someone decided to act.It would be interesting to know the identity of the people who were in the pizzeria at that moment.Yulia know what happened and that’s the reason for her disappearance.I am more certain that Skripal would not have need to met couriers,encrypted transmission by bluetooth,wireless or dead drop if needed.The courier has to be nearby, maybe outside the pizzeria waiting transmission,anywhere within range of Skripal phone.Or Skripal signaled a dead drop and saw surveillance.I followed the interview of the two and they seemed tense. One thing I’m sure, if they were GRU agents, I should not have this feeling.
    If the Russians knew that Skripal was arrested, there would have been an exchange. Nothing strange, Vitaly Yurchenko sounds familiar?.It would mean that the Russians can debrief Skripal about the British intelligence service, and even more than that. Imagine the scandal within the British government.

  7. After following the blogmire on the Skripal conundrum from the beginning, I’m pretty much certain that in fact the government tactic is to throw out a jig-saw puzzle but with pieces from another puzzle that don’t belong in that same box. This way they can be assured that anyone who decides to try to make sense of it all will end up with multiple conclusions and ideas, none of which can possibly fit all of the ‘facts’ that the government puts out.

    It also seems clear that in the first day or two after the alleged poisonings there was some genuine reporting. Why is this clear? Because since the government took over the complete control of the narrative the original real facts, e.g. eye witnesses, have been dropped totally from the official story, probably under advice from the security services. This story was meant to be news for long enough to be able to form the idea that the Russians are the bad guys therefore they let assad use chemicals in Syria, therefore it’s ok to attack Syria (without a mandate from Parliament.) It was never meant to run on for longer…

    So how can the riddle be solved? Well, as with the jig-saw with the alien pieces the best idea is to try to identify and remove the ones that don’t belong there. We need to eliminate every ‘fact’ that has been thrown into the mix that doesn’t make sense. For example, we now know that the timestamp on the Gatwick arrivals gate is invalid. It has been tampered with. So, we must ignore all time stamps. But, most importantly, we must use only the pieces that are verifiably from the original jig-saw.

    We do know, however, that the two alleged assassins were in Salisbury on the days of the supposed attack. They said they were, so it’s a fact. Although we don’t know at what time. The time stamps are non-facts.

    We know that the police put out a very bad clip from cctv footage describing the unidentifiable couple as the Skripals, fact,when they clearly are not he Skripals,so a non fact. Although they probably didn’t imagine the questions that would arise shortly afterwards from blogs like this. Actually, they may not have even known at the time that it wasn’t the Skripals.

    We know that the Skripals were in Zizzi’s restaurant and the Mill pub, both facts. We know that any cctv of what happened in these two places has been supressed and that the timeline has probably been changed.

    We’ve known from the beginning that any nerve agent is almost instant acting, so it couldn’t have been applied to a door knob and then incapacitated someone hours later and far away (fact.) So, it either wasn’t a nerve agent or wasn’t applied to the door knob (logic based on fact.) Probably both. It seems doubtful also, as this was very early on in the news of the alleged attack and so has more chance of being true, that the Skripals ever touched the door knob as they weren’t at home and didn’t return there. (Not a fact, but very high probability.)

    We know that it wasn’t the highly deadly ‘Novichok’ as most of the supposed victims survived it. We also know that it can be made by any organic chemist with a secure laboratory. Both facts.

    We know that the modern equivalent of a ‘D’ notice was issued twice, in order to keep the public from knowing about a link with Pablo Miller and thereby Christopher Steele of Trump dossier fame. (Well that worked, didn’t it?) Facts.

    We know that an air ambulance helicopter was flying around, taking an unusual route that doesn’t make any sense. Fact.

    We know that Yulia Skripal is, or was, still alive after the supposed attack, yet has controlled and limited access to her family in Russia. Russia has protested their lack of access to her. This means that Russia doesn’t have her. Fact.

    We know that the UK has ignored several agreed international protocols to keep Russia from gleening any further fact that might conflict with the official narrative. Fact. But then we already know that the official story is full of holes and wouldn’t stand up to investigation if more fact were uncovered. (Rob must be running out of pictures to show holes, actual or metaphoric.)

    These are the facts. There may be lots of other conclusions that common sense lead us to think we know, such as Charlie didn’t find a bottle of perfume in a bin weeks after it was purportedly dumped there, but they wouldn’t be facts.

    So, based on these facts only, below are my conclusions. I appreciate that there is a bit of argument still going on between a couple of the main contributors to the blog about who was on the bench. But I would just say that if these two Russians ever stood trial in the UK then obviously the lawyers for the defence would call the eye witnesses who would, unless they’ve changed their minds for some reason, confirm that the cctv people, including a blonde lady and not a redhead, were on the bench. The sighting of the red bag would be one more piece of verifiable evidence. The lawyers would probably secure a not guilty verdict for the defendants based purely on these anolmalies.

    I think the whole matter is about creating a ruse to spirit Sergei and Yulia away before Sergei, fearful for his life because of his involvement with Steele and Miller, made a dash to return to Russia. Whether Yulia was involved in this or merely caught up in it, we can only guess. I think the two Russians, and possibly more, were there to assist in Sergei’s planned escape. But it all went wrong. MI5 (or possibly the CIA, but probably not because they couldn’t control all the cctv afterwards) discovered Sergei’s plans but came up with their own plan that they put into effect the same day. Two people, vaguely looking like Sergei and a bad copy of Yulia, walked through the centre of Salisbury and ended up on a bench on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The police told us that these were the Skripals. Witnesses confirmed it. They were either genuinely incapacitated by something, probably carfentanyl according to the symptoms, or feigned the attack.

    Sergei and Yulia were taken away, by helicopter or otherwise, to a secure place from which we have not heard from Sergei since. But then, that was the original idea. Yulia’s limited contact shows that she was concerned about her flat, so she evidently intended to return to Russia. She had a boyfriend there too. She has been caught up in something beyond her control.

    Everything else that makes up the official story comes from official ‘add ons’ to try to square the circle. To answer the logical questions without having to actually answer them. Dawn and Charlie, and her quickly cremated body; door knob contamination discovered weeks afterwards to pretend the attack didn’t happen near the bench – because the alleged assassins had probably already left Salisbury ; hotel contamination in London, also discovered weeks afterwards, just to prove it was the same people; DS Bailey becoming ill before disappearing, maybe forever – why?

    In the meantime many other realities of the case have simply been suppressed, possibly under ‘D’ notice. The duck feeding boys; the supposed search for the cctv couple; any sightings of the Skripals on the day in question; the Russian film crew that found nothing relating to the Skripals, or even any unusual security, in Salisbury hospital, all go unreported.

    If anyone can add to this, or change it, using facts only and not conjecture, then I would be happy to hear their ideas.

    By the way, is anyone else having difficulties open theblogmire home page? I am. I have to go to my history to open one of the sub pages.

    1. That is a really interesting and well constructed piece. The only query I would have is where you say:

      “We know that Yulia Skripal is, or was, still alive after the supposed attack, yet has controlled and limited access to her family in Russia.” – we actually don’t know how much contact Yulia really has; we only know what they tell us (which is what they want us to know). It is possible that Yulia has had much more regular contact than we are aware of.

      Regarding your problem accessing the blog – have you tried clearing the cache from your web browser?

      1. Yes, Paul, agreed. But I took it that Yulia’s contact is limited from the contact that her cousin in Russia claims to have had with her. So, it may not be a fact that her communications are limited, but at least it seems to be ‘highly likely.’

        Tried clearing the cache. Still have the problem.

      2. Agreed. But I take it from the contact that her cousin has had with her, that appears to be extremely limited and controlled.

        Tried the cache cleaning. Thanks.

    2. Hello Bede,
      a well elaborated analysis.

      You see as a fact that the Skripals were in Zizzis and Mill Pub.
      But you do not see it as a fact that they were the couple on the bench.

      That would imply that the Skripals never arrived in the SDH.
      And that’s where I have big problems. I just do not want to believe that all the witnesses, first responders and medical staff are lying or keep silent.

      Like you, I believe that Sergei wanted to return to Russia.
      Like you, I believe that Sergei has something to do with the Steele dossier.
      Like you, I believe it´s a MI6 false flag.

      But why should it belong to the MI6 plan to exchange the couples ?
      Why not attack the Skripals directly (with a contaminated item probably) ?
      That would be far less risky and would have far less connoisseurs.

      In addition, MI6 has control over all parties involved in the investigation, but not necessarily over the medical staff.
      MI6 dictates the rules of the game.
      A game that Yulia and Sergei have to play, too.
      It´s easy for the UK security services to make them aware that they are traitors to the state and criminally endanger national security interests.

      1. Liane

        ” You see as a fact that the Skripals were in Zizzis and Mill Pub.
        But you do not see it as a fact that they were the couple on the bench.

        That would imply that the Skripals never arrived in the SDH.
        And that’s where I have big problems. I just do not want to believe that all the witnesses, first responders and medical staff are lying or keep silent.”

        Good points but, until we see some ” really clear ” videos of the Skripals how can anyone be sure that the descriptions from witnesses as to what they were wearing and Yulia’s hair colour are correct?

        We don’t know as the only videos/pictures of what is supposed to be the Skripals in The Mall are grainy and not useful at all.

        I have to say that the Met’s withholding of the ” really clear ” video of the duck feeding is suspicious.

        Therefore in my opinion we know very little.

        1. Ken, You are not to see those videos. The only evidence we will get we already have – all the information was available in the first few days.

          If the official story is ture, why did the Met fake the Gatwick timestamps? If the Met are lying (and I believe they are) then they don’t get the benefit of the doubt – we get that!

    3. With you on much of your comment, but seems to me that you veer off with “I think the whole matter is about creating a ruse to spirit Sergei and Yulia away before Sergei, fearful for his life because of his involvement with Steele and Miller, made a dash to return to Russia.”

      I think the “ruse to spirit Sergei away …” is one of several fictions by those trying to make sense of limited facts and a whole lot of artificial constructions put out by HMG and HMG associates and Sergei himself.

    4. Bede,

      Good post.
      After 5pm Sunday March 4th we know nothing.
      However, we do know the duck feed with the boys. We also know the police official version that Bailey and by inference the Skripals were dosed via the door handle.
      We do not know if a Novichok was deployed.
      Charlie finding a container of any type seems illogical so many weeks post “park bench” but TPTB seem content to run with one bottle for now.
      What do we have?
      Two Russian citizens withheld by a foreign power.
      Two GRU agents who seemed to be in every possible CCTV camera except the ones that matter.
      Salisbury, a military town where “stuff” happens and no one wonders.
      An incident where £350k worth of police vehicles are buried in landfill despite neither Skripal ever being in one.
      Eye witnesses like Mrs Cooper, Aiden’s two friends parents, Freya, Mill Pub manager, Zizzi’s staff etc. etc. Having never had basic follow up interviews.
      All this before science and chemistry are considered.
      It is worse than unbelievable.
      It is the way the UK now is.

  8. Have we compiled a list of all the people who have died from unknown substances, been poisoned by unknown substances and have been taken ill in unusual ways in the Salisbury area over the last 6 months?

    A) The Skripals, obviously, plus DSB.

    B) A woman who was evacuated from some unidentified offices on Castle St soon after the Skripal events.

    C) Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess.

    D) I believe someone else died at the same hostel Dawn lived at, possibly declared drugs?

    E) A homeless man/beggar taken ill on the street not far from Zizzis a few days after Dawn and Charlie were taken into hospital.

    F) The current Russian couple at Prezzo.

    Anyone I’ve missed? I seem to remember there were mysterious deaths/drug overdoses mentioned that happened before March 4th?

    The common factors so far seems to be either Russians, or homeless/drug taker types.

    1. Easier to accuse Russia than admit Police lost control of
      drugs on streets due to HMG cutbacks on policing.

  9. One more thing I don’t begin to understand…

    Sometime around 2pm, S&Y entered Zizzi. They ordered a set lunch and had a couple of glasses of wine. Sergei became agitated (shouting, banging table etc.) and they left approximately 45 minutes later without even bothering with the dessert.

    Then what do they do? They go for a drink…. but they could have had another drink in Zizzi and enjoyed their lunch in a leisurely fashion; they could even have had the dessert and a coffee. Why not just stay in Zizzi?

    Or, if Sergei had a 3pm appointment in The Mill, that he couldn’t miss, why not scrap Zizzi altogether and go straight to The Mill for something to eat? By the time they headed for Zizzi it was already around 2pm so time was always going to be short.

    To those who might say: “Ah, but it was Yulia’s first day there so he wanted a nice lunch”, I would say: “Well he ruined it then with his behaviour; 45 minutes was never going to be a ‘nice lunch’ and with what he clearly knew was planned for the rest of the day, lunch cannot have been foremost on his mind – or Yulia’s.”

    So a very simple question for everybody: why did S&Y got to Zizzi AT ALL?

    I have thought about this and I can only think of one reason. I will tell you what it is but I am not looking to start an argument! So please don’t tell me why my idea is wrong (or that Yulia didn’t have blonde hair!) – just give us all an alternative idea instead.

    My idea is that Sergei knew about the patsies. He knew they were going to head down Market Walk and smile at the CCTV, so he and Yulia had to be ‘placed’ at the right end of Market Walk, for that to make sense – Zizzis.

    1. Yulia Skripal insisted on the Pizza place as it is very public.
      She told her father there about her intended marriage.

      When you know someone will get angry about what you are going to say you do this. People are restricted in their reactions in public spaces.

    2. I don’t think he knew he was going to end up in hospital half dead, he probably wouldn’t have gone out if he did.

      Now the government has a huge problem on their hands because they obviously don’t know what to do with them, they were meant to die. It’s all part of a plan to cause an international scandal to embarrass Russia, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Stop Nord Stream 2 so May can buy the more expensive gas from the US.

      They’re despots.

    3. Novihox scam designed-setup for one victim Mr Skripal.
      Yulia’s arrival on Saturday not in The Plan and threw the
      hole thing into chaos.
      Instead of just one double another now needed finding asap!
      Not knowing much Intel on Yulia they had her double with
      blond hair as per old photographs.

      Mr Skripal agitated due to sudden rush-change to original plan
      and instruction to move to Mill Pub.

      Just an Idea-Speculation..Not Fact!

    4. I think he received a phone call or text which led to his agitation and cut short lunch. Presumably told to get to The Mill asap.

    2. Also that he was found in the toilets – there always seem to be toilets involved in these cases – Dawn Sturgess ‘had a bath’, Sergei Skripal was seen acting oddly in the Mill toilets, the toilets in QE gardens have been a point of interest in the Salisbury investigations. The WHO carfentanyl conference report I linked to above identifies nausea and dizziness as the most common first effects of carfentanyl poisoning – most people will tend to head to the bathroom in such circumstances.

    3. I don’t get it.
      This is from the Wiltshire Police own statement

      “Tests have confirmed that the two patients who fell ill in Prezzo restaurant in Salisbury on Sunday evening were not exposed to any kind of nerve agent.

      Following test results, at this stage, this is not being treated as suspicious.

      The pair, a 42-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman, were taken to Salisbury District Hospital after emergency services were called to the High Street restaurant at 6.45pm on Sunday (16 September 2018).”

      Does this mean that strychnine poisoning is routine is Salisbury restaurants?
      No wonder tourist foot fall is low.

  11. Any update on Charlie Rowley and his Meningitis.Gone quiet again
    after demanding Justice. Could it be a relapse?

    Wonder what meaning of Them was quoted by his Brother..
    Why Did You Get Involved With Them?

    Who is was Them-They?

      1. No wrt employment. Vague suggestions that he was on the dole.

        Nothing about when he moved into his council flat or where he lived before that after he got out of jail. Can’t help wondering if he was possibly a police snitch. Similarly undefined as to his relationship with Sturgess. Such as, did they recognize themselves as a couple and for how long? Or was it a sometimes thing or had that night and morning been a new thing or anything at all.

        1. The press has dropped Rowley as being of interest, only to mention him in relation to the latest Russian suspects story. His friend, Sam Hobson, who was so eager to talk to the press about his constant presence with Rowley and Sturgess that weekend, was very vague about their activities. Hobson is also no longer of interest to reporters.

          Although there were some stories about Sturgess, none of them detailed her recent history or that of Rowley and Hobson.

          Another blog has some good analysis of Rowley: http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2018/07/charlie-rowley-sweats-it-out-in-novichok-and-old-rope-sponsored-by-lucozade/.

          1. Very good that..

            Police radio in plastic bag still bugging me?

            Mr Rowley did have a good suntan considering he
            had been in Hospital in a comma?
            I was also very surprised how quick he was out buying
            alcohol and smoking on his release.
            Cctv of him in shop buying alcohol I couldn’t get over the
            roll of cash he pulled from left pocket..£s!!

          2. DavidC, thanks. Doesn’t supply any answers but multiplies the number of questions and oddities that should be addressed.

        2. … did they recognize themselves as a couple …
          ————————————-
          Rowley apparently considered Sturgess his girlfriend. See below: Denise September 16, 2018 at 6:32 am

          1. Rowley referred to Sturgess — found near death in his flat and appeared to have been in his flat overnight — as “my girlfriend.” The extent of their relationship, if any, is undefined by Rowley and anybody else.

  12. Who came up with the ‘door knob’ theory?

    The following was posted on a ‘sleuth forum’ on 9 March:

    “Wild thought, but wondering if the doorknob at the house might have been contaminated somehow?
    It would presumably be one of the last things touched when exiting the house and likely the first thing the policeman would have touched when he went there to investigate.
    imo, speculation.”
    https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/uk-sergei-66-yulia-skripal-33-poisoned-salisbury-4-march-2018.367437/#post-13980582

  13. Boris has challenged the two guys to sue him for calling them murderers. If I were Putin, I would encourage them to do so and pay their legal fees. Boris would have to substantiate his accusation with evidence acceptable in a court of law.

  15. Where is that Red Handbag now. Presume it is-has been
    checked-being checked for forensics.
    Or was it shoved up chimney quick at Porton Down?

    1. I don’t see any “climb down” there. Everything is already proved; anything contrary can only be obfuscation and lies.

      1. @anidea – thanks for the link. I added a comment there, trying to point out the inconsistencies of The Official Narrative. I’m amazed at the anti-Russia slant and childish name-calling nature of the comments.

  17. Rat Venom Induced Orgy At £55-A-Night Farmhouse…Shocking!

    A&R Wished Friends Had Informed Them Of This Location In Salisbury.
    Sounds Better Than Hotel In London..Much Fun To Be Had Yes………..

    Didn’t know rats had Deadly Venom Type-Stuff…Something new everyday?

  18. The Mystery Man in the cctv images looks remarkably like Pablo Miller
    going off picture of him in Army Uniform with tank.

    Could also be Charlie Rowley-Dawn Sturgess? I just saying and no proof
    of this. The images they released are not the genuine images. They have
    been taken on a mobile device off a screen.

    Why not release original footage nice and clear like footage they released
    of A&R?

    Lets have a Tv Interview with Pablo Miller-Christopher Steele. Strange how
    they vanished and no real questions asked?

    2. I’ve always thought that Pablo Miller plays a more direct role, because the media was forbidden to mention him relatively quickly.

  19. This is getting silly now and World is laughing. How much
    longer are they going to play this out?
    Id expect a story like this from Sport-Sunday Sport news paper[comic]
    but even they couldn’t make this up.

    From Novihoax-1 Novihoax-2 and now possibly Novihoax-3 We have
    an approximate three[3]month interval between incidents.

    Is this latest story due to fact cctv evidence-hotel story has got so many holes
    in it that its sank?
    Cant pin this on A&R……Will they?

  20. Mar 28, 2018 20:19 (The Met site)

    Around 250 counter terrorism detectives continue to work around the clock on the investigation, supported by a full range of experts and partners. Officers continue to trawl through more than 5,000 hours of CCTV and examine over 1,350 exhibits that have been seized. Around 500 witnesses have been identified and hundreds of statements taken.

    So there’s 5,000 hours of CCTV footage that would clearly show both Yulia and Sergei on the day of Sunday 4th March but all we’ve seen is a couple of seconds of indistinguishable footage of a male and female walking through market walk at 15.47. The only thing that links them is the red bag. From my point of view, there can’t be many females walking around Salisbury with one of those things, at the same time and in the vicinity of the Skripals. We’ve not been given a clear description of what they were wearing, what they were carrying, hair colour, nothing, although the police appealed for witnesses. This is the ONLY footage, and we can’t see if it is them, or if it isn’t them. So why has basic police procedure NOT been followed for this case. What are the corridors of power trying to hide? The only reason is that there are people, apart from the Skripals, that they don’t want identified, must be ASSETS working for MI6/CIA. If that’s the case, we, the public wouldn’t know who they are anyway. So who might recognise the ASSETS, must be the Russians. It’s the only plausible explanation.

    Sergei has already said he was being followed. Ross Cassidy has assumed it’s the Russians, but Sergei is worth more alive than dead to them. It’s the reverse for the US/UK, he’s worth more dead than alive.

    Sergei bought a new mobile phone, so clean IMSI and MSISDN numbers. The MSISN is the hard coded ID on the hardware device, the same as the MAC address on a computer. It’s part of EU regs, everything has to have an audit trail. Same as chassis number on a car, TV’s, pace makers, TOW missiles, BUK missiles. Everything has to be traced back to place of manufacture, dates, who bought it, etc.

    When a Lawful Interception Warrant GSM is issued, the listening probe on the Bearer Channels (voice channels) is on British soil. So it was GCHQ that were intercepting his calls, not the Russians, they can do that on Yulia’s mobile back in Russia, but not here.

    The target number (Sergei) is put on a database and IDs of everyone he phones and everyone that calls him, are collected. So even if Sergei bought a new mobile with new SIM, that relationship to him still exists. If his original ID goes dead, they know he’s got a new phone. If Ross phones Sergei on his new phone, they will pick up the new ID’s because of the relationship to Ross.

    1. Anonymous-1: ….but all we’ve seen is a couple of seconds of indistinguishable footage of a male and female walking through market walk at 15.47. […] This is the ONLY footage, and we can’t see if it is them, or if it isn’t them.
      ———————————————–

      Are you thinking there is original footage that is much clearer than that shown to the public?

      1. There must be loads of very clear footage. I’m sure the couple of seconds could have had the distortion removed, they’ve obviously done it for the other CCTV footage of the ‘suspects’. I’m guessing something like Hummingbird XTerm.

        1. The original (from the phone not the cctv monitor) is pretty good, I’ll try and dig it out

          But why would the police use the worst available pictures of the couple when the police asked for help identifying them?

            1. That is a much better image, in fact it looks like the woman is indeed wearing jeans (the top part of her trousers are clearly blue), just as The Telegraph reported:

              “As they passed Snap Fitness, a gym at the end of the precinct at 3.47pm, they were captured briefly on CCTV. Both glanced over towards the camera, Colonel Skripal wearing a green jacket and his daughter in blue jeans and carrying a large red bag.”

    2. So there’s 5,000 hours of CCTV footage that would clearly show both Yulia and Sergei on the day of Sunday 4th March

      No — set the timeframe as 1:15 to 4:15, three hours. There’s no more than ten Salisbury council CCTV around Maltings, add in the private CCTV – shops/restaurants/pub/car park, can’t be more than thirty, and that’s a total of 1,200 hours. We know the duck feeding (either at 1:15 or 1:45) was captured and we’re mostly confident that the area around and at the bench was captured (3:40 to 4:15). Those are likely the clearest recordings because the Skirpals would have appeared in them for longer than a second or so. And they should have been captured entering and exiting Zizzi and on at least one of The Mill Pub.

      The various roadway CCTVs (from 7:00 to 2:00) may total another hundred hours.

      So, the vast majority of that 5,000 hours must be the airports and train stations as they search for someone to pin it on. (and recall that from 2 May to 10 May, they pulled CCTV still shots of the two Russians.)

  21. Dear Rob

    You have done a wonderful job running this blog, and I congratulate you on your insight, persistence and tolerance. You and your commenters must have spent a huge amount of time on this matter, and despite all the research and hard work it must be frustrating that you have not yet reached a consensus on some of the issues. However, I believe we have reached the stage where we can all be sure that HMG is lying about the incident and is using it to stoke up hatred and fear of Russia prior to military action against Russia or its ally Syria.

    Not only have our government lied and continue to do so, but they have also failed to observe international diplomatic conventions in not allowing a nation to access its citizens; and, in accusing the Russian state of the alleged crime without any hard evidence, they have abandoned the concept of innocence until proven guilty. They have told us things which are patently not true, and covered up information which might have helped the police investigation and possibly saved the life of Dawn Sturgess. And the whole thing has been handled so badly, so amateurishly, that both our government and our security services have become the laughing stock of the world.

    But it’s worse. It would seem that elements of our government do not want a working relationship with Russia. We have a Secretary of State – still serving – who recently said that Russia should ‘go away and shut up’, and a Foreign Secretary who lied to the world on German TV in saying the ‘Novichok’ came from Russia. And the tone of our PM’s statements in Parliament and her knee-jerk action in expelling Russian diplomats have jeopardised any possibility in the short term of restoring a meaningful relationship with that regime.

    Their behaviour has been despicable and shameful, and has tarnished the history of our nation. But there could be worse to come. Military action is apparently being planned, and Russia will not be defeated. What can we do?

    I would urge you to encourage all your readers – as Peter Hitchens has done – to write to their MPs. A good starting point would be to read his blog which explains far better than I can why it’s important to do so. Here is the link:-

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/09/please-write-to-your-mp-now-without-delay-war-terrible-war-may-be-on-the-way-again-/comments/page/2/#comments

    Of course, many of your readers may have already done that, while other perhaps cannot see the point of it. But if we all do it, we might just help to avoid yet another military castrophe. I hope you agree and will spur your readers into action. It really is the only thng we can do at the moment.

    1. Adding to your post, I would like to share this article by J.Cook:

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50284.htm

      “I don’t claim to know whether Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov work for the Russian security services, or whether they were dispatched by Vladimir Putin on a mission to Salisbury to kill the Skripals.

      What is clear, however, is that the British intelligence services have been feeding the British corporate media a self-serving, drip-drip narrative from the outset – and that the media have shown precisely no interest at any point in testing any part of this narrative or even questioning it. They have been entirely passive, which means their readers – us – have been entirely passive too.
      …
      Can we see the complete picture of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury; or the US election that led to Trump being declared president; or the revolution in Ukraine; or the causes and trajectory of fighting in Syria, and before it Libya and Iraq; or the campaign to discredit Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party; or the true implications of the banking crisis a decade ago?
      …
      Just as a feudal elite was driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of mechanisation; so neoliberalism is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet.

      The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet’s fate tomorrow.

      And because of that it is structurally bound to undermine or discredit anyone, any group, any state that stands in the way of achieving its absolute dominion.

      If that is not the thought we hold uppermost in our minds as we listen to a politician, read a newspaper, watch a film or TV show, absorb an ad, or engage on social media, then we are sleepwalking into a future the most powerful, the most ruthless, the least caring have designed for us.

      Step back, and take a look at the whole screen. And decide whether this is really the future you wish for your grand-children.”

    2. John, I want to add this :

      Quote : There will be no ‘justice’, no ‘trial’, it’s an act of covert war, not a ‘crime’. War is above legality. It’s part of politics, intractable and once it starts is difficult to bring to a halt. It requires an individual and collective action across borders, against all States; revolutionary and insurrectional direct action.
      The old game is a shadow world of tricks, where selective and indiscriminate methods to terrorise populations and bring in new laws combine with regular and irregular methods of combat, such as shaping public perception with social conditioning and psy-war. And it continues, the mass hysteria, the “false alarms”, the multi-agency lock-downs involving military, police and medical staff, the murder of Russian exiles, the nationalist interventions in politics and social life.
      These are part of protracted strategies of tension, of covert and unconventional warfare. Battles fought with other means, that work to soften the population and prepare a dynamic that suits social control by States. A creation and use of situations that favour power. It’s a game to be learnt, to understand what it is that we are fighting against, and to prepare counter-moves as asymmetric anarchic threats to the entirety of this alienated existence.
      War is the health of the State
      Tear it all down
      https://325.nostate.net/2018/09/18/about-the-novichok-attacks-uk/

  22. Here is the Guardian’s quick guide to making nerve agents on March 10. No mention of them only being able to be made in Russia back then, only saying it needs a specialised lab to stop the maker being contaminated.

    I dont think they would publish anything like this now.

    The word novichok is not used except in the tag at the bottom.

    ****
    Quick guide
    How hard is it to make a nerve agent?

    Nerve agents are not hard to make in principle, but in practice it takes specialised facilities and training to mix the substances safely. The raw materials themselves are inexpensive and generally not hard to obtain, but the lethality of the agents means they tend to be manufactured in dedicated labs. The main five nerve agents are tabun, which is the easiest to make, sarin, soman, GF and VX. The latter was used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur airport last year. VX is particularly stable and can remain on clothing, furniture and the ground for a long time without proper decontamination.

    All pure nerve agents are colourless organophosphorus liquids which, after they were discovered to be highly poisonous in the 1930s, became the dominant chemical weapons of the second world war. Once made, the substances are easy to disperse, highly toxic, and have rapid effects. Most are absorbed swiftly through the skin or inhaled, but they can also be added to food and drink.

    The agents take their toll on the body by disrupting electrical signals throughout the nervous system and the effects are fast and dramatic. Victims find it increasingly hard to breathe. Their lungs produce more mucus which can make them cough and foam at the mouth. They sweat, their pupils constrict, and their eyes run. The effects on the digestive system trigger vomiting. Meanwhile the muscles convulse. Many of those affected will wet themselves and lose control of their bowels. At high doses, failure of the nerves and muscles of the respiratory system can kill before other symptoms have time to develop. There are antidotes for nerve agents, such as oxime and atropine, which are particularly effective against VX and sarin, but they should be given soon after exposure to be effective.

    Was this helpful?
    ****
    I clicked “Yes” The Guardian replied “Thank you for your feedback.” lol

  23. Its a big deal for some people on here that they don’t know who was on the bench

    They are upset

    Why don’t these upset people know who was on the bench?

    They know who was at the station, the bridge, Wilton rd.

    But they don’t know who was on the bench.

    Why don’t they know who was on the bench?

    The police asked for help tracing the Skripals movements on the 4th March but were unable to provide a photo of what they looked like on the day

    Why was that?

    Ask yourselves why you don’t know.

    And then get upset

  24. Why after more than 6 months is it that we don’t know the identity of the bench couple?

    And why after more than 6 months has Theresa May not been charged with lying to Parliament?

  25. Moving away from the bench debate….

    Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more nuts….

    As suspected, another potential attack.

    On an ex Russian “model” and her husband, and a waiter.

    And all on the front page of the sun.

    You literally could not make this madness up.

    1. Strychnine. Must have run out of novichok.
      And no wonder hubby is sick – all the ambos queueing up to give her mouth to mouth.

  26. Sibiriak,
    The theory of the Market Walk CCTV couple having been the pair on the bench is being promoted by Peter Beswick and Paul. I don’t know about other people, but I absolutely disagree with that theory. I argued with Peter Beswick and Paul over this matter in previous threads, so just a few words now. Freya Church had said nothing about the hair of the girl on the bench in her first interview, BEFORE the Market Walk CCTV image was made public. Freya talked about the blonde girl, as well as about “100%”, AFTER the CCTV image was released and said to have been an image of the Skripals. It is understandable that witnesses may be influenced by information on TV and in other media. On 6 March, the media claimed that the Market Walk CCTV was of the Skripals. Olly Field talked of a “blonde bird ” also after the release of that CCTV.

    1. The police visited SnapFitness on Monday and took away the CCTV image we have all seen. They also interviewed Freya Church and Cain Prince and others at the gym. Why did Freya not say to the police: “Those were not the people on the bench”? We are told explicitly by Cain Prince that the police were not interested in looking for anyone else on the CCTV. Exactly what were the police doing do you think?

      The CCTV was released by the Press Association at approximately 9am on Tuesday and was followed by a press briefing. Why did Freya not mention to anyone that the couple in the CCTV were unknown to her and they were not the people she had seen on the bench? Why did she mislead the entire UK MSM into believeing that the CCTV couple was the couple that she saw on the bench? Which is what they all, without exception, printed – why would they do that?

    2. It doesn’t matter who it was on the bench other than we don’t know who it was.

      Also forget about Freya’s 100% certainty it wasn’t the Skripals, I can tell you with 100 % certainty that they were not poisoned by a Russian Military Grade Novichok Nerve Agent.

      Porton Down and the OPCW agree they don’t know what it was.

      So why are you so sure?

      1. “Freya church meant the couple at the bench were the same as in the snap cctv.

        Not the people ON the bench.”

        She said the people in the snap cctv were 100% the people on the bench, she said no one else was there

        But it doesn’t matter

        We don’t know who was on the bench but we do know they were not poisoned by Novichok

      2. So why did Cain Prince tell the PA that the police had said that Mr Skripal was wearing a green coat and then later say this to The Telegraph:

        Cain Prince, the manager of Snap Fitness, said police examined the CCTV footage on Monday, paying particular interest to the couple with the red bag. “These people were the only ones police were interested in,” he told The Telegraph. “They said he was wearing a green coat and took a picture of them and they asked for details of all staff who were in between 3pm and 4pm on Sunday.”

        The Telegraph went on:

        “As they passed Snap Fitness, a gym at the end of the precinct at 3.47pm, they were captured briefly on CCTV. Both glanced over towards the camera, Colonel Skripal wearing a green jacket and his daughter in blue jeans and carrying a large red bag.”

        And The Times reported this:

        “Staff said they were only interested in two frames which showed the former GRU man, in a green jacket, and his daughter.”

    4. That’s spot on.

      From what was uncovered about her seeing the blonde couple at the bench, it’s obvious she means she saw the blonde woman from the cctv at the bench, and the spy on it.

      She’s not great with her words, but she clearly states the spy was on the bench, which destroys the whole idea he wasn’t.

  27. SERGEI SKRIPAL´S BMW

    Note : Even around the car, a burgundy red BMW (BMW 320D saloon – registration plate HD09 WAO) the investigation is not transparent.
    The people who transported the car from Sainsbury’s car park to the Ashley Wood Recovery are not allowed to speak about.

    Only on March 18 the police decided to publish a photo :
    https://twitter.com/wiltshirepolice/status/975326930932203520

    Where was Sergei´s BMW parked ?

    The official timeline says :
    „At approximately 13:40hrs on Sunday, 4 March, Sergei and Yulia arrived in Sainsbury’s upper level car park in the Maltings.“

    The entrance to the top floor of the car park was sealed on March 12.
    The parking ticket machine the Skripals may have touched was covered by a yellow tent. It was located at the upper level car park near the steps down.
    https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/video/sergei-skripal-nerve-agent-attack-crime-scenes-nachrichtenfilmmaterial/945166436

    That makes it „highly likely“ the BMW was parked at the upper level (top floor) of Sainsbury’s car park.

    On March 8 incident response units examined the BMW at Ashley Wood Recovery.
    On March 12 an Ashley Wood recovery van was removed from Winterslow.
    On March 14 another Ashley Wood recovery van removed from Gillingham/Dorset
    Both were taken to Porton Down.
    One of this recovery trucks was used to move Skripal’s BMW to Ashley Wood Recovery.
    On March 16 the BMW was put into a red steel container and transferred to Porton Down.

    Quote : It also emerged that the car driven by Mr Skripal was so contaminated with the Novichok nerve agent that a fleet of other vehicles in Dorset are to be examined.
    Police are investigating the possibility that Mr Skripal and Ms Skripal were poisoned in their maroon BMW.
    The police investigation, Operation Lime, crossed into Dorset on Wednesday as the truck that towed away the Skripals’ car from the upper floor of a Sainsbury’s car park was recovered from Gillingham.
    http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/16089545.Army_and_police_in_East_Dorset__where_hero_policeman_who_was_poisoned_in_attack_lives/

    Quote : The military has removed a breakdown truck parked in Gillingham that was used to move the car of the poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
    Meanwhile the driver, who asked not to be identified, told Gillingham & Shaftesbury News:
    ‘I’m fine, I’ve been checked up in hospital and all is fine, I’m not worried.’ Asked about the incident he said: ‘I was just doing my job.’
    But he said he had been asked not to say any more about it.
    In Blandford a spokeswoman for the recovery truck’s owners Ashley Wood Recovery said:
    ‘We cannot make any comment.’
    https://www.gillingham-news.co.uk/news/army-called-gillingham-remove-recovery-truck-linked-salisbury-nerve-agent-attack/

    Quote : Sergei Skripal’s red BMW 3 series has been at Ashley Wood Recovery on Churchfields industrial estate since the attack which left Mr Skripal and his daughter in intensive care.
    http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/16092793.Military_remove_Sergei_Skripal_s_car/

    Quote : A fresh insight was given into the first hours of the incident. Paul Mills, the deputy chief constable for Wiltshire, said Skripal’s BMW was found and moved from the car park, where it had been left on the same day he and his daughter fell ill. The detail suggests that police swiftly realized how serious the incident was.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/20/salisbury-is-safe-despite-likely-novichok-hotspots-officials-say

    I remember an official statement that definitely confirmed the BMW was recovered late in the evening on March 4.
    Unfortunately I cannot find the link. Maybe one of you has it.

    As far as I know, it was never officially confirmed that the BMW had traces of Novichok.

    PS.: We should create a list of all the recovered vehicles in connection with Salisbury and Amesbury incidents.
    THAT ARE QUITE A LOT !
    How many of them are buried in landfil sites ?

      1. @ Liane Theuer,

        Let’s say the Skripal case is a patient, brought into ER.

        Every self-respecting doctor would declare the patient dead on arrival, based upon a plethora of anomalies and contradictions in the life-stats.

        I’ve seen someone that I thought to be dead [bullet through the head] and for whatever reason, his body would force him to gasp for air a few more times [with very irregular intervals], that’s how I see the HMG version of the Skripal case, as they present it to me.

        A very dead corpse… on life-support.

    2. Liane,

      Great research as always.

      Removing the BMW on the Sunday night was a significant move by the police.
      (Could this imply that somehow TPTB knew that the dosing was pre-duckfeed?

      It also makes the fact of not informing the boys’ parents even more damning.

        2. Now that’s interesting. She became an Israeli citizen in 2006 and moved to London in 2008. Some sort of Anna Chapman asset, me thinks.

          That would give a hint where we should look at whodunnit in the Skripal case.

      2. A new low of the UK media. That is priceless !

        Hey folks, let us go to Salisbury and foaming a little bit.
        Then we sell over story (the more unbelievable the better) to the presstitudes and spend the money in the Maledives…

  30. Two scenarios – the first I call the Make it Up as You Go – Scenario, the other one is more complex, I describe that later.
    First:
    Time was money when the Russians and Syrians somehow uncovered preparations for a chemical weapons false flag in Ost-Ghouta and the proxies of UK, US etc. were about to lose. So, I see TPTB prepare a rather desperate quick false flag to remove all those nasty Russian spies in their embassies to prevent further damage during a more serious confrontation. At the same time it was a preparation to hopefully get those pesty Russians into a situation where their veto in the UN security council wouldn’t help them.

    In the simple plot I leave out whether Sergej & Julia knew what would happen or not and assume they were unaware of the timing of the attack.

    Sergej & Julia were attacked at the bench by the pair which was seen in the CCTV, probably by something in the red handbag. DS Bailey is S&J’s official watchdog of the day. He saw the attack from far away, but did not recognize it as such and was not in on the plan by TPTB. When he saw people stop, taking their phones to call help and Sergej behave in a strange way he rushed to the scene, investigated the handbag and contaminated himself with whatever was used (not Novichok).

    Who was to blame? The Russians.
    At first there was no detailed plan how to give proof the Russians did it, just to declare so. In the meantime a chemical weapons false flag in Ost-Ghouta would happen, while beautifully all those damned spies could not prevent it and nobody would have asked any more about that old spy. But it did not happen like that. Somehow the islamist forces did not manage to get it done in the preplanned manner, so the Skripal case lingered on as unsolved.

    Now the investigation to deliver proof the Russians done it.
    When was the first time the famous door handle was mentioned? Sure in between TPTB had enough time to watch out for visas and flight tickets – if there were any Russians who wanted to visit Salisbury at that date – not a lot, I think. Now there’s a problem. Ruslan and Borishov left too early. They could not have done it at the bench. Alas, here comes the door handle and an explanation why DS Bailey was contaminated not at the bench but at Skripal’s house. And that became later their real mess, because now nothing really adds up.

    1. Sergej & Julia were attacked at the bench by the pair which was seen in the CCTV, probably by something in the red handbag
      —————————————————-

      The red handbag.

      Anonymous-1 says: September 17, 2018 at 6:05 am

      13.45 the Skripals were seen near the Avon Playground, in The Maltings, feeding ducks with some local boys. Sergei handed the boys some bread, which would have been contaminated with nerve agent, but they did not fall ill. This was confirmed by Mrs Cooper, Aiden Cooper’s mother, who was shown CCTV footage by the police and which she said was “really clear”. She also confirmed that Mr Skripal was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and that Yulia had a red bag.

      2. Do we know if it was the Skripals who were feeding ducks and not the CCTV couple with the red bag.

        Feeding the ducks was never in the official timeline as far as I know.

        1. Aiden and his Mum looked at the CCTV.
          However the Russian couple could have been anyone.
          The police seemed to imply it was the Skripals.
          So it’s definite then….

        2. No I don’t think we do.

          According to children’s mother the video she has seen is ” really clear ” therefore if we were allowed to see the video of the duck feeding we would also be really clear about whether it was the Skripals or not on film.

          We would have Mr Skripals clothing and face and we would have Yulia’s clothing and face and red bag? and more to the point her hair colour and a time.

          If Yulia’s hair colour is reddish brown then whomever is in the fitness camera video cannot be Yulia and consequently cannot be Sergei.

          There is a reason why we are not allowed to see the duck feeding video and it’s nothing to do with privacy.

          It would be interesting though to know what Yulia’s hair colour was from the children’s mother. Ditto with the staff at SDH.

          Has the media or anyone else asked her?

            1. Paul,

              Not wanting to wind you up, but:

              How do we know that the UK intelligence agencies did not alter Yulia’s appearance, hair length, colour, scar etc after the park bench and before her video appearance at Lakenheath?
              And then, undo that to give her a new identity before sending her off to Colorado?

              1. Duncan,
                We have are 3 reference points:
                1) Video from Moscow airport showing Yulia with shoulder length red/brownish hair;
                2) Zizzi chef description of Yulia with shoulder length red/brownish hair; and
                3) Video at airbase showing Yulia with shoulder length red/brownish hair.

                Apart from that, anything is possible.

  31. Hi Rob

    I’ve been going through the comments as I seem to remember that someone here a while ago (Liane Theuer?) wrote to Basu / Met Police with some direct questions challenging the timeline of events. Was there ever an answer ?
    Though always sticking to the adage “watch what they do, not what they say”
    Thanks

      1. @ Liane Theuer,

        And put it on the ‘Let’s sit on it for a while… and hopefully they forget about it… If not, we either misplaced the request as Plan A, and if this person persists, we’ll charge exorbitant administrative costs to discourage any further question as Plan B’ pile.

      2. Thanks Liane. Can you tell me when you asked the questions and when you got an acknowledgement ? It must be in the comments section but I can’t find it…. I think this was BEFORE the Russian tourists were accused. Your help is much appreciated.

  32. Blogmirers,

    Champions League football starts in a few minutes, so I will be brief.

    The “other couple”
    If they were not the couple collapsed at the bench then:

    The Skripals collapsed at the bench, and were taken to hospital.
    If that is the truth, then the “other couple” would be people of interest in the investigation.
    We have seen the Met roll out the CCTV footage to show Rus and Alex’s involvement on both days.
    Therefore it would be right to assume that the “other couple” are not only captured on CCTV footage, but are also very important “people of interest” in the investigation.
    This would include subsequent travel to Catherine Street as well as some sort of interaction with the Skripals before that.
    However, for reasons you may want to speculate on, the “other couple” are of no interest to Basu and his team.

    1. You should not confuse no further public pronouncements or no longer publicly declaring an interest in this couple as a sign that the police have no interest in them. On the contrary.

    2. “We have seen the Met roll out the CCTV footage to show Rus and Alex’s involvement on both days.”

      Actually, that’s not quite correct. The Met have been very vague about the visit on Saturday. No CCTV pictures and no mentions of where in Salisbury they went. They only said when they got there (2.25pm) and when they left (4.10pm) and wrote Saturday off as recon mission.

      However, I have a different theory about Saturday. If these guys are responsible (and it’s a big “if”), my theory is that originally they planned to put the Novichok on Sergei’s door on the Saturday as they knew (from hacking Yulia’s phone and email) that Sergei would be out of the house picking Yulia up from the airport (she arrived at 2.40pm – pretty much the same time Rus and Alex arrived in Salisbury). Also, this would mean Sergei would touch the door handle when coming home from the airport and presumably die in his home and not draw too much attention compared to touching the door handle when leaving and collapsing in public.
      However, Sergei changed his plans at the last minute and got his friend with a 4×4 to give him a lift to the airport because of the snow. When Rus and Alex got to his house – expecting him to be out – they saw his car in the driveway and assumed he was home (not knowing he was actually at the airport in his friend’s car). They then postponed the mission and came back the next day when they knew (from hacking Yulia’s phone and email) that they would be at the cemetry in the morning.

      Just a theory though….

    1. Q. why did HMG choose a Yulia impersonator with blonde hair instead of reddish blonde?

      A. Possibly because the reason she did not have time to pick up the porridge the day before was she was having her hair done

      1. Q. why did HMG choose a Yulia impersonator with blonde hair instead of reddish blonde?
        ——————————-

        More broadly, why a Yulia impersonator that didn’t look at all like Yulia (blonde, much older).

        And, in this imagined scenario, why was a Yulia impersonator needed at all?

        1. Freya Church says the the bench people are 100 percent definitely the couple in the published gym video. Ollie Field said the female was blonde.

          Where is the counter evidence?

          There is none.

          There is, whilst we are focusing lack of evidence to support the official narrative, no evidence to say Novichok was involved. The evidence says it wasn’t.

          Evidence says they weren’t the Skripals and whoever it wadls they weren’t poisoned by Novichok.

          Unfortunate that for HMG, the Trolls, Shills and deniers.

          It isn’t going to change.

          Those are the facts.

          1. No they really are not facts.

            They are your opinions based on supposition, and the fallability of witnesses.

            The whole idea of some fit up conspiracy to the level that it wasn’t the skripals, is so ludicrous I can’t belive anyone would entertain it.

      2. Peter,
        Although your answer was somewhat facetious I think the explanation is more simple.
        No one in the UK knew what her current hair colour was.
        A man conspiring the “hit” or swap, would simply but incorrectly surmise that Yulia’s blonde hair from 2 years ago was the current ensemble.

        1. Duncan.

          Firstly Facetious is my word, secondly the explanation is far from simple.

          Mi6 thought they knew was colour her hair was. They followed her from Heathrow to Salisbury, they did not get a glimpse of he hair, she had her hood up.

          The plumber should vouch for that.

          The couple from Zizzis to the bench (the one’s in hospital) were decoys. the couple picked up outside the Mill (actually Cranebridge rd) were not the Skripals either) the Skripals left by the back door of the Mill.

          Do keep up

          1. That’s a point.
            Ross and Mo would know Yulia’s hair colour.
            Mo didn’t make the LHR trip.
            But she must have said “hello” on the Saturday when the three arrived back in Salisbury.

        2. Sigh.

          Yulia lives in plain sight.

          It would literally take two minutes to check her hair colour and relay that info.

          Not that there is the slightest chance of such a ridiculously elaborate plot to gain exactly nothing.

          1. double sigh

            in plain sight of who?

            we don’t need the plain sighters we have the cctv. Oh wait no we don’t .

  34. Paul, if I’m not mistaken, you contend that the CCTV couple, i.e. the Skripal doubles, were taken to the Salisbury district hospital and treated there.

    As Rob Slane pointed out, ” the CCTV woman (despite being very blurred) is certainly not “a young, blonde and pretty girl”. She looks to me to be in at least her 40s.” That is, she doesn’t look much like the girl on the bench that Freya Church described, nor like the real Yulia.

    Clearly, after the all the news media were putting out information on the Skripals, anyone in contact with the Yulia double there would surely have noticed that she was an older, blonde-haired woman who didn’t look at all similar to the real Yulia.

    Is it your contention that all those people participated in a massive coverup of the fact that real Yulia had never been taken to the hospital?

    1. You have made assertions relying, inter alia, on the apparent age of the woman in the CCTV. Kindly produce a good quality image (or other evidence) of the woman in the CCTV to justify your second and third paragraphs. Until you do so, I will not be continuing this discussion here or elswhere on the thread.

      1. I will not be continuing this discussion here or elswhere on the thread.
        ————————-

        That’s your prerogative. I will carry on despite your non-responses.

        1. Kindly produce a good quality image (or other evidence) of the woman in the CCTV to justify your second and third paragraphs.
          —————————————-

          YOU claimed that the woman in the CCTV was blonde, and that the real Yulia was not blonde, and that that was evidence that the real Yulia was not on the bench.

          I’m only repeating YOUR OWN claim. (And reinforcing it with similar observations by Rob Slane.)

          Are you now changing your story and saying that the woman in the CCTV looks like the real Yulia?

          You can’t have it both ways, you know.

          1. Freya Church said the woman on the bench was blonde.

            Olly Field said the woman on the bench was blonde.

            Staff in Zizzi said that Yulia had red brown hair and was wearing a black coat.

            Mrs Cooper confirmed directly to Rob that Sergei Skripal was wearing “a leather jacket and blue jeans”.

            Cain Prince said the police had told him that Mr Skripal was wearing a green coat.

            Please present your evidence to the contrary.

            1. Paul, the woman in the CCTV was blonde; the real Yulia was not.

              Please present your evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, it would seem that we are in agreement on that point, which is essential to the argument I made.

              1. I have already produced my evidence to which we can now add (with your apparent agreement) “The woman in the CCTV was blonde”.
                .
                .

                Freya Church said the woman on the bench was blonde.

                Olly Field said the woman on the bench was blonde.

                The woman in the CCTV was blonde.

                Staff in Zizzi said that Yulia had red brown hair and was wearing a black coat.

                Mrs Cooper confirmed directly to Rob that Sergei Skripal was wearing “a leather jacket and blue jeans”.

                Cain Prince said the police had told him that Mr Skripal was wearing a green coat.

                1. The woman on the bench had her hood on. If she impersonated Julia perhaps that was intended to deceive any surveillance.

                  1. Sabine, there was only one witness in one interview that mentioned a hood. Nobody else mentioned a hood. In the original interview (with The Telegraph) she mentioned a parka and a hood but in all subsequent reporting of that witness (which was copied from The Telegraph interview), the reference to a ‘parka’ was dropped, although the description of the hood remained.

                    We know nothing else about that witness apart from a name. One person of that name used to live in Salisbury but now lives and works elsewhere; another person of the same name lives in France.

                    We have no information about when that witness saw the bench or how obstructed her view might have been. We also don’t know how someone who works elsewhere in the country was available, on a Monday in Salisbury, to be interviewed. Perhaps she was on holiday but that is just a guess, we simply don’t know.

  35. A question for the ladies that visit the Blogmire web site:

    It’s about scars.

    I’m totally biased, because I’ve got a lot of scars and think of them as kinda cool.

    When I saw the TV ‘interview’ with Yulia, after whatever happened to her [and her dad] and having been incommunicado for quite some time, it struck me as odd to see a big scar [on her throat] prominently featured, as if I [and the wider audience] really had to see it.

    I would have thought/expected she’d cover it up.

    What would you do?

    Thanks in advance.

    1. I’d cover it up, and so would most women I’m sure. She could have easily done that, so why didn’t she ?

      It was in her interest, and more especially that of her captors, that the scar was made visible. Which suggests that it was a faked scar, and that she was never novihoaxed. I suspect that none of the usual SDH staff would have seen the two patients, who were attended to by ‘specialist’ PD doctors and other outsiders and conveniently kept in a new ward, apparently never used before. We can’t even be sure of how long they were in hospital. What proof is there that Yulia was discharged on the day they claim she was ? Maybe Christine Blanshard was only repeating what she’d been told to say. On 11th April the Russian TV crew found security to be very lax – so what was going on ? I really think that staffat SDH should be approached and asked basic questions. They must employs hundreds. Sure somebody local can find out more by asking them.

      1. Marie, it is also very odd that the only other people who were alleged to have been poisoned by novihoax (that we have seen) are Bailey and Rowley – neither of whom had any sort of scar at all.

      1. @ Peter,

        I gave the Shetland pony extension a try last year. I guess it must have been freezing the night they cut it off….

    3. I don’t exclude the possibility that it was a sort of Yulia’s message for her fiance Stepan, so that he could see how she looked after the poisoning. It might be that she would not like to hide the scar from him.

  36. @rob sorry to keep banging on about this but after the Skripals parked in Sainsbury’s car park how would they get into Avon Playground?
    Google Street View is hopeless in that area. I see the steps down from Sainsbury’s store into Priory Sq. where the could cut through the arch at the side of The Works into the playground but is there another more plausible route from where the car was to the “duck-feeding” not using the Priory Sq. steps?
    Dailyshocker thinks 13.49 GMT is correct for Dauwalders so it is important – Skripals and Alex and Ruslan in the same place at the same time.

    1. Patrick,

      No need to apologise. Very important question. Here, the slight problem I have is that I’m not entirely sure where the Skripals are said to have parked (can anyone confirm???).

      There are three parts to the car park. First, there is the ground floor indoor car park. If they parked here, normally I would expect them to come out of the archway you refer to opposite the Works. Secondly, there is the top of that car park, which probably would have meant they walked down the steps which are at the back of Sainsbury’s, onto the path next to the river (there is, however, another possibility, which is that they could have continued on down the side of Sainsbury’s and down another set of steps that leads to Priory Square (near the back of The Mill). And finally there is the ground floor outside car park, which would have meant that they would have come out on the walk next to the river (but I think I recall seeing police cars in the indoor car park, so my assumption is that it was there).

      I hope that helps.

      1. Rob,

        Did we not see photographs of the Skripal BMW (eventually) being put on a low loader and taken away?
        Rebecca at SJ will know the location.
        I would have mistakenly thought that the car dripping with Novichok would have been isolated and maybe even guarded at the specific Sainsbury car park location.
        One would even think that if the parking ticket was stamped 13:41 March 4th 2018, that this might reflect the time the machine printed the ticket.
        Then I remembered, it’s Salisbury, where time stands still, and nothing is ever seen through the prism of normality.

        So in Salisbury logic, a parking machine does not mean a specific car, driver or passenger.
        It simply means the machine printed a ticket.
        The time may be wrong.
        It’s like a tree falling in the woods. Nobody heard it, so it did not happen.

      3. Thanks @rob. I know I suggested before they could have bought the bread for the duck feeding from Sainsbury’s in lieu of paying for parking but against that the store was never quarantined.
        But very interesting they could have not used the closest steps but walked outside Sainsos to the Priory Sq steps.
        That would put the Skripals and A&R in very close proximity at the same time.

  37. Fellow Blogmirers,

    Some of us have been with the Blog since Day 1.
    I didn’t join on Day 1, I was guided to the site by like minded folk who realised scientifically that what we were being presented with, just did not add up.
    Anyway, that is a brief digression. The point I wish to make is to look at the saga of Salisbury from the perspective of a journalist. Two particular journalists, who both write for the Sun newspaper in the UK.
    Nick Pisa and Matt Wilkinson
    Both had published key articles in the Skripal affair, yet both did not follow up after achieving the difficult part. The difficult part being actually talking face to face with witnesses whom could challenge in specific detail the official narrative of HMG and the Met Terror Team.
    Nick Pisa and his photographer travelled to Salisbury and interviewed young Aiden Cooper and his parents.
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5916870/schoolboy-salisbury-nerve-agent-attack/
    A key story for two reasons.
    1) The boy’s parents were not informed about the harm their son was exposed to. This duck feed being shortly after the Skripals were dosed, around 1-50pm or so, on Sunday March 4th.
    The police waited two weeks before contacting the boy’s parents with the helpful suggestion to incinerate his clothes and get to hospital for an “urgent” check.

    2) The boy and his friends did not get sick. Somewhat incongruous as the restaurant table subsequently visited by Skripal was so heavily contaminated at Zizzi’s that the table itself had to be incinerated and the restaurant is still closed more than 6 months later.
    The story unfortunately stopped there. Nick went off to the World Cup and there was no follow up.
    Follow up along the lines of:
    Contact the parents of Aiden’s other two friends. (Aiden reported that one of the two lads actually ate some of the bread supplied by Sergei Skripal.)
    Description of what Sergei was actually wearing that afternoon.
    Possibly ask Wiltshire Police the rationale behind not arousing public attention when the CCTV footage was initially viewed.

    Matt Wilkinson
    Matt’s recent story from two days ago, follows the somewhat salacious escapades of Rus and Alex, our two Russian Superagents
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7268509/salisbury-russia-poisoning-drugs-sex-prostitutes-london/

    Here, Matt did his research and found a witness to the whole sordid affair. An unnamed guest ranted about cannabis smoking, noisy sex, irate guests, and a cleaner spending a day clearing up the mess. It was unclear if this was just a single unnamed witness or a whole series of guests.
    Sadly, again, there was no follow up.
    1) The hotel guest witness claimed that pot and noisy sex were happening at 7pm on Saturday, March 3rd. This directly contradicts ACC Basu’s account which states that the two Russian Superagents returned to the hotel after 8pm. The hotel does have a CCTV camera facing the outside entrance.
    2) In Matt’s account, the cleaner spent the whole day, (Sunday) cleaning up the Russian agents’ room. The Met still managed to find traces of Novichok in this room some 8 weeks after the Russians left it.
    3) Matt was also unable to interview the hotel cleaner. This is indeed unfortunate as this person would have been exposed to Novichok on the Sunday morning, and possibly for another 8 weeks before scientists removed the last traces on May 4th.

    To be fair to Nick and Matt, I will be emailing them with this observation.
    As the Sun has led with many spectacular headlines since March 4th, we would not want accuracy to get in the way of a good story.
    So far, we had a Novichok gang of 6, with the obligatory mysterious dark-haired woman.
    Various “former intelligence spook” reporting that the Superagents were watchers, for a second team.
    The cunning masterplan where the agents decided to walk past the station, after the “hit” on the door handle, so the could dump the bottle having removed the nozzle, in a bin behind a charity shop. Skilfully removing the nozzle and shrink wrapping the nerve agent in the 5.5ml perfume bottle, so that the hapless Charlie can find it some 2 months later.
    Who could forget the Mercedes with Romanian number plates.
    Hamish de Bretton de Noclue blurting out that Novichok is “the world’s most dangerous nerve agent, slow acting, gel formula, can be sprayed in a perfume atomiser, in a bottle that took a vast amount of research to construct as a leak would kill most of East London, unless you were a 66-year-old diabetic…”

    1. Very good summary, Duncan.
      Didn´t you write to Nick Pisa earlier about Aiden Cooper ?
      Did you ever got an answer ?

      1. Liane,

        Silence of the Lambs from the journos.
        Nick’s first excuse was that he was off to the World Cup.
        Then I thought Dawn and Charlie would rekindle interest.
        Sadly, no.

  38. The Trolls and Shills appear to have been chosen from the same talent pool as those who designed and executed the hoax. Their abject failure is not only risible but it is a sign that evil cannot triumph over good. It can make it bloody and unpleasant but the truth and goodness will always shine through.

    Are those really the best HMG have? I guess it it looking at who are controlling them. They don’t stand a chance but unfortunately won’t give up. They have no pride, nothing to feel proud of, nothing to care about, love and cherish, nothing to lose. Nothing.

    1. A nefarious hoax and coverup do not require imposters on the bench.
      ——————————————————–

      Rob Slane (September 3, 2018 at 2:26 pm ):

      Regardless of which is true — Skripals on bench or Skripals not on bench — the fundamental fact is that the two people didn’t die. They were therefore not hit with a nerve agent of the type they are supposed to have been hit with, nor in the manner in which they are supposed to have been hit with it. The official line is therefore false (and of course there’s a bunch of other reasons why).

  40. Novihoax-1 Drug misuse but can be used to make a case against
    Russia. Make an Ex Spy-Daughter disappear,Perfect cover story
    for what HMG going to do anyway.Say Its A Deadly Russian Type-Stuff
    Nerve Agent..Novichok.

    Russian Gentleman Found dead 12.03.18 London. Found hanging
    after strangling himself?

    This not in HMG plan..Up the Novihoax story.

    Novihoax-2 British Public doubting HMG. Up the story again to
    cover lies. Fake a Bottle Of Perfume-Box to fit story.
    Miss Sturgess passes away due to bad drugs in area.
    Tell Public its Novichok. Public cant be aware police lost
    control of drug situation-Wiltshire.

    Fit a couple of Russian Visitors up within timeline asap!

    Novihoax-3 Wasn’t on HMG agenda. Bad drugs. What lies
    will they state for this one.
    Cant keep covering a drug lie with Novihoax

  41. Paul: It will open a whole different can of worms to say it was the CCTV couple on the bench (even though we know they were). [emphasis added]
    ————————————–

    Paul, I don’t think there is a consensus here on that point, and we need to keep an open mind. I’ve been reviewing thousands of comments, and I’ve noticed that some of sharpest and most well-informed posters are not at all certain that it was the CCTV couple who were on the bench. To give just a few examples:

    Rob Slane says: September 4, 2018 at 8:49 am
    […]Generally speaking, the discussions on this site over the past few weeks have been very good, and there have been numerous helpful comments. But comments are, as I feared, starting to become increasingly unhelpful and unpleasant, and I think that it has been partly fuelled by a frustration that we are not really getting anywhere, and a frustration amongst those who are “sure” about the identity of the people on the bench that others won’t accept it.

    I am one of those who refuses to accept either case as having been demonstrated emphatically. The truth is, I genuinely don’t know, and I am not confident enough to say one way or other which is the case, and I think there are good arguments to be had on both sides.

    Rob Slane says: September 2, 2018 at 5:24 pm
    […]I have no intention of going down the route of stating that the Skripals were not on bench, until I am persuaded that this was the case. Which I’m not

    Rob Slane says: August 31, 2018 at 11:10 pm
    […]I can see why you believe it was not the Skripals on the bench. However, I think that a lot of the witness testimony actually fits the Skripals far better than it does the CCTV couple

    […], I don’t think the witness testimony backs up the theory that the couple on the bench were the CCTV couple, since:

    a) the man in the footage is not wearing a jacket, he’s wearing a coat
    b) the woman in that footage is certainly not very much younger than the man and
    c) she isn’t wearing a Parka with a hood on.

    Rob Slane says: September 4, 2018 at 9:16 am
    Paul, I have a number of issues with this. Firstly, there are much easier ways of “disappearing” Sergei than doing it in broad daylight in a pub where there’s lots of people. Secondly, I’m not sure what you mean by he is “on no more CCTV after he left the Mill”? As has been stated many times, Salisbury is covered with CCTV cameras all over the place. I don’t think it feasible that he could have left The Mill without being seen on at least one of the numerous cameras around that area.
    But the biggest issue for me, is who then were the CCTV couple? By which I mean what was their role? Were they dupes, willing patsies or what? And even bigger than this, what is the point of them in the first place? If there was a plan was to disappear Sergei, why on earth would you need the CCTV couple there in the first place? Why attack them? What’s the point? Sergei could have just snuck out of The Mill, somehow evading the glare of the cameras, and that would be that. I don’t see how your scenario accounts for the CCTV couple having anything to do with it or why there was a need to poison them. Or are you saying that there was a plan to poison Sergei, but whoever is Group B caught wind of it, and snuck a couple of dupes in there to take the hit, while they whisked Sergei off?

    Liane Theuer says: September 1, 2018 at 10:26 am
    […]I fully agree with Rob, we should not attach too much importance to the witness testimonies

    Liane Theuer says: August 27, 2018 at 9:17 pm
    Haha, Paul – don´t try to influence me. As I said before, I´ve not yet decided who the people on the bench are. But isn´t it a SCANDAL that the officials dare to keep us in the dark about basics?

    anidea says: September 15, 2018 at 6:23 pm
    […]It is unlikely the couple on the bench are anybody else but Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Neither of them are valuable enough to anybody alive to devise a complex scheme

    Marie says: September 16, 2018 at 12:57 am
    For me, the paltry evidence (including the police behavior) is insufficient for me to eliminate any one of the possibilities I listed,

    [1) They are the Skripals and they were the people found at the bench. 2) They are the Skripals and they weren’t the people taken to SDH from the bench. 3) They aren’t the Skripals and they were the people taken to SDH from the bench. 4) They aren’t the Skripals and they weren’t the people taken to SDH from the bench.]

    much less conclude the single one that’s true…

    1. So if it wasn’t the cctv couple on the bench, who was it? And what is the Evidence to make you thing that?

      Or are you saying you are just not sure? In which case how can that be? Why don’t you have the 100% conclusive evidence of the identities of the bench couple?

      1. So if it wasn’t the cctv couple on the bench, who was it?
        ———————————

        It could be the Skripals.

        Or are you saying you are just not sure?

        I’m saying there doesn’t seem to be a consensus among posters here that it was the CCTV couple who was on the bench, Paul’s certainty notwithstanding.

        1. It doesn’t matter what the consensus is. What does the evidence say?

          Paul has put forward evidence that it is Not the Skripals.

          Where is the evidence that Paul is incorrect?

          I know the answer to that question and will not respond further to your distraction tactics.

          1. Where is the evidence that Paul is incorrect?
            —————————-

            Many arguments have been put forth challenging Paul’s theory. I do not intend to rehearse them all now. They can easily be found by going to the posts which I cited.

          2. It doesn’t matter what the consensus i…
            ————————————

            Then there is no need to constantly suggest that there is one here at this blog, when there is clearly isn’t one.

            Paul has put forward evidence that it is Not the Skripals.

            And that evidence is not particularly compelling.

          3. Peter, calm down please.
            We neither have evidence that the CCTV couple were on the bench nor that it were the Skripals.
            We only have witnesses who contradict themselves.

            The main point is, that obviously all witnesses at the bench were silenced by the MET. WHY ?
            What happened at the bench that the public is not allowed to know ?

        1. “If it wasn’t then it’s a dangerous conspiracy”

          Yep it’s dangerous conspiracy all right, Dawn was killed because of it.

    2. What people chose to believe is really not my problem – I know what I think. There is a reason for the phrase ‘doubting Thomas’.

      The reason I believe that it was the CCTV couple on the bench is that I have looked at the available evidence – I believe that on the balance of probabilities, it was not the Skripals on the bench but I do keep an open mind.

      My challenge to you, therefore, is to find some EVIDENCE that it WAS the Skripals on the bench so that I can change my mind.

      I can produce evidence that the Skripals were not on the bench but whether you chose to believe it is a matter for you. Two witnesses said that the woman on the bench was blonde. That is corroborated evidence. Yulia was not blonde. Freya Church said the people in the CCTV were the people she saw on the bench. You can chose to ignore it if you wish, that is a matter for you. Cain Prince told us that the police were only looking for the images of the people in the CCTV – if they were not the people on the bench: 1) why were the police looking for them at all (how did they know what the people they were looking for looked like?) and 2) why were we given the added information that the man in the CCTV was wearing a green jacket and that the police said that ‘Mr Skripal’ was wearing a green jacket; and 3) why did Freya Church not tell the police they were looking form the wrong people? You can ignore that too if you wish. Not my problem.

      Frankly, whether people accept what I believe or not makes no difference to me and I do retain an open mind. People will always come to different conclusions based on the same evidence, that is why you get split juries at trial. Having heard the same evidence people will disagree… but at least they disagree on what the EVIDENCE shows, not whether there is any evidence at all.

      Please produce some evidence (ANY evidence) that says I am wrong, not just opinion based on a refusal to accept the available evidence.

      1. Paul,

        One of the pieces of evidence you have used in the past, was that the people in the Newsnight programme don’t refer to Sergei and Yulia. But as I pointed out, Christine Blanshard, who is one of the people in that programme, does refer to Yulia in her statement outside the hospital on (I think) 10th April:

        “We have now discharged Yulia from Salisbury district hospital. Yulia has asked for privacy from the media and I want to reiterate her request. I also want to take this opportunity to wish Yulia well. This is not the end of her treatment but marks a significant milestone. Her father has also made good progress. On Friday I announced he was no longer in a critical condition. Although he is recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he too will be able to leave hospital in due course.”

        Yulia herself, in her Reuters statement, said: “I am grateful to all of the wonderful, kind staff at Salisbury hospital, a place I have become all too familiar with.”

        The High Court Judgement of 22nd March states: “On 4 March 2018 Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were admitted to hospital in Salisbury.”

        In that same document, the consultant’s testimony refers to: “Mr Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent. Ms Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent.”

        None of these statements “prove” that Sergei and Yulia were on the bench; nor do they “prove” that they were in the hospital. But they are most definitely “evidence” that they were in the hospital, and by logical deduction, on the bench.

        It is up to each person to choose what to make of these statements, but to say there is no evidence that they were not on the bench is not the case.

        1. Rob, I could point out that the evidence at the High Court was not 100% ‘the truth and nothing but the truth’ – the court was misled on many points: the wishes of the family for example; the physical state of Yulia, for another. But this does not really matter.

          The point is that it is for each of us to decide what we think based on the EVIDENCE available to each of us. If we chose to disagree that is fine. In my theory, I can account (to myself) for the seemingly incongruous evidence of Christine Blanshard… but I would not ask you to agree with what I think.

        2. I think there is no doubt that the staff at the hospital called the two patients Sergei and Yulia, that is what the evidence says. The staff were told the people in their car were Yulia and Sergei Skripals.

          No one is disputing that.

          But to reject the evidence that they were not the Skripals and to reject the evidence that it was the same couple as seen in the published gym CCTV is more than cherry picking it is denial.

          The evidence is real, compelling but of course it can be dismissed if it doesn’t fit with a particular narrative.

          1. The staff were told the people in their car[e] were Yulia and Sergei Skripals.
            ————————–

            And none of them noticed that the Yulia impostor in your theory (the CCTV woman walking past the gym) didn’t look at all like the real Yulia being depicted all over the news?

      2. Paul, you wrote previously:
        ——————————————

        “The Skripals ID, keys and phones were planted on the bench couple so that they would be identified as the Skripals

        and

        Assuming they switched the phones off before they left home, say between 1:00 and 1:30pm, at some point they met their minder, handed over phones and ID and then vanished. The CCTV couple were given the phones and ID which were later found by police after the poisoning
        ——————————————-

        I asked you previously why those in charge of this incident would have chosen a blonde-haired woman to be the double for Yulia if Yulia did not have blonde hair at that time. And not only a blond-haired woman, but a woman who looked substantially older than Yulia .

        As Rob Slane wrote, ” the CCTV woman (despite being very blurred) is certainly not “a young, blonde and pretty girl”. She looks to me to be in at least her 40s.”

        Your reply was completely unsatisfactory. You wrote:

        If your question is “why was a blonde woman selected to be a patsy?” – nobody knew what the Skripals looked like anyway.

        But that’s nonsensical. The Skripals’ “minders” in your scenario would most certainly have known what the Skripals looked like; they would have known what Yulia’s her hair color was and everything else about her; and they most certainly would have tried to match the doubles to the real Skripals as much as possible.

        1. I am not trying to persuade you of anything, so if you think a blonde ‘patsy’ is implausible, I won’t argue with you.

          1. Paul, so you have no plausible explanation whatsoever why a blonde-haired, older woman would be chosen by the Skripals’ minders to be a double for Yulia?

            I’m not trying to persuade you of anything, btw, I’m just pointing out a huge hole in your theory.

            1. You just misquoted me. I did not say I had no plausible explanation, I said if YOU think it is implausible, I will not argue with you. You are entitled to your opinion.

              1. You just misquoted me. I did not say I had no plausible explanation
                ———————————-
                I neither misquoted your nor claimed that you had no plausible explanation–I asked if if it were true that you had no explanation.

                If you do have a plausible explanation, why won’t you present it?

                  1. ” That is my prerogative.”
                    ———————————-
                    Of course it is. That leaves us with the fact that no plausible explanation has been presented why, in your imagined scenario, the Skripals’ “minders” would have chosen a blonde-haired, older woman who didn’t look very much like Yulia to be a double for Yulia.

                    That’s gaping hole in your theory, which, of course, you have the prerogative to ignore.

                    1. I’ve said this all along about the ‘It wasn’t the Skripals on the bench’ theory. For it to be true, you have to think it reasonable that the people (whoever they are) that organised the switch didn’t bother to arrange a stand in couple that resembled the Skripals both in age, height and attire. And that when that couple were then hospitalised everyone at the hospital who had anything to do with them either didn’t notice they weren’t the Skripals (whose photos were plastered all over the media within days if not hours) or have been silenced entirely by the powers that be, every single one of them, which could be dozens of people, any one of who could at any point blow the whole deception out of the water.

                      Or you have to believe the people organising the whole affair poisoned a random kind of matching couple who had no idea they were to be poisoned, but equally that requires not only the hospital staff to be silenced but also the couple themselves (and their families/friends etc, as they would have effectively disappeared for weeks on end).

                      I’m sorry but it makes absolutely no sense at all, even if you agree that the whole thing was a distraction event to disappear the Skripals or something similar. Its no good coming up with a theory that fits a few small parts of the known information, but doesn’t make any sense from a wider perspective.

                      Yes there are some discrepancies between the witness statements, but to extrapolate those into a conspiracy whereby the Skripals weren’t poisoned at all and another couple were in their place just creates more problems than solutions to the entire affair. Eye witnesses are often proved to be totally incorrect in their recollection of events they have witnessed, indeed I would be more suspicious if all the accounts from eye witnesses agreed 100%.

          2. Peter and Paul, for some reason you seem to believe that if someone is not convinced that it was the CCTV couple who were on the bench, then they are rejecting any possibility of coverup, hoax, and a profoundly nefarious attempt to blame and demonize the Russians.

            Paul, for example wrote (September 3, 2018 at 1:40 pm) (emphasis added):

            Rob, If what Christine Blanchard said is true, there is no point to this blog – the Skripals were on the bench, then in SDH and are now in the hands of the British establishment. Just like HMG has said all along. You make it sound like there is no cover up, yet you yourself wrote a whole article on whether the PM had made a “deeply misleading statement” to the HoC. Rob, it is really simple: if there is no cover up, we are wasting our time. What is there to discuss? Things are exactly as HMG has said…

            But that’s completely wrong. A hoax and coverup do not require imposters on the bench. Rob Slane argued that point cogently in his response:
            ——————————————————–

            Rob Slane (September 3, 2018 at 2:26 pm )(emphasis added):

            […]Nothing of the sort, Paul. The PM did indeed make a deeply misleading statement. And yes there is a huge cover up. But there are other options for why this is than the one you assume it to be.

            Regardless of which is true — Skripals on bench or Skripals not on bench — the fundamental fact is that the two people didn’t die. They were therefore not hit with a nerve agent of the type they are supposed to have been hit with, nor in the manner in which they are supposed to have been hit with it. The official line is therefore false (and of course there’s a bunch of other reasons why).

  42. I think we are getting closer to the truth which is quite a feat given quality of the information that has come our way; lies, disinformation and refusal to give some details.

    My hunch isn’t based on intuition or wishful thinking, it is just a common feature of many puzzles. Towards the end of the problem it becomes simpler because holes have been filled; eg Jigsaws, suduko, crosswords etc.

    Lets take the jigsaw puzzle analogy further; we have been given several jigsaw, all of the same format, all double side printed, all revealing a different picture.

    Our target jigsaw even has lots of pieces missing. We are not meant to solve it, but we are doing.

    Certain pieces are in their correct places already, the complete picture will never be shown because the pieces simply are not there but we are able to tell what the picture shows.

    The picture shows and HMG hoax and Russia being blamed.

    It shows a Novichok Military Grade Nerve Agent was not used on the door handle or the bench couple.

    The bench is in the picture but not the people sat on it, those two pieces are missing. We are not meant to know who was on the bench, we were expected to get that information from HMG (who have consistently lied over the Salisbury and Amesbury poisonings).

    That’s all we really need to know to begin the criminal investigations and prosecutions of ALL those involved.

    But which police force is fit to investigate? Which prosecuting authority is fit to prosecute? Which Court fit to hear the cases?

    And Parliament, what’s that doing about the deplorable sate of affairs? Which MP’s are shouting for answers?

    1. We don’t know MUCH about ANY of it.

      To hold up a part of that, a lack of confirmation the Skirpals were on the bench, as evidence, is choosing part of a story for a pet theory.

      Yes we know about the descriptions of blonde hair, but people get mistaken in details.

      When the next delivery driver knocks on your door, give it half an hour then try and remember what they looked like.

      People are incredibly fallible.

    2. The picture shows and HMG hoax and Russia being blamed.
      —————————-

      Yes, that’s the essence of it, I believe (or it could be actions of rogue deep state elements which the British government subsequently latched on to.)

      The hoax, however, will never be satisfactorily investigated and nobody will be prosecuted. Geopolitics will predominate.

  43. One of Suspects says he speaks better English than other.
    That’s why they go through same Gates at Airports.

    I can go along with that if any problems arise..Logical.

    They both scared as I would be in same situation!

    Im not saying innocent but if you was just visiting-tourist
    you know history of sites you wish to see.

    People saying they reading of Wiki about history?
    Ok but I would do same to back story up. You do
    know basic history in subconscious and go for visit.

    Weekend breaks are popular and if R&A in London
    why not go Salisbury.

    Spur of moment. In area may not get second chance to visit.

    If Information about Hotel true why was it not released
    until now?
    I think they both being fitted to crime and only evidence connecting
    them both is because they Russian.

    Six months? Only my personal idea Ladies-Gents.

    Thanks

  44. If you are back @rob any chance of going to Dauwalders and asking if 13.49 was accurate and GMT?
    Because if it was accurate an exchange of backpacks could have been made in Priory Sq/Service Area as we have duck-feeding at 13.45 in Avon Playground.

      1. I did. They didn’t answer.
        It seems such a crucial point that if 13.49 GMT is accurate the Skripals and R&A where in the same place at the same time. The steps lead down from Sainsbury’s into Priory Sq. to access Avon Playground and R&A where on the correct side of the road to have come down Malthouse Lane from Priory Sq..
        I would imagine stamp guys are sticklers for accuracy. As it was March it would have been wrong for 5 months.

      2. I have already contacted them under a personal email address, and there was no reply.

        I have also spoken to a senior contact I can’t name, and they have said they were told the timestamp is accurate.

        Make of that what you will.

  45. This prezzo incident stinks.

    Nearly two days after it happens, and cordon still up, and no update, statement, nothing.

    If it’s fenatyl, drugs, normal cause, then there would be no delay in defusing the situation and opening the restaurant.

    This is something significant.

    1. I think it is HMG’s response to Russian tourists

      “Don’t think you are welcome in Salsibury!”

      Another triumph for the revitalisation of Salisbury.

      Suggestion.

      On some of those big screens put up to hide stuff why not put some catchy slogans.

      Russians Go Home

      Yah Boo Sucks To You Putin

      Remember Yalta

      1. Arrest Warrants have been issued against these two.

        What is the evidence?

        They were in Salisbury

        There was some Novichok (not a related compound) found in their hotel room. This find cannot be verified.

        The stuff that was found on the door handle (in high purity form, over two weeks after it was applied), found in the blood of the victims after more than two weeks, affected the bench people and killed Dawn Sturgess does not satisfy the strict Novichok identification criteria, it was according to Porton Down a related compound. The OPCW said it was wot PD sez.

        I repeat, the Arrest Warrants have been issued.

        Dawn is dead as a result of the same crime and these half wits are issuing facetious Arrest Warrants.

        How dare they disrespect Dawn’s life. How dare they spit on the vestiges of English Law, how dare they accuse without any slither of evidence these two young men, who let us not forget are innocent in the eyes of the Law.

        I’ll tell you how they dare, they are morally and ethically corrupt, they are panicking, they don’t care and they are useless.

        Absolutely stinking useless!

  46. Not sure if this has been picked up or not so putting it out there.

    Assuming the train time and station cctv time are accurate…

    The shop cctv time is accurate.

    It’s not only that the journey of one minute is apparently from what Rob has told me, impossible.

    But it’s the fact they tried to get into the shop.

    If the train was at two pm, and they tried to get into the shop ten minutes before it leaves, is it physically possible they could have lingered in there for two or three minutes, then got to the station before two?

    If not, then they weren’t fussed about missing it, as its only the fact the shop was shut that allowed them to get on it?

    Or the station cctv time is wrong…

        1. Not the CCTV of the shop. That was not mentioned by police. It was sold to Daily Mail after the police had published their CCTV. So the shop owner knew what to look for.

          1. I meant the time they were at the station, and caught the time was tied to their timeline.

            The Dewaulders footage contradicts that.

            Their actions in it contradict that.

            If it’s accurate CCTV timestamp.

    2. Someone who knows Salisbury station better than me and is familiar with which platforms are (normally) used for which destinations can probably help you better.

      But after not much digging because of the weather disruption (and possible weekend track maintenance works) the timetables were presumably not reliable.

      Is there an archive of when trains actually ran? (not when they were supposed to)

      What I think

      Direct trains run from London Paddington and Waterloo from Salisbury.

      There are Direct trains that take c 1hr 30mins (indirect routes take as long as they do)

      They platform they enter on Sunday I have my doubts about for London

      The arr / dep times given by the Met don’t tally with the timetables or the photo evidence they provided

      The London Salisbury routes have cctv on the trains

      ………

      So I am not at all sure they took the trains the Met say they did and arr / dep at the times they say they did. On the Saturday there is no evidence they proceeded beyond the entry turnstile.

    1. I’m pretty sure that yes he poisoned himself with the prescription medication the Russian doctors identified and then went to Berlin where they will no doubt find the said medication in his system . The purpose is to make it seem as if he was poisoned with a chemical agent and he and his group organised a non lethal dose ingestion of it .

      The Guardian continues to call the drugs poison although even his family has already alnowkedged it is prescription drugs . What does one expect from a group sponsored by the USA? Clever little gremlins eh .

      Regarding the US funding:

      The Pussy Riot support campaign is headed by Oksana Chelysheva from the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, the RCS is funded by The National Endowment for Democracy(NED) which is a U.S. non-profit “soft power organization” that was founded in 1983 with the stated goal of promoting democracy abroad. It is funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress in the form of a grant awarded through the United States Information Agency (USIA).

      U.S. non-profit soft power are NGO and similar promoting democracy abroad or in other words, promote regime change.

    2. Yes he has been poisoned. I scrolled through the German media.
      But as you will read, it´s not Novichok but rather the opposite.
      For those who are interested in the clinical findings, I translate a good article from German :

      Quote :”We assume that there has been an ongoing intoxication for nearly a week,” said Prof. Kai-Uwe Eckardt (58), Director of the Department of Nephrology and Intensive Care Medicine. “The clinical findings speak for a substance from the group of anticholinergics.”
      These active ingredients occur in nature in poisonous plants of the family Solanaceae. It is available, for example, in the belladonna, the datura or the angel trumpet. They are also contained in a few medications, such as in neuroleptics or in certain eye drops and as admixtures in drugs, for example in K.O. drops. The poison had been added to Wersilow in such a high dose that a self-intake was ruled out.
      The substance interfered with the regulation of the autonomic nervous system.
      “Wersilow has developed an anticholinergic syndrome,” said Eckardt. “There is an increase in nerve transmission in the part of the nervous system that controls the organs. The inhibitory part is blocked so that the nervous system is overactivated.”
      The symptoms that Versilov showed would speak for this. “Extended pupils, high blood pressure, increased heart rate, dry skin and mucous membranes, increased temperature,” says Eckardt.
      Also the extremely fast course is typical for a poisoning.
      “The patient came to us with a marked state of confusion,” says Eckardt. “This critical condition has improved significantly. He is not in mortal danger, no longer needs any mechanical support. He is conscious and has already left the bed. We can communicate with each other. However, a differentiated discussion with him about what had happened is not yet possible. All individual symptoms would be treated further, the substance has deposited in the body tissue.”
      Prof. Eckardt emphasizes: “We are confident that Wersilow will be completely cured – without permanent damage.”

      1. Thank you for that Liane, most helpful. I had read something similar in Medusa a week ago, those were the same conclusions of the Russian doctors before he moved to Berlin.

        I never doubted he was poisoned, but I am quite sure they (pussy riot) did it themselves in a non lethal dose to give strenght to the novichok narrative. As you may see from the article these are prescription drugs or recreational drugs.

        Judging by their previous stunts as “Voina” and the fact they are financially funded by the US State , this I believe is a clear self inflicted manouvre. Again the man is awake and he can’t remember where and how he was poisoned. A pattern there that reinforces my certainty this is an ordered self inflicted stunt.

  48. Reports of masked people male-female? Could they
    have been setting the scene. Seemed agitated-aggressive.
    All Units Go Go Go! Skripals on way to pick-up Evacuate
    Area!
    These masked people removed by Air Ambulance. Skripals
    gone in cars.
    The double bluff now in total disarray with doubles wandering
    around.
    D.S. Bailey now running around like a headless chicken.

    Just an idea about Mill area on my part?

    Thanks All

      1. Many Thanks for reply! Yeah was just thinking outside the box. Trying to
        tie loose ends I suppose?
        Here another one.just an idea again on my part.

        Is it just me or does Charlie Rowley look like A.C.C.Mark Rowley
        of Met Police?
        I think Mark Rowley has left post now due to retirement.

        Just thinking outside as I said. Probably no connection and it’s just
        me?
        Forces wouldn’t be that stupid would they?

        Many Thanks..Good Work Everyone!

    1. Jeremy Wright needs to get an education, especially when criticizing Russia:

      • Nazis state funeral in London pre-WW2 when the German Ambassador died, complete with Nazis flag draped over the coffin
      • Nazis admiration of the British Empire:
      – From 1936 to 1937 the British killed over 1,000 Palestinians. Whilst disarming the Palestinians, the British were arming and training Jewish special forces.
      – Eugene Rogan, Middle East Centre, Oxford University:
      “The reaction of the British authorities was very violent. They created concentration camps in Palestine and put thousands of Palestinian citizens in those concentration camps”.

      • London earning itself “the money laundering capital of the world” reminiscent to the Nazis in Argentina
      • Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, who came to live in Britain after serving 20 years in prison for war crimes
      • Nazis admiration of British military uniforms and adopting jodhpurs
      • Nazis love of fox hunting
      • The abolition of trade unions
      • Abhorrence of Russia, communism and left-wingers
      • Dietary advice in the form of pamphlets, including the loathing of butter
      • Creating Butlins style holiday camps
      • Evisceration of the Freedom of Speech
      • Distaste of the poor, sick, elderly, disabled and mentally ill
      • Slavery: Nazis forced labour camps – British slave trade
      • May’s Fusion Doctrine : Hitler’s Nazis Doctrine
      – Promoting unquestionable loyalty and obedience
      – Promoting racism – Russia, North Korea and Iran (at the moment)
      – Stifling intellectual debate

      • The 1936 Olympic Games, in which 49 countries participated, including Britain and the US, was hailed a success and became the benchmark of all future Games. Russia did not attend. It was praised by the international press including the UK and US, especially the New York Times.

      • In 1938 the English football team were ordered by British officials to give Nazis salutes before a friendly match between England and Germany. Russia did not attend.

      • The over 70,000 Russian towns and villages wiped off the face of the earth. Every man, woman and child killed, and the villages destroyed, by the Nazis simply because they were Russian.

      1. Jesse Owens, winner of 4 fold medals during the 1936 Olympics, and credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy”, wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the US President and still had to sit in places, specially designated ‘Negroes Only.’

        Ah, yes, the ‘good ol’ days.’

        Thanks for another impressive list, Anonymous-1 .

    3. He, like Karen Pierce at the UNSC, is misrepresenting the Russian position. The Russians have been facetiously keeping a tally of all the narratives presented in the UK by the Government and MSM. That is the list of 40 referred to. The Russians themselves to my knowledge have not voiced nay opinion other than to say they weren’t behind it.

  50. Its Salisbury Quiz Time!

    I had a quick look at the usual sites this morning, and still do not see an update on the latest victims.
    They are still being described as at least one Russian and Novichok free.
    Novichok free probably means that our friends at PD ran a quick acetylcholine esterase test, and pronounces the levels “normal.”
    So no nerve agent.
    As it was the older man/younger lady combo, then what do we have.

    1) Cocaine use/bad batch poisoning.

    2) Carfentanil in the heron.

    3) Food poisoning.

    4) Simultaneous heart problems.

    5) Acute case of Salisburyitis.

    6) Emotionally overcome by pictures of the spire.

    7)The couple stumbled upon the Blogmire, and realised too late that Salisbury was not a friendly place for Russians.

    8) Overcome with shock having looked at the menu prices.

    9) Something else.

    Just like the Skripals, no family members inquiring about their health, no mug shots, “do you know these people…”

    1. Duncan – I haven’t seen anything from the Russian Embassy about this. However a lot of ethnic Russians have Baltic state EU passports. As you say nobody seems to be owning up to them/expressing concern.

      1. Patrick,

        It will be the usual.
        The victims will have some sort of ID with them.
        Our intellegence agencies will be running a check on them.
        Then we will wait for the Terror Team to make an announcement.

    1. Georgy: Good link, thanks for posting. I’ve saved the page in the Wayback Machine (http://web.archive.org/)

      And just a reminder to contributors – the Wayback Machine is an extremely useful resource for recording pages, seeing how they change over time, and accessing them when the original sites remove them. I have noticed that a significant portion of links mentioned in these comments have not been archived in the Wayback Machine.

  52. Netherlands reportedly expelled two Russians working at the Hague, home of OPCW, for trying to hack the Spiez laboratory in Switzerland. The date of this event is not given, so it could be last week, last month for last year. Oddly, the story I read (didn’t save the link, sorry) included information usually shrouded in secrecy: identifying Spiez as one of the labs testing possible Novichok samples from Salisbury for HMG, in addition to possible CW samples from Syria.
    Yesterday, the Spiez lab Twitter account shared a journal article from researchers at a Czech university about Novichok, which is another possible breach of protocol.
    “Chemical warfare agent #Novichok
    – a mini-review of available data:
    Food and Chemical Toxicology, Vol.121, November 2018, Pages 343-350
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691518306598”
    Tweet:
    https://mobile.twitter.com/SpiezLab/status/1041672607773454342
    The article includes mention of the Skripal case and the accusations by UK against Russia: quite unusual for a supposedly scientific report. It also includes diagrams of possible Novichok chemical compositions, charts, etc.

  53. Bumped into a reference to Jay Z when perusing Craig Murray’s blog (wondering if he thinks, as might be possible, that the missing wikileaks IT security consultant Kamphuis is in a “black site”). Aha! Jay Z did it!

    Knows Salisbury Cathedral: https://www.capitalfm.com/artists/jay-z/news/magna-carta-original/

    Colludes with Russian oligarchs: https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/45549887/florence-hundreds-rescued-as-flooding-swells-in-carolinas

  54. I was looking into old articles today and spotted something odd.. to start with the guardian reported it was suspected fentanyl
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/05/salisbury-hospital-police-fire-crews-attend-major-incident

    then miraculously yesterday Salisbury live had this article posted. http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/16882114.fentanyl-warning-to-salisbury-drug-users/

    Fentanyl is an Opioid drug but is known to be cut in cocaine to make it stronger and more addictive but the mix of the 2 drugs can be fatal.

    Effects of the drug can include skin rash, cardiac or respiratory problems, coughing, hypotension (low blood pressure), convulsions and hallucinations.

    And didnt Skripal go to the toilet before falling ill and i think i read one of the latest people to fall ill went to the toilet too. could there be a a simple explanation for all these like fentanyl cut cocaine abuse ?

    1. “Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound.”

      This is not some fake news, coinspiracy theory or Kremlin press release. A Porton Down analyst said this under oath, according to the Judge’s Report on the application for OPCW to take new blood samples (Para 17 i). The link to the full report is here:-

      https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sshd-v-skripal-and-another-20180322.pdf

      Three things could have happened:-

      1. PD can’t tell the difference between a nerve agent and a related compound.
      2. The substance was a nerve agent.
      3. The substance wasn’t a nerve agent, but a related compound.

      The first is unlikely.
      The second is unlikley – why would the analyst say ‘or related compound’.
      Which leaves the third. Buy saying ‘either or’, the analyst avoided the lie.

      2. I suppose you don’t get the original substance from blood samples. The case of the British government does not rest on blood samples alone but on environmental samples too.
        British authorities did not just get environmental samples, they also got a fake perfume bottle with the stuff.

        There is no official statement where the “toxic substance” is named but we know because of Russia leaking the Spiez laboratory documents that it is A234.
        https://nypost.com/2018/04/14/russia-swiss-lab-analysis-shows-nerve-agent-designed-in-west/

        There is a Hungarian paper from 2009 on the substance
        http://archiv.uni-nke.hu/downloads/aarms/docs/Volume6/Issue1/pdf/15vasa.pdf
        “The program with code name “Foliant” started for development of a new binary chemical weapon. In 1987 Soviets created a new binary nerve gas called Novichok”.
        This series of agents were developed to achieve Soviet’s strategic objectives:
        1.circumvent the chemical weapons treaty,
        2.Novichok agents are undetectable using NATO standard chemical detection equipment;
        3.defeat NATO chemical protective gear.
        Russia produced several new agents with code name of Substance 33, A-230, A-232, A-234, Novichok 5 and Novichok 7. These toxics are geared for the deployment of binary munitions. Binary weapons are safer to store, transport and handle. When a new poisonous substance had been synthesized and tested in laboratory, its factory production was developed in such a way, that the synthesis of the compound was interrupted before the final reaction, so it looked like it was broken down into two relatively harmless compounds. These compounds are stored in separate containers ,,,”

        If A-234 achieved all the goals cited in the Hungarian paper how likely was it that Porton Down would be called in and managed to identify the stuff if not notified by an interested party on what to expect?

        A-234 is very exotic stuff to procure in order to use if all you intend to do is kill two people.

        If you want to claim that Syria has still soviet chemical weapons not included on the OPCW list this is the agent you would use.

  56. Video from the BBC’s Youtube channel:
    “The Skripal suspects’ walk through Salisbury – BBC News”

    Text at one minute into the video:
    “The police say the men walked to the Skripal’s

    The men say from there they walked to Salisbury Cathedral”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0jeG2zKeYY#t=1m

    No they didn’t:

    – The men (the Russian suspects) did not say that they were at the Skripal house (they both said that they did not even know where it was).
    – They did not say where they were coming from when they went to Salisbury Cathedral (only that they went to see it).
    – They did not say that they walked to Salisbury Cathedral (they did not say which means of transport they used to get there).

    As Mark Twain said (well, almost), to tell one lie is unfortunate, but to tell three lies in one sentence is careless.
    Or maybe the BBC did not bother finding out what the suspects said.
    https://www.rt.com/news/438356-rt-petrov-boshirov-full-interview/

    1. @ Brendan,

      It’s a mixture of parroting and toeing the [official government] line. The believe in telling lies over and over until the populace believes it, still stands firm after all these years. Must be because the gray, anonymous masses [the ones who’ve nothing to hide], do swallow the propaganda, hook, line and sinker.

    2. I’ve just left a comment on the BBC Youtube recommending people to visit this site.
      If that is against anyone’s rules here I will take it down
      Let me know pronto.

  57. “Corbyn and Labour caved and accepted the IHRA definition of antisemitism.”

    Why am I not surprised? OTOH, we can thus forget about any in-depth investigation into this farcical fiction story about evil Russians roaming through the streets of idyllic, British cities and towns… Why am I not surprised?

    1. OK Daniel I’ll bite. It was the NEC that caved in to the IHRA definition of stupidity NOT Corbyn!

      Anyway why get into a fight with the proponents of the IHRA definition of anything. Corbyn doesn’t fight, he organises, he recruits others to the cause, he builds change and momentum to make change and he is succeeding.

      In the current atmosphere of a sabotaging faction in the parliament and a rabid press howling like hyenas for his blood, Corbyn shows there is a better way. He doesn’t fight for what he wants to achieve, he doggedly recruits a team of like minded change makers to go after it with all their will. This the way to make sustainable change and to respect the huge number of people that share his vision.

      I believe Corbyn will succeed because he has the stamina and support in the broad populace to make a better political environment. The old politics is violence ridden, repulsive and achieves nothing other than more austerity, less engagement, more bitterness, less cohesion. I am truly in awe of the transformation and send Corbyn and all of his team and supporters my congratulations. THIS is the way.

      1. @ uncle tungsten,

        I hope he succeeds in getting rid of Friends of Israel handing down diktats. As a foreigner [to the UK] I’m amazed at how a foreign entity meddles in UK politics [directly or indirectly]. Here is an example of Haaretz whitewashing the Apartheid State’s meddling in UK politics. When they label Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘Israel’s most celebrated diplomat,’ I know someone is trying to lead me around by the nose.

        Because my personality differs dramatically from Mr. Corbyn’s, I’m aware my reasoning is flawed and nobody’s wrong.

    2. From today’s Independent:
      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salisbury-medical-incident-prezzo-high-street-wiltshire-police-poisoning-skripals-a8540566.html

      Quote…
      A source briefed by the emergency services said medics alerted the police because the symptoms “seemed consistent with novichok poisoning”. However, the source stressed those symptoms could be caused by other reasons.

      “The symptoms of novichok poisoning and particular types of narcotic abuse are very similar,” they added.

      1. Curious as the opposite rules seemed to be applied to the Skripals and DSB.

        It started off as a potential drug abuse/overdose.

        After the PD lot entered the scene it became a Novichock scenario.

        I can’t help thinking ( like Max-B ) that some idiot is going round Salisbury either making some bad drugs or someone’s bunging stuff in drinks or food or even cigarettes ( my theory – one of many by the way ).

        Apparently Carfentanyl goes a long long way when mixed with other stuff.

        Spill some on you though and you might be in trouble?

        The lastest was described as a substance – not food poisoning.

        As usual we will wait and see.

      2. So similar that perhaps the Skripals could have been contaminated with high grade fentanyl (or carfentanyl) perhaps?

        One of my pet theories is that Sergei was importing the stuff from Russia, maybe on behalf of organised crime. It might even be organised crime that has the nod of acceptance from the Russian State that what its doing is fine, its undermining the West from within, so help yourselves………

        1. My ‘tentative’ theory is that, for whatever reason, Sergei and Yulia – along with MI6 – set up the whole charade. Through his Russian underworld contacts (maybe even Yulia’s boyfriend?) Sergei set up Boshirov and Petrov as patsies. They were paid to act as couriers/agents of some sort to come over to Salisbury on the weekend in question (and perhaps meet up with someone at Salisbury Cathedral?) and follow certain instructions. No names (e.g. Skripal would have been divulged to them because they ‘didn’t need to know’). The ‘sting’ was set up to incriminate them. They themselves can’t reveal too much because their livelihoods would be affected, they would risk imprisonment in Russia and they are in fear for their lives if they reveal their business contacts. They were probably relatively small time, naïve, expendable crooks who have been doing this work for a while, maybe so their ’employers’ could see how proficient they were at travelling around Europe without being arrested. Because they passed the test they were selected to go to Salisbury for reasons unknown to them. I think Charlie and Dawn were connected to the Skripals but I can’t suggest in what way. B&P were just patsies and not involved in any of the ‘novichok’ incidents.

        2. So similar that perhaps the Skripals could have been contaminated with high grade fentanyl (or carfentanyl) perhaps?

          My guess is carfentanyl because it’s less immediately responsive to Narcan. Keep in mind that prior to 4 Mar, there had been no known fentanyl overdoses in Salisbury. Add to the mix, at least two SDH physicians that had very recent to 4 Mar completed training at PD.

        3. “Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound.”

          This is not some fake news, coinspiracy theory or Kremlin press release. A Porton Down analyst said this under oath, according to the Judge’s Report on the application for OPCW to take new blood samples (Para 17 i). The link to the full report is here:-

          https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sshd-v-skripal-and-another-20180322.pdf

          Three things could have happened:-

          1. PD can’t tell the difference between a nerve agent and a related compound.
          2. The substance was a nerve agent.
          3. The substance wasn’t a nerve agent, but a related compound.

          The first is unlikely.
          The second is unlikley – why would the analyst say ‘or related compound’.
          Which leaves the third. Buy saying ‘either or’, the analyst avoided the lie.

    3. @ Jim,

      Quote: “Fentanyl can cause skin rash, cardiac or respiratory problems, coughing, hypotension, convulsion and hallucination amongst other things.”

      Reply: Check side effects of so-called ‘legal’ drugs. Not much difference. But, yeah, Big Pharma pays Big Bucks, so, yeah…its okie-dokie….

  59. The police cordon at The Mill.

    As has been previously mentioned, the police cordon at The Mill pub included the rear car park/service yard. In fact, it would seem that that was the only area of interest for the police at The Mill.

    An online trawl has revealed a few more images – but not very many. There is also a Getty video which shows The Mill car park cordon:
    https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/exterior-shots-around-the-maltings-area-of-salisbury-with-news-footage/949418574

    Whilst the entire area around The Mill was part of the cordon, there are no images of any police searches being performed in the garden or by the side entrance. There are police guards but nothing else.

    The first set of images below, are of the cordon in the car park – note in the 4th image, the blue police tent – there are no such tents in the garden.

    Yard
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/16/10/4A3F7DAD00000578-5508633-image-a-17_1521196775604.jpg
    https://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20180405&t=2&i=1248290251&r=LYNXNPEE340NX&w=1280
    https://media.gettyimages.com/videos/exterior-shots-around-the-maltings-area-of-salisbury-with-police-a-video-id949418574?s=640×640
    https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/861bbc5b8797905ccee7a685ec1ed2a5

    The following set of images is of the garden area. It is clear that the whole area was taped off but not much seems to have been going on there.

    Garden
    http://www.insidewiltshire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MillBanner.jpg
    http://blackchristiannews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-mill-nerve-agent.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/15/07/4A2D8DAB00000578-5503849-image-a-3_1521100076453.jpg
    https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5afd95f02000004200b91d00.jpeg?ops=scalefit_960_noupscale
    https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/resources/images/8199596.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery
    https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/resources/images/7492422.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery
    https://e3.365dm.com/18/03/992×558/skynews-salisbury-spy-poisoning_4252792.jpg?bypass-service-worker&20180311115212
    https://e3.365dm.com/18/03/992×558/skynews-salisbury-spy-poisoning_4252918.jpg?bypass-service-worker&20180311140821

    The last set of images is the side entrance. Again it is all taped off but nothing is happening.

    Side entrance
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/16/10/4A3F7F5C00000578-5508633-image-a-9_1521196204036.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/15/11/4A35F69200000578-0-image-a-8_1521114460317.jpg
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e66c0bd5c8c0575a21a1429689df6039f9caa992/0_210_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=a8e52adc75a1ee81b6456fee5b4371d6
    http://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Mill-Salisbury-March-2018.jpg

    The car park does not feature in the official story of where the Skripals were on 4 March, so why have the police been so active there?

    1. Paul,

      A similar cordon exists at the back of Zizzis. It’s a bit difficult to see, as they erected these high fence/barriers with “Come to Salisbury: It’s great” type slogans on, along the river. But you can see that there is a metal fence behind this (the other side of the river) similar to the one at the back of the Mill that you can see on the video you posted. My assumption is that this was just so the police / Hazmats could come and go (without having to use the front entrance), and my guess is that the Mill situation could be the same. But there may be another reason?

      Rob

      1. Rob, I am aware that the back of Zizzi was fenced off – to establish an overall area for the cordon, you obviously have to close the back as well. I have not, however, seen any images of police working in that area. The images of work being done at Zizzi are: in front and inside Zizzi. We know that the Skripals must have been in those areas.

        The Mill is completely different. No doubt work was done inside (that we have not seen) but the Skripals presumably used the front entrance, both arriving and departing. There are no images of any work being done at the front entrance to The Mill. They only images of police searches at The Mill are in the car park/service yard and the official story does not place the Skripals there at all.

        If the Skripals had not been in the yard, I see no reason for a full scale police search (hazmat suits and all) of the area.

      2. Rob,

        Please have a look at this image. There is another building in the way, between Zizzi and the river. It would be impossible for anyone to “come and go (without having to use the front entrance)” – there looks to be a small yard behind Zizzi… but then a rather large brick wall.

        https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Salisbury,+UK/@51.0698571,-1.7962395,45a,35y,270h,45.07t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48738c5536009bb7:0xda3e080f25eaa06!8m2!3d51.068785!4d-1.794472

        1. I’m not sure Paul. I was only in Zizzis a couple of times (well, it was actually Ask Pizza at the time), but I seem to remember that there is a door in that wall (it actually looks to me like there is on the image at the back right hand side of the courtyard). I had assumed this was some sort of fire escape and that you could get from there, through that other building behind it, to the river bit. But I could be wrong (I often am in fact 😉 )

          Rob

          1. LOL! I noticed that too Rob, so I ‘flew around’ a bit! Whatever it is it is not a door – you would have to walk through the ground(?) floor of the adjacent building. In addition, there is no gap or passageway between any of the buildings. I’m afraid it is just a bricked-in yard.

            https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Salisbury,+UK/@51.0696211,-1.797103,48a,35y,45.07t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48738c5536009bb7:0xda3e080f25eaa06!8m2!3d51.068785!4d-1.794472

            1. Those aerial views give a good idea of the landing spots available for the helicopter, either on the grass or tarmac close to the bench. And there were plenty of police around to clear the area of members of the public if that was a concern to the pilot.

              1. I don’t imagine that you have the answer but I wonder whether the AA has EVER been called to another incident in the city center. It is only 2 minutes by land ambulance anyway.

                1. There is a photo of it in the market square I don’t now whether that was a PR of Incident gig but Market square mucuch closer to to the bench than where it landed on the 4th, in fact QEG is just as close

                  https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir///@51.0700432,-1.8000035,1115a,35y,180h/data=!3m1!1e3

                  AA landed near the bottom of the screen where it says “Long Stay Central P”,. Bench just under “Young Gallery”, Good landing site next to bench in Avon Playground and adjacent tarmac. Market Square sandwiched between “Minster st” and “Jackpots”

                  2. It certainly makes no sense but in fairness to the pilot, the trees near the bench look a bit too close for my liking! Plus the down draft when it landed would have blown everyone at the bench to bits!

                    It was never needed and the mission should have been aborted before it got there.

      1. My spade is ready!

        That is a really good find and dated 20 April.

        I would suggest that the area within the steel railings is where the car was waiting but how to acces that area? I don’t know where the back door of The Mill is – that is one possibility.

        The other would be to turn right out of the front door and cut through the trees by the side – but there is a fence that looks like it might block that route. Going that way there is one CCTV camera (on the right of the door) but it overlooks the garden so staying close to the building would probably avoid it.

        1. Paul,

          Just a note of caution before getting carried away with the back of the Mill possibility. There is a witness statement from early on which states that Sergei and Yulia left the pub, by which I can only assume they meant the front door. (In any case, I’m really not sure whether there is a back door that is accessible to the public — I certainly don’t remember it). I know that this is from a witness “who did not want to be named”, but I thought it worth flagging up:

          “Sergei Skripal went for a drink with his daughter at 3pm at The Mill in Salisbury after eating at a Zizzi Italian restaurant. In the pub, they ordered two glasses of wine before Mr Skripal went to use the toilet. The witness, who did not want to be named, said that when he returned he appeared as if he was drunk. He said Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia then left immediately without finishing their drinks.”
          https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20180310/281625305816856

          1. I remember that Liane but all it tells us is “he left immediately” not which way he went.

            He was a regular in the pub, it is possible that if he had asked the manager of the pub, he would have been let out of the back. Any excuse such as “I have a taxi waiting” would probably have been good enough.

              1. Everyone’s up late!

                So while we are here. The plan did not involve Sergei getting squirted with an incapacitant because he is old, unfit, drinks too much and is diabetic, therefore he is spared that.

                HMG plan. S&Y Get seen in the Mill. Leave, car waiting get in drive off. Signal given to impersonators to then enter Zizzis.

                Russian Plan (knowing HMG plan), Have a couple of their own impersonators already in Mill. S&Y enter, Clothes switch in toilets, S&Y leave by the back door, new S&Y leave by the front get in waiting car, signal given for the 2nd impersonators to enter Zizzi.

                1. Sergei’s plan certainly did not involve Sergei getting ‘squirted’… but I don’t think there was more than one lot of impersonators… they were only used to buy time… and I reckon the chances are 90% front door, 10% back door….

  60. https://www.sott.net/article/396096-Georgian-ex-minister-Leaked-documents-indicate-a-US-funded-facility-may-be-a-bioweapons-lab

    “Giorgadze points out that the facility has been the subject of rumors, and seemingly linked to mysterious incidents from the very beginning. Located in a Georgian village, it opened in 2011.

    “The people who lived there complained about frequent headaches, sickness and a strange smell” which they said emanated from the lab, the ex-minister said. The beginning of work at the laboratory strangely coincided with an increase in the incidences of some diseases on Georgian territory, he added. ”

    Shame we don’t know what goes on at the secret US facilities at Porton Down operating under diplomatic immunity.

  61. They going to keep this one {Novihoax-3} going with
    limited information-zero updates.
    Then it can be used to scare the sheep as and when
    required by HMG.
    SHOCK…Novihoax Found On Ceiling In Restaurant..Outrage!
    A Blatant Attack On British Ceilings By Russian State

    Britain will respond Robustly by staging fake Chemical Weapon
    incident Syria.

    2. “Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound.”

      This is not some fake news, coinspiracy theory or Kremlin press release. A Porton Down analyst said this under oath, according to the Judge’s Report on the application for OPCW to take new blood samples (Para 17 i). The link to the full report is here:-

      https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sshd-v-skripal-and-another-20180322.pdf

      Three things could have happened:-

      1. PD can’t tell the difference between a nerve agent and a related compound.
      2. The substance was a nerve agent.
      3. The substance wasn’t a nerve agent, but a related compound.

      The first is unlikely.
      The second is unlikley – why would the analyst say ‘or related compound’.
      Which leaves the third. Buy saying ‘either or’, the analyst avoided the lie.

  64. “This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
    That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
    Why the man dies.”

  65. That “non-existent thing” (I’ve concluded) is a personification of the denied human instinct to destroy. YHWY is also known as a “Lord of War” (Exodus), and more frequently, as the “Lord of Hosts” (standing armies); in other words, a military general.

    We fight wars to satisfy an instinct. Shakespeare (Hamlet) sets up a whole act partly to make this point . . .

    “This (War) is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,

  66. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50271.htm

    “The ordeal imposed on Russian citizens traveling or sojourning in Western states shows that hysterical Russophobia and official paranoia is out of control. It’s “open season” to criminalize all Russians.

    The cases of Maria Butina detained in the US, and that of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two men who traveled to Salisbury in England, are illustrative of a totally irrational anti-Russian mindset that has run amok.

    All have been accused of being Russian agents. Butina is facing five years in an American jail if she is convicted of spying. Her lawyer maintains she broke no laws while in the US. The only thing she seems “guilty” of is networking with various social and political groups — and of being Russian.
    The two men mentioned, fortunately, made it back to Russia before British authorities incarcerated them too on false charges.

    Petrov and Boshirov have been charged in absentia by British police in connection with the apparent poison-attack on a former Russian spy living in Salisbury. The British government accused the two men of being assassins belonging to Russian military intelligence, GRU. The basis for accusation is the pair were filmed by public CCTV cameras being in Salisbury town on the weekend that ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were allegedly poisoned with a nerve agent.”

    And the president talked to a Russian – TREASON! IMPEACHMENT!

    Could s.b. please call the shrinks!

  67. Hang On A Minute…Blond 30ish-Male 40ish!

    Cleaners…Market Walk…Original Cctv Bungle..?

    We put pressure on Original Time Info Rubbish.

    Strange how this happened lastnight now We getting
    bottom of cover-up?

    Keep The Sheep Fed On Novihoax

  68. From the MH17 presentation:

    “…a record of intercepted communications of Ukrainian officials discussing, in 2016, the risk of flying through restricted airspace over Ukraine. Among a barrage of complaints one phrase says unless the restrictions are respected “we’ll f***ing f**k up another Malaysian Boeing”.

    The Russian military say the complaints came from Col. Ruslan Grinchak, who serves in a brigade responsible for radar control of the Ukrainian airspace. His unit tracked the MH17 flight in 2014.”

    Also, serial numbers on parts of the BUK indicate that it was made in 1986 and sent to Ukraine:

    “The missile was shipped from the plant on December 29, 1986 and delivered to military unit 20152 located in what is now Ukraine. It is now called 223rd anti-aircraft defense regiment of the Ukrainian armed forces, the report said. The unit took part in Kiev’s crackdown on rebels in eastern Ukraine in June 2014, the general said.”

    Hmm… Ukraine has already said that it did not lose control of any of its BUKs… so how could it end up in the hands of what Ukraine says are ‘rebels’… the Ukranians said the rebels had a BUK from Russia… whoever had control of that ‘Ukranian BUK must have been the party that fired it.

    1. I’ve always had the impression that the Russians will just patiently pay out the rope until they are ready to yank it tight – it seems to me that we’ve reached that point.

      1. Cascadian,

        It’s a good point.
        I have not many many Russians, but the one I have spoken too seem to have the “stoic/we always get blamed anyway/ we are back on the naughty step” attitude.
        Rob commented on this way back in the early Skripal Saga days.
        I had wondered why the UK Ambassador or his Press Officer do not simply ask the UK media the basic questions that we have in the Blog .
        Basic questions that show HMG is not telling the truth.

        If the Russian Ambassador held a press conference with Paul, Rob and Liane asking the press questions, (or even the other way round, or though for 6 months there have been no press questions!) then the MSM might be forced to see the light.

        Wake up Salisbury!

      2. You might be interested in this blog:

        http://kremlintroll.nl/?p=2714

        “Today was a remarkable day. For the first time the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation held a press conference about the MH17 case in which it took a pro-active stance, instead as previously, responding to challenges from its ‘partners’.
        …
        The first twelve minutes of the press conference today were no less than major league Russian trolling against the MH17 JIT. Here’s why, JIT now has these three options:

        1) Admit a Ukrainian Buk missile shot down the Malaysian Boeing. (not gonna happen)
        2) Admit the items presented at the 24 May presser were just props. (Oops, why?)
        3) Let the crickets do the talking or come with a lame excuse.
        …
        – Today became very clear Russia has a lot more evidence than it is willing to show for now.
        – Malaysia already indicated there is no conclusive evidence to blame Russia.
        – The pseudocide of the Babchenko ‘stunt’ by the Ukrainian SBU must have sent shivers down the spines of the Dutch and Australian JIT investigators and made them very insecure about what other disasters still to be expected from this JIT member.

        I agree with Russia the official MH17 investigation is fundamentally flawed.”

    4. Paul – the “another” is interesting. I have never heard an explanation of what the two Ukrainians were doing on MH370. Their backgrounds more opaque than Alex and Ruslan.

      1. OLEG CHUSTRAK UKR 45
        – Oleg Voladymyrovych Chustrak is a former Ukrainian military personnel from Odessa.
        – 45 years old.
        – Serving in unit SBU Ukraine / CIA USA / UTEL Ukraine telecommunication.
        – On March 7, 2014, came to Malaysia and stayed at Everly Putrajaya Hotel near BN’s Najib Razak house at precinct 10.
        – On March 8, 2014, boarded MH370 27E / Class EYCL passenger seat.

        SERGII DEINEKA UKR 45
        – Sergii Grygorovych Deineka is a former Ukrainian military personnel from Odessa.
        – 45 years old.
        – Serving in unit SBU Ukraine / CIA USA / UTEL Ukraine telecommunication.
        – On March 7, 2014, came to Malaysia, also stayed at Everly Putrajaya Hotel, with Oleg Chustrak near BN’s Najib Razak house at precinct 10.
        – On March 8, 2014, boarded MH370 27D / Class EYCL passenger seat.

        https://thecoverage.my/news/three-former-ukrainian-military-personnel-alleged-to-be-involved-in-the-fall-of-mh370-and-mh17/

        1. Very interesting Paul. I often think the plane was disappeared by or because of these guys. There was a photo of one with the Burj Khalifa in the background, could be a 9/11 attack on it was foiled.

          1. Patrick, MH370 is a mystery to us – but ‘they’ know what happened to it. There was a ‘mystery cargo’ onboard that plane – not the lithium batteries that are used to distract anyone that starts looking. The calculation of the fuel taken onboard for MH370 does not tally with the known number of passengers and known cargo weight. It was too much fuel or the plane was heavier than stated. Numerous theories have been advanced to disguise that fact and none of them hold water.

            There are rumours that a US drone command and control center had been captured by the Taliban and they sold it to China. It was shipped to Kuala Lumpur and 2 US Navy Seals died in mysterious circumstances connected with that shipment. Whether true or not – who knows? The one thing I do know, was that China’s participation in the search mission was absolutely unprecedented. Yes there were a lot of Chinese people onboard – but that was not China’s motive, you can be sure of that! Why did China spend so much resources looking for MH370…

              1. Thanks Sabine, I know about that too.

                Just in case anyone is confused by it, the ‘Balckstone’ you refer to (The Blackstone Group – a financial services business) has nothing to do with ‘Backstone Intelligence’ of the Met fake pictures video.

  69. chris, anidea and Paul spoke of a „Vitamin & Supplements Store“ Nutrilite on Wilton Road. This seems interesting to me, since Petrov and Boshirov say they work in such business : it could perhaps make their statements likely. Are there objections ?

    1. 2 small issues:
      1) it does not seem that a shop exists there, it is an office with online sales as far as I can see;
      2) It was Sunday luchtime… not the best time for business. Would have made more sense to do it on Saturday (since the slush prevented them doing anything else).

      1. Nutrilite is an Amway brand. Amway does private distribution marketing like Tupperware.
        https://www.nutrilite.com/en_us.html

        Amway does operate in Russia
        https://www.amway.ru/en/about-amway-new/global/local

        So it is possible the two are “Amway” businessmen.

        I know Amway recruited in a big way in Eastern Germany after the wall fell. They would have done that in the whole of Eastern Europe.

        And now we talk
        https://www.fort-russ.com/2016/06/meet-pyramid-scheme-with-cia-ties-and/
        “Meet the pyramid scheme with CIA ties and a million “network agents” in Russia”
        It is very possible the two were set up via Amway.
        Hegedus is Hungarian for Fiddler as Skripal is Russian. There is some irony in this.

    2. The phone number given is a UK mobile number and is the same as that of an IBO (Independent Business Owner) agent for Amway, the American owners of the Nutrilite brand. His name also appears in some pages from the website that were cached by Google in July.

      The address appears to be a of residential property, as there is no indication in the image in Streetview from last year that it was a shop or business.

      The Facebook page of someone with his name and similar appearance says that his current city is Salisbury, Wiltshire. His favourites include Amway of Australia & New Zealand as well as Salisbury Police Department.

      If it could be confirmed that the business and website were not just invented after March 4, it would of course explain why the two owners of a Russian fitness nutrition business were in Wilton Road that day.

      1. July was the time the images of the two appeared first in the media claiming that British police were looking for them.

        Russia will have known about them from there.

        So someone is trolling.

        The name Hegedus is a giveaway.

        It is quite possible that Amway as the National Rifle Association has been used by Russia for reverse spying.

      2. anidea, maybe you’re referring to the report with a July date that someone here linked to a few days ago. I think it was from a Swiss website. I could not find any evidence that the timestamp in it was authentic.

        If the Nutrilite online shop is a fake that was created before September – which is possible – then it’s more likely to be an anti-Russian trap. The idea could be to make reports that question the official narrative look like fake news.

        1. I think it is trolling and a giveaway. It is “highly likely” that Borishov and Petrov had an “independent” Amway business and that is how they got their visa.

          Where is this visa information?

          It is surely possible to try to contact this Hegedus/Scripal/Fiddler guy via Amway.

    3. PETROV: Very briefly, we work in the fitness industry. Supplements for athletes, vitamins, minerals, proteins, gainers, and others. If we give you any further details, this may affect our partners and people we know.

      SIMONYAN: You are sweating, let me turn on the AC.

      BOSHIROV: Yes, thanks.

      PETROV: It’s hot.

      (…)

      SIMONYAN: And what does your business have to do with Europe?

      PETROV: It’s about healthy food, products and vitamins that they sell in Europe.

      SIMONYAN: So, you purchase food there and then bring it here?

      PETROV: It’s not about buying it and bringing it over here in bags. We study the market for new products, including biologically active food supplements, amino acids, vitamins and microelements. Then we come back and decide what we need the most and try to figure out how these new products can be shipped over here. This is an area of our work.

      https://www.rt.com/news/438356-rt-petrov-boshirov-full-interview/

      1. Researching Amway is fun.
        https://www.amway.com/lcl/en/ResourceCenterDocuments/Visitor/recg-amw-evnt-v-en–HeroAward-Patriotism-GWilson.pdf

        “In my job I had the best of multiple worlds, in a sense,” said
        Glenn about his Secret Service career. “I had activities that
        were tremendous adrenaline rushes in times of high tension.
        Then, I might be walking the golf course at Pebble Beach®
        withthe president. Then, the next month I might fi nd myself with a full beard working undercover.”
        Initially, the worldview he developed through his Secret Service work made readjusting to a “normal” life somewhat difficult when he retired … “That’s where I was in my thinking when the Amway opportunity
        came along,” explains Glenn. “The steps I took in my personal
        development caused me to read things I never would have read,
        listen to things I never would have listened to, and take counsel
        and mentorship from people I would have never even known.”
        More than that, he said he learned to trust people again.
        “Because to me the opportunity means that you have to give
        before you get. You have to plant before you reap, so to speak, and help others achieve before you achieve. So it was quite a transition and it took me several years to really start looking at things that way and realize that my success can only come from helping other people succeed,” he said.”

  70. Sorry Ladies-Gents
    I think World is laughing at United Kingdom.
    Theresa May has got Our Country into an irreversible
    situation.
    Her Lie has got out of hand..It’s breaking free and people
    are seeing the holes in HMG.

    It is now time for Her to step-down and face justice.

    Ashamed Of Our Government.

  71. All hell is going to break lose today .

    Russia just declassified documents and played an audio of intercepted communications that indicate that The Ukranian military downed MH17. They also exposed bellingcat video as a fake .

    The evidence presented is ,as far as I can judge, beyond any doubt and I wonder what western forces will use to deny it .

    video of press statement is on RT. Get ready for an aggressive reply from western forces and an hysterical bellingcat .

      1. Stranger that the hysterical guardian or sky or DM reports I expected , I’ve found nothing in the western media but a deafening silence . Which is actually worse .

    2. ” Get ready for an aggressive reply from western forces ”

      I rather think, they will “aggressively” ignore it, like they ignored the meeting at The Hague with doctors and children from Douma who testified that there was no “chemical weapons attac.”

      They still insist there was one, make Russia pay for it and keep getting away with it.

      1. I am afraid I have to agree Chris . It will be interesting to see the new Malaysian Government’s reaction . They refused to endorse the Dutch and bellingcat findings so it will probably be interesting .

  72. Liane..The rubbish reports from witnesses about bizarre actions at Hotel.
    Im so shocked!
    Why had this not come out before,strange that? Don’t they watch Tv or
    listen radio in London?
    Hotel knew nothing about Novihoax-Russians, then out the woodwork and
    redecorated room we have a cannabis fuelled orgy?
    This is real Anti Russian propaganda as another post stated.
    Good Post…Shame On Daily Mail
    Well Done.

  73. This comment below is from an OffGuardian open thread of 15 September.
    and may interest Blogmirers, if not already read. For me it rings true and strengthens the arguments of fabrication and avoidance of truth by UK authorities. It is not written in pristine English, but is witty, well informed and insightful.

    Open Thread: Skripal Suspects Interviewed on RT
    alaffcreator September 15, 2018 OFFGUARDIAN
    I thought it will be good to post my comment on this platform too. Yesterday i posted this comment on Bellingcat’s website in their topic about “Suspects passport data”. Not sure they will publish it. Maybe they’ll do, maybe not. Anyways, here’s what I answered to Bellingcat’s “investigation”:

    (1) First, and the most important – It’s useless to seriously discuss this topic (read, this version of events) simply because any normal & sane person understand that real personnel who work for special/secret services will never (i repeat, never) be presented in any kinds of public/civilian databases – passport database, tax database, address database, drivers licence database and so on and so on. This is ridiculous.
    And even if we assume purely theoretically (as the most incredible and stupid fantasy) that secret agents are actually present in some civil databases, it is absolutely clear that they will never use their real names – i.e. if Petrov/Bashiros would be a secret agents and use these names in their “passport forms”, then they would never call themselves the same way – Petrov/Bashirov – giving interview to RT. Mean, we would hear something like “I am Ivan Zubov, i am Maksim Moshkin”.

    (2) Bellingcat – we know who you work for and what your task is. So, why did you need to “search” for the alleged “passport data” of these two men? Britain issued them a visa, so the British side has very detailed data on these men – their fingerprints, foreign passports, HQ photos, addresses, phones, contacts, a list of their closest surroundings (also with contacts) and much more. All this is in the British side (which for some reason is afraid of all this to show). I mean, it’s strange that your sponsors/supervisors didn’t take care that the British side provided this information for your “investigation”. Although… yes, obviously, you need to create the semblance that you “tracked down”, “found” these data during the “investigation”. Ok.

    (3) “…two Russian nationals identified by UK authorities as prime suspects in the Novichok poisonings on British soil…”
    Hmm, but what about Mikhail Savitskis aka “Gordon” and his 6-people “killer team”? Bad, “inconvenient” version? Savitskis is too “unseen”, “mystical”. It’s hard to show him to the public. Look, here we have these two guys right on our cameras. Let’s better use them. In this case we can show screenshots to the public and it will be some kind of “evidence”. This version is better, so forget about Savitskis, let’s use these two gawks.
    Btw, if the poisoning ever happened (still no info it really happened), then victims most likely were poisoned by BZ agent, not by substance you call “Novichok”. Symptoms, the very possibility of recovery, other signs – everything speaks in favor of BZ. For some reason British side afraid of this info and try to hide it from the public. S.Lavrov was, in fact, the only one who reported this data to the public in April, based on the expert opinion (data from the laboratory of the Swiss city of Spiez, who analyzed samples from Salisbury).

    (4) If British side claim what these two say is not true – what’s the problem? You can always visit Russia, interrogate them, you can test them on lie detector. You can do many things. Why not do? Though, we know the answer, right? British side will not like the results, as it didn’t like after interrogating Andrey Lugovoy, and checking him on lie detector in a “Litvinenko case”. Lugovoy’s testimony, confirmed on lie detector, did not suit the British side, because contradicted their version of “Russia’s guilt”, so it was simply ignored in final conclusions. How nice, isn’t it?

    (5) “…However, no records exist for these two personas prior to 2009…”
    ‘No records exist’, or… you simply failed to find it?

    (6) “…no records exist for these two personas prior to 2009. This suggests the two names were likely cover identities for operatives of one of the Russian security services.”
    Haha, a stunning, ingenious conclusion! Naturally, if you didn’t/failed to find the data for two men, dating back to 2009, then it definitely means that they are “operatives of one of the Russian security services”. Can there be any more conclusions? Of course not. Hahaha. You know, people who draw such conclusions as you are usually called conspiracy theorists.

    (7) “…at least one man’s passport files contain various “top-secret” markings, which, according to at least two sources consulted by Bellingcat, are typically reserved for members of secret services or top state operatives.”
    Yeah, sure. Russian special services (who last year celebrated its 100th anniversary) are so dumb that they leave “various “top-secret” markings” on the paper forms of their secret agents, and moreover they let these papers to be in some civil databases that some “online investigators” can obtain one day. Isn’t it funny for you yourself?
    Facepalm. And see (1).

    (8) “These findings, along with peculiarities in the two men’s bookings of their flight to London, make Russia’s official statements that Petrov and Boshirov are civilian tourists implausible…”
    You take two obviously ridiculous, strange and suspicious things and use it as a base to claim Russia’s statement is implausible. But why do you ignore the direct data/information that these two guys told? They told a lot of information. Not difficult to check out. If really interested, of course. They said they failed to visit Stonehenge because of snow. There was snow in that time in London/Salisbury. They said they wanted to see Salisbury Cathedral because this is a very famous/popular/beautiful place. This is true, this place is really famous. They said what they did, where they were, what they saw, where they were drinking coffee and many other things. Why so afraid(?)/lazy(?)/not interested(?) to check out reliability of this data?

    (9) Russian rules for issuing passports assume:
    passport is issued in 14 years before the age of 20 years.
    passport is issued in 20 years before the age of 45 years.
    passport is issued in 45 years and no longer changes.

    You claim Alexander Petrov was born on 13 July 1979. If so, he should have received his first passport in 1993 when he was 14 years old. The man on the b/w photo does not look like a 14-year-old teenager. Then Petrov had to change his passport in 1999 when he turned 20 years old. Again, the man on the b/w photo does not look like a 20-year-old young man. Judging by the photo, I would give him ~ 25-30 years old.

    (10) Regarding the date of birth. Again, you claim Alexander Petrov was born on 13 July 1979. And you mentioned Russian media outlet Fontanka. Yes, Fontanka reported on September 5, 2018 about a person with that name (Alexander Petrov) born on July 13, 1979, but… for some reason you don’t say that Fontanka meant a completely different person. Namely (quote from Fontanka): “A person with such a date of birth and a surname-name is found in the list of employees of the national manufacturer of immunobiological preparations – the FSUE NGO” Microgen”. Alexander Petrov from the “Microgen” company has long denied his involvement in this whole story –https://www.gazeta.ru/social/2018/09/06/11951875.shtml

    (11) On the whole, what do you show? You show b/w photo of some man, presumably Alexander Petrov. Yes, color and b/w photos are similar, but it’s unknown if this is the same one person. Then you show some very strange “trimmed” line with a title “Do not provide information”, some number and handwritten name Petrov Alexander Yevgenievich. It is unknown if the name on this trimmed line and real Alexander Petrov (the one interviewed by RT) is one same person. It is unknown what is this line (is it from some real document, or was it made in Photoshop etc). Then you show a blank passport data form with “There is a letter. S.S” title. Again, it is unknown if this passport data form has any relation to Alexander Petrov interviewed by RT.
    In total, you showed some scrappy strange “documents” (they look like made in Paint 1.1 graphics editor, not even in Photoshop) and tried to “link” them to a person.
    Very unconvincing.

    (12) Btw, regarding your blank passport data form. What’s wrong with your “pictures-evidences”? Why so low quality, blurred, illegible? You were too haste to make a “proof”? It seems so.
    Here’s the original Russian passport form: https://s33.postimg.cc/dse6btfjz/passport_back.jpg
    This is intended to receive or replace a passport. This is the official form.
    In the upper right corner, it must be necessary indicated “Форма №1П (оборотная сторона)” (in English – “Form №1П, (reverse side)”).
    In the lower right corner there will be a mark “ДПК604”.
    Where’s this “Форма №1П (оборотная сторона)” and “ДПК604” on your fake picture? Instead you have some “Do not provide information” strange title. Can’t even call this a stamp. It seems it was created in Paint 1.1 graphics editor.
    Why your lines are so intermittent? The real, original form comes with normal straight smooth lines.
    Sorry, your “documents” look like a cheap fake.

    (13) “A source working in the Russian police force who regularly works with the central database confirmed to Bellingcat and The Insider that they have never seen such a stamp on any passport form in their career.”

    You must be kiddin’? A “source working in the Russian police force” that “confirmed” something to Bellingcat? Especially a “police force” who “regularly works with the central database”? Obviously, you have no idea what rules are in force in Russian law enforcement bodies. For such “consultations” to an outsider/foreigner, your “source” may be threatened with dismissal – and this is the softest punishment. I don’t know who your “source” is, but I very much doubt that this is a real police officer/official who has access to databases. Definitely.

    (14) “..That source surmised that this marking reserved for operatives of the state under deep cover.”
    So the source surmised? I mean, he not clearly stated/claimed? It means, the source, in fact, have no idea. Ok.

    (15) “Per the same source interviewed for this story, S.S. is a common abbreviation for “sovershenno sekretno”, Russian for “top secret.”
    Haha, why didn’t your “source” think that the abbreviation S.S. can denote, for example, a banal name and surname of some official? For example, Sergei Savinov, or Semen Suvorov.
    Btw, Russian designation “Top secret” – in fact it sounds like “Absolutely secret” – look like “Совершенно секретно”, i.e. it is written completely, not by just two letters. Sometimes “Совершенно секретно” (“Absolutely secret”) can be written a little shortened as “Сов. секретно” (“Abs. secret”), but, again, not by just two letters.
    https://s33.postimg.cc/5bf67gorj/SS-title2.jpg
    https://s33.postimg.cc/hq1y7pg8v/SS-5.jpg
    So “S.S.” is not a “common abbreviation” for the Russian version of “Top secret”.
    Does anyone in the US write “Top secret” as “T.S.”? I doubt. So what makes you think in Russia they act differently?
    You talk about what you don’t have a clue about (as in many your other “investigations”). Gluing together the conjectures, strange conclusions, dubious “documents”, you are trying to convince the reader these two guys are “GRU secret agents sent personally by Putin to eliminate Skripal and his daughter”. This is very funny. For all adequate people, it has long been clear that Russia has nothing to do with this whole story. Russia will continue to consistently and quietly expose the lies of the British authorities.
    Loading…

    1. “Btw, Russian designation “Top secret” – in fact it sounds like “Absolutely secret” – look like “Совершенно секретно”, i.e. it is written completely, not by just two letters. Sometimes “Совершенно секретно” (“Absolutely secret”) can be written a little shortened as “Сов. секретно” (“Abs. secret”), but, again, not by just two letters.
      ————————————-

      Not necessarily. See Словари и энциклопедии на Академике
      https://translate.academic.ru/%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%80./ru/
      ———————————————————————
      См. также в других словарях:

      секр. — С сек. секр. секретно С Словарь: Словарь сокращений и аббревиатур армии и спецслужб. Сост. А. А. Щелоков. М.: ООО «Издательство АСТ», ЗАО «Издательский дом Гелеос», 2003. 318 с. секр. гриф на документах Словарь: С. Фадеев. Словарь сокращений… … Словарь сокращений и аббревиатур

      секр. — секретарь; секретно … Русский орфографический словарь

      секр. — секретарь секретно … Словарь сокращений русского языка

      сов. секр. — сов. секр. СС совершенно секретно гриф на документах сов. секр. Словарь: С. Фадеев. Словарь сокращений современного русского языка. С. Пб.: Политехника, 1997. 527 с. СС гриф Словари: Словарь сокращений и аббревиатур армии и спецслужб. Сост. А. А … Словарь сокращений и аббревиатур

  74. Rob gets a mention.

    It must be only days away now – I wonder if it’s possible to an in bound nuclear warhead? I had a dream about that once, decades ago, the incoming warhead will probably leave a trail like a meteor as it decelerates on entry to the atmosphere. It will probably be quite a light show if it’s during a cloud free night. Being in the UK, we probably won’t see a thing until the blast hits.

    Just remember the outward blast wave is followed by an inward blast wave shortly after – I recall being told that on a course sometime ago.

      1. This sums it up:

        “It is in this context that the extraordinarily overblown and false accusations against Russia over the Skripal incident need to be viewed. That the British, with the willing compliance of their allies, are willing to defy long standing legal processes; to conceal vital information; to ignore international obligations such as Consular treaties; to censor their own media; to ask the public to accept a series of improbabilities, contradictions and absolute fabrications; indicates that far more is at stake than the fate of a hitherto obscure and low level traitor.”

        1. Agree it pretty much tells it as it is but doesn’t dwell enough on the recent history that has got the US into the irretrievable situation it has.
          The US, now, cannot win but we can all lose.

          But the US did not have to get themselves into this position, the US chose that route.
          They had the Middle East sown up, the Petro-Dollar was theirs, they could print as many US Dollars as they wanted and the large economies of the earth would soak them up because it was also in their interest.
          But the US wanted more.

          They wanted the European Energy Supply Monopoly too. That was not going to happen.
          So they destabilised Russia as they had the Middle East with paid militias to do their dirty work. They camped NATO troops on the Russian border. They blockaded China as a warning not to get involved.
          China responded by tearing up the US birth right to the Petro-Dollar, Russia responded by putting a stop to the final stage of the Middle East Project.

          But again these responses were not overnight emotional reactions, first they built up their military capabilities, driven by technology not by size. Brain rather than Brawn.
          Both allowed the US to back themselves into a corner.
          Now it is Crunch Time. China and Russia are Ready Willing and Able.

          The ball is in the US Court, the UK are Irrelevant but Blair, Cameron and May insisted we play a part; the holder of coats.

          My honest view is that for a Country with so much wealth and talent that allowed successions of such craven, febrile psychotic leaderships to take the country and the world to the brink, means they have not got the collective intellect, wisdom or capacity to see 1) The position they are in and 2) Understand and Believe that they will all be destroyed. Each and everyone of them. Some more slowly than others (until the bunker supplies dry up).

          The US need a sign, a warning of what might happen if they don’t back off. They simply do not understand the rules of the game or the practicalities. They simply have no comprehension of what they are facing. The other important factor, the leaders, the warmongers, the Zionist Neocons who are calling the shots are old. They are at the end of their lives. They have no mental capacity for love, compassion, empathy. They care nothing for anything but themselves. They are, quite literally Mad!

          And because of Blair, Cameron and May (And the UK Electorate) the final Act is being played out in Salisbury.

          Humanities Last Stand.

          1. Peter, Great post. All the things you say are true but there is one other consideration which is the over-arching, over-riding, ‘whatever else happens, this comes frst’ issue: Greater Israel.

            As your post makes abundantly clear: the US has not been acting in its own interests for a very long time.

            On 9/11 Netanyahu was asked what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel. His reply:
            “It’s very good… Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.”

            In 2008, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported that Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the 9/11 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel:

            “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

            Therein lies the problem.

            1. With all due respect for Rob and his belief, but I’m an atheist with the firm conviction that a whole host of our problems derive from a particular group people, who profess to harbour a belief in that non-existent thing, yahweh.

              They take as justification for their actions belief in a non-existent entity which is taken, by its believers, to be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent and beneficient to them all.

              It’s that thing which, if asked by its believers, “am I doing the right thing?” will never contradict them, will never intervene, will never scream in thunderous tones “NOT IN MY BLOODY NAME!!!!!”.

              1. Ah, but the Bible is full of instances of people doing things in the name of God, and using this as justification for their actions. But that same God promises judgement for such.

                The fact that you see many invoking the name of God today to justify their wickedness is nothing new under the sun. But there is this: “Be not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

                1. Ain’t no one cast into hell for lacking evidence, Pete. If you choose to turn your back on God and his goodness (like giving you life and all that), then eventually he’ll turn his back on you and you’ll have neither him nor the gifts he gives. Which is what you wanted, isn’t it?

  75. Wouldn’t any normal police investigation look at the possibility that there is a serial poisoner?
    First, any staff common to Prezzo and Zizzis.
    Second, any common supplier.
    Third, examine dumpsters nearby.

    No. Wham, bham – nothing to see here.

    1. Good points.

      Isn’t it a little spooky that most of the victims have been couples?

      One male – one female.

      It would be really useful to see some CCTV pictures of the Skripals then we could establish whether Yulia had blonde hair.

      Let’s hope the lady in the latest incident doesn’t have blonde hair.

      Otherwise it will become even more spookier.

      Interesting note: the guy in the latest incident became ill after visiting the toilet -as Sergei Skripal was.

      Anyway once the PD lot have been called it all should mysteriously transform into a suspected Novichock attack.

      Three perfume bottles then?

    2. Thing is they looking for Russian Types. Fur hat-vodka drinking?
      Stereotype image in HMG eyes. Beast from east rubbish.

      Good stuff for BBC and Media-Sheep.
      Wake Up People Of U.K…!

      All average person interested in is B.G.T-X Factor-Come Dancing.

      Implications of this Lie don’t bare thinking about!

    1. Another Novihoax I think just for shock factor and
      keep the sheep scared.

      Keep poking that bear and it will turn and bite…..!

  77. I was looking at Liane’s time line and reslised that Basu’s statement raised a new question.

    On Saturday, 3 March, they left the hotel and took the underground to Waterloo station, arriving at approximately 11.45am, where they caught a train to Salisbury, arriving at approximately 2.25pm.

    “They are believed to have taken a similar route when they returned to London on the afternoon of Saturday, 3 March. Leaving Salisbury at approximately 4.10pm and arriving in Bow at approximately 8.05 pm”

    1) Has the hotel got CCTV. How was he confident about the arrival time?

    2) The 16-11 train from Salisbury would arrive, if on schedule at 17-50.
    Why are there no CCTV images of their London whereabouts between 17-50 and a 20-05 arrival at the hotel?

    As Liane pointed out, the Sun have a witness stating that R&A were smoking dope in their room at 19-00.
    This is an hour before Basu said they arrived.

    1. @ Duncan,

      The persistent absence of CCTV footage says it all. I was made to believe the UK is the CCTV king of the world, unless we need footage to prove a point. Then, and only then, footage goes south…

    2. This is just sheer incompetence – the probability is that both The Met’s story and also The Sun’s story are fabricated but having a completely open field, with no awkward evidence in the way, they somehow still manage to get it wrong.

      Which lie is more plausible, Basu or the Sun?

      Add in the forensic proof that at least 2 of The Met’s images must have been doctored… it is only 12 days ago that Basu spoke and already his story looks like a shambles. They had SIX MONTHS to get it right.

    4. Duncan, the hotel has a CCTV at the outside entrance. At the left side of the number 94 above the entrance. Well visible in several photos.

      In general I wonder how long such CCTV is stored ?
      Police was in the hotel two month later.

      1. Thanks Liane.
        Yes, we wonder how long the images are stored for.
        If the Met had something from March 3rd or 4th that supported the Basu story then I suppose we would have seen it by now.
        I am sure the Sun will find the hooker.

        “I romped with Novichok killer gay guys….”

        1. Sunday Sport Shocker..!

          Sex With Beast From East. Bigger Than
          Salisbury Spire says Cleaner from Hotel.

          Drug Fuelled Orgy and Novihoax Sniffing.

          Theresa May And Neil Basu Swinging I Seen Em
          Claims Prostitute……

  78. Again it seems odd two people, one Russian, freak out in a restaurant, were exposed to an “unknown substance”, remain in hospital, but it can be declared it is not “novichok” so quickly.
    It has usually taken some time to get that diagnosis.
    Surely the couple’s CCTV timeline would have to be checked to see where they went and who they met.
    Was it a false flag that went wrong and had to be abandoned?
    Were the pair actual FSB trying to gather intelligence?
    Is it to lend credence to the original story “see, we don’t say everyone who gets ill has been novichoked”.

  79. LETTER TO NEIL BASU

    Dear Mr Basu

    THE SKRIPAL POISONING IN SALISBURY

    I have some basic questions about how the investigation has been handled and would be grateful for some answers.

    SUNDAY 4th MARCH

    Why was there no clear CCTV footage of the Skripals’ movements on Sunday 4th March, apart from footage of them walking through Market Walk at 15.47? The footage is very brief and the image distortion renders them unrecognisable. Why was there no detailed description of what they were wearing, Yulia’s hair colour etc?

    The following is a list of CCTV footage that would have been available:

    1. Sainsbury’s multi-storey car park
    2. Sainsbury’s supermarket overlooking The Maltings and the bench
    3. Back of Salisbury Library overlooking Market Walk and G&T Cards shop
    4. The Cheese Market overlooking Market Walk
    5. Fisherton Bridge overlooking Fisherton Street and The Mill pub
    6. Priory Square, back of The Maltings near the Sue Ryder shop Malthouse Lane
    7. A camera mounted above The Maltings end of Market Walk pointing at the bench
    8. Zizzi’s Restaurant
    9. The Mill Pub

    Media reports at the time:

    “Investigators had ‘high quality’ CCTV footage of the final moments before the Skripals fell ill and they may have identified ‘significant persons of interest’. The images are clear enough to see people’s faces and read a car number plate. Crucially, the coverage includes The Maltings area, where Mr Skripal, 66, and Yulia, 33, were found collapsed on a bench eight days ago.”

    QUESTION 1)

    Could you please give the reasons why standard police procedures were not followed, especially in such a high-profile investigation?

    17th MARCH METROPOLITAN POLICE ISSUE DETAILS OF THE SKRIPALS’ MOVEMENTS:

    14.40 Saturday 3 March, Yulia arrives at Heathrow on a flight from Russia.
    09.15 Sunday 4 March, Sergei’s car is seen in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road.
    13.30 hrs: Sergei’s car is seen being driven down Devizes Road towards the town centre.
    13:40 hrs: Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings.
    At some time after this, they go to the Bishops Mill Pub in the town centre.
    14.20 hrs: They dine at Zizzi Restaurant.
    15:35 hrs: They leave Zizzi Restaurant.
    16.15 hrs: Emergency services receive a report from a member of the public and police arrive at the scene within minutes.

    THE SKRIPALS’ MOVEMENTS ON SUNDAY 4TH MARCH ACCORDING TO WITNESS STATEMENTS:

    13.45 the Skripals were seen near the Avon Playground, in The Maltings, feeding ducks with some local boys. Sergei handed the boys some bread, which would have been contaminated with nerve agent, but they did not fall ill. This was confirmed by Mrs Cooper, Aiden Cooper’s mother, who was shown CCTV footage by the police and which she said was “really clear”. She also confirmed that Mr Skripal was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and that Yulia had a red bag.
    They then walked to Zizzi’s Restaurant
    14.00 – 14.45 approximately they dine at Zizzi’s Restaurant and are there for only 45 minutes, according to one of the staff.
    They then walked to the Mill Pub
    15.00 they arrive at the Mill Pub and are there for only 30 minutes, according to one of the staff.
    15.47 they are seen on CCTV walking through Market Walk
    16.03 they are seen slumped on the bench
    16.15 emergency services are called

    QUESTION 2)

    Can you explain the discrepancy between your account of the Skripals’ movements and that of the eye witnesses?

    5th SEPTEMBER METROPOLITAN POLICE RELEASE IMAGES OF TWO SUSPECTS:

    QUESTIONS/QUERIES 3a.-3h.)

    a. How did the suspects know the Skripals would be out of the house on Sunday 4th March when they arrived in Salisbury? These are your timings:

    • 09.15 Sergei’s car is seen in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road
    • 11.48 suspects arrive at Salisbury railway station
    • 11.58 suspects are seen at Wilton Road, we say, moments before the attack. (at Sergei’s house)
    • 13.05 suspects are seen in Fisherton Street, in Salisbury town centre
    • 13.08 suspects are seen in Fisherton Street
    • 13.30 Sergei’s car is seen driving down Devizes Road
    • 13:40 Sergei and Yulia arrive in Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings.
    • 13.50 suspects are seen at Salisbury train station and return to London.

    As you can see, you have no evidence that Sergei returned to his house. If he did, he would have to return sometime after 12.00, when you say “the attack” took place, and before 1.30 when he is seen driving down Devizes Road. At the most, there was a window of opportunity of 1 hour 15 minutes maximum, and the suspects risked being caught in the act.

    b. On Saturday 3rd March, Sergei is driven to Heathrow by Ross Cassidy and his wife to pick up Yulia. From 3a) above, you imply the suspects already knew the Skripal’ movements. It is logical to assume, therefore, the suspects would have chosen Saturday when they knew Sergei was travelling to London. These are your timings:

    • 15.00 Friday 2 March, suspects arrive at Gatwick having flown from Moscow on Aeroflot flight SU2588.
    • 16.22 Friday 2 March, suspects are seen arriving at Gatwick.
    • 14.40 Saturday 3 March, Yulia arrives at Heathrow.
    • 16.11 Saturday 3 March, suspects are seen at Salisbury train station about to catch a train back to London.

    The police have stated the suspects went on a reconnaissance mission on Saturday 3rd, whilst the Skripals were in London. There is no CCTV footage of the suspects arriving in Salisbury, only them leaving. There is no other footage of their movements that day, although they would have walked the same route as the following day, Sunday 4th, of which there is footage.

    c. British infrastructure is notorious, the world over, for coming to a grinding halt during periods of snow so an assassination attempt would almost certainly have been aborted.
    d. The trains may have been cancelled on either day, Saturday 3rd or Sunday 4th March, and in either direction.
    e. There is no CCTV footage of the suspects using mobile phones.
    f. The suspects are supposed to have entered Christie Miller Road in broad daylight, walked up to the front door, sprayed nerve agent on the door handle without contaminating themselves, and any one of the neighbours could have seen them.
    g. Sergei has CCTV cameras at his home.
    h. Ross Cassidy categorically states the Skripals did not leave the house until after 1pm on Sunday 4th March.

    Given the seriousness of the accusations, and in order for there not to be a mis-carriage of justice, I would be grateful to receive your reply clarifying some of the issues I have raised.

    Copies to various London embassies

    1. Thank you. A lot of work went into producing this body of work. Very much appreciated. I copied and pasted it into its own file and will forward the letter to whatever entity deserves to receive it. Again, thank you very much for your time and effort.

        1. For the purpose of a letter to Basu it is probably OK as it stands. It will open a whole different can of worms to say it was the CCTV couple on the bench (even though we know they were). It is already impossible for Basu to give honest answers to Anonymous-1.

          You tantalize us with confirmation that the Skripals had CCTV – can you say anymore?

    3. Thank you. Great work! Just one remark: The pair walking through Market Walk was not the Skripals. When that CCTV image was thought to have been theirs, it was either an error because of the disarray of the first days or it was intended to mislead the public.

      Liane logically concluded that the Skripals did not walk through Market Walk on 4 March, otherwise Snap Fitness would have had their footage. The Skripals could have walked there on 4 March, but in opposite direction and around 2pm, when they headed to Zizzi.

      As for their walk to The Mill Pub, I guess that they walked from Zizzi via St Thomas Square. They could have chosen that route because 1) they wished to have a longer walk after having risotto; 2) that route was more attractive for Yulia from the touristic point of view.

      After the Skripals left The Mill, they turned immediately to the left, in order to head to the car parking. They had to walk through the passageway between the Mill’s garden and the riverside along the Maltings shops.

      1. To Milda

        I know Salisbury but not that area more the square. Without walking it I’m not sure where they really are. I will get a friend to come up with me so we can walk the routes and time them.
        I’m just going along with what the met have said, which of course, doesn’t make sense.

    4. Very good, Anonymous-1

      One point. You wrote „e. There is no CCTV footage of the suspects using mobile phones.“

      CCTV 4 – Salisbury train station, 11:48hrs on 4 March 2018
      It looks like Alexander Petrov is using a mobile phone.

      Milda is right, the pair walking through Market Walk was not the Skripals.

      1. To Liane

        You’re right, but they would probably have needed their mobiles glued to their ears if they were assassins, but they’re not, they’re just tourists doing what tourists do.

    6. 15.47 they are seen on CCTV walking through Market Walk
      16.03 they are seen slumped on the bench
      ————————————-

      I would rewrite those statements, removing the “they”s (which are deductions) and providing instead just simple descriptions of what can be seen on the CCTV footage, and what witnesses described seeing on the bench.

    1. This is the address Wilton Road 111 nutrilite
      https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&hs=M1W&channel=fs&ei=rGOfW5awBYzXkwW8277oDw&q=wilton%20road%20salisbury%20%20vitamin%20and%20supplements&oq=wilton+road+salisbury++vitamin+and+supplements&gs_l=psy-ab.3…3762.7001.0.7311.11.11.0.0.0.0.175.909.6j3.9.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..3.1.172…33i10k1.0.ZX70iglbAEE&npsic=0&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=51071212,-1804843,810&tbm=lcl&rldimm=5192935225325765653&ved=2ahUKEwjLl-TCzcHdAhUxMuwKHV2bAEAQvS4wAHoECAQQIg&rldoc=1&tbs=lrf:!2m1!1e2!2m1!1e3!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:10#rlfi=hd:;si:5192935225325765653;mv:!3m12!1m3!1d8969364.200790325!2d-27.00279415!3d58.727877799999995!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i328!2i203!4f13.1;tbs:lrf:!2m1!1e2!2m1!1e3!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:10

    1. I wrote an earlier post on this – inspired by watching that fascinating shrink-wrap video. I bet those two ‘hitmen’ were a dab hand on the machine. They’d spent the previous night studying their copy of the (top secret) GU Training Manual for Novice Novihoaxers (by ___ ___vich ____ov; 2017 edition, ISBN ______) – the chapter entitled “Secret Instructions for Gift-wrapping perfume bottles – with Health’n’safety tips”.

      This faddish fentanyl farce is getting far beyond a joke. How much longer will TPTB carry on wasting money on this fatuous frivolity? Novihoax is expensive stuff. They mustn’t be allowed to carry on running amok with their childish spraying, daubing and smearing games. They should consider the plight of the poor PD workers slaving away on the Novihoax production line – dropping dead like flies after each gruelling shift.

      2. Frivolity Novihoax….That is Superb!
        Yeah tax-payers money down drain.
        All those vehicles gone to land-fill.
        NHS in downward spiral and all this money£
        wasted on a lie..I Hang My Head In Shame.

  82. Salisbury CCTV system being installed first cameras are live – Link to Wiltshire Council

    Excerpt: “Work is well underway to install a brand new state-of-the-art CCTV system in Salisbury, with some cameras now live.”

    side note: this is in August, 2017

    CCTV ‘fully operational’ in Salisbury as Citywatch volunteers return to control room – Link to Salibry Journal

    Excerpt: “Manager Richard Goodman will lead the team of volunteers, who will undergo training over the next six to eight weeks and begin to run the manned system.”

    side note: Goodman is a Jewish name.

        1. To make matters worse, this outrageous provocation came only hours after Turkey and Russia signed a “Memorandum of Understanding on Stabilization of the Situation in Idlib’s De-escalation Zone”. Erdogan said: With this MoU, I believe we have prevented a major humanitarian crisis in Idlib.

          Somebody didn’t like the fact that, having achieved a peaceful resolution to the problem of Idlib (that excludes the US), the possibility of a US/UK/Fr attack on Syria had been made more difficult… so tried to start a war anyway.

      2. Paul, I think you know what I meant. You’re conflating two different things (an aggressive state and a people that have been around since long before that state was created) but I don’t wish to get into an argument about it here.

      1. Rather than cordonning off Salisbury – with would damage the Russian tourism business, they’d do better to place a PERMANENT cordon sanitaire (literally) around Porton Down – and its workers (after first rescuing the thousands of abused animals).

    2. Comments there well worth reading.

      Especially liked Rob’s:

      Find it strange everytime There’s mention of a leadership challenge some poor sod in Salisbury ends up poisoned. it’s like a midsummer murder plot.

        1. 2 Pqul;

          It’s on its way to ‘Stoned Hedge,’ a CCTV-less, desolate place, where foreign assassins gather in the dead of night…

          It’s as much about what they say as what they don’t make ‘public,’ isn’t it?

        1. The best bits:

          South Western Ambulance Service said it was called to the restaurant at 5.38pm and dispatched four ambulances including a hazardous area response team.
          …
          A source briefed by the emergency services said medics alerted the police because the symptoms “seemed consistent with novichok poisoning”. However, the source stressed those symptoms could be caused by other reasons.

          “The symptoms of novichok poisoning and particular types of narcotic abuse are very similar,” they added. [Something that only Wiltshire paramedics have first hand experience with (or so they’ve been told)]

          Four ambulances called in for two people!

          A witness who was in Prezzo at the time said one of those taken ill was a blonde woman. The man who the woman had been dining with was found having a fit in the toilet, the witness said.

          Did a mad PD scientist get the wrong couple in March? June?

          Police cordoned off around the restaurant, on the corner of Salisbury High Street and pictures posted on social media showed a hazardous material suit in the area, while a police officer was seen in protective clothing with their face covered.

          Public Health England was informed of the incident and firefighters were also sent to the scene.

          Have to have some empathy for Wiltshire paramedics and other first responders. Their new protocol is to behave as if a drug overdose is novochok.

      2. The Independent:

        A witness who was in Prezzo at the time said one of those taken ill was a blonde woman. The man who the woman had been dining with was found having a fit in the toilet, the witness said.

        “When she came back she was hysterical. She called paramedics and the next thing an ambulance turns up and they come rushing in,” they added.

        A source told Sky News that one of the two taken ill was Russian.

        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/salisbury-medical-incident-prezzo-high-street-wiltshire-police-poisoning-skripals-a8540566.html

    1. Ok – that is a great video! Everyone should watch it.

      The first 10 minutes is not so interesting (so feel free to skip that) but from that point it is really interesting.

      Over time, the lens of every camera gets dirty and the build up of dirt on the lens is visible on every photo/video that camera takes. It is like a fingerprint.

      In the video, a technique is used to investigate the ‘fingerprint’ on the 2 images of R&A arriving at Gatwick (the images with the same time stamp). It is shown that the 2 images were indeed taken with the SAME camera.

      This would indicate that the time stamps have been faked – but it also proves that R&A were telling the truth when they said (in the RT interview) that they had used the same channel, one after the other.

        1. I can’t answer that but watch the video and decide for yourself whether Jake’s evidence is credible. If we all agree it is credible, we can start to ask ‘why’?

        2. Or a better question; why would they publish two photographs at second identical timing in identical environments?

          These are moving images that they can stagger timings of the two to obviate suspicion, they were carefully chosen.

          It was a deliberate Straw Man Decoy

          But lets not forget it wasn’t Nerve Agent and we don’t know who was on the bench.

        3. Because they had to empty the photos from other travelers for some reason.
          A lot of the CCTVs look photoshopped.
          The incredible stuff is not so much that they are there at the same timestamp but that the gate is completely empty when they arrive.

      2. Not only were the timestamps faked, but also one image was tilted in relation to the other and the depth of field changed. That’s THREE deliberate acts of fakery.

        So why on earth would they have done this? Have we got a renegate technical officer within the Met. hinting to us that the whole affair is a fake, or even that other images have also been doctored too? It wouldn’t surprise me that the Met. began investigating this doctoring themselves, once they learnt that this monumental faux pas had slipped through the net into the public domain. It certainly makes me question how genuine the other CCTV images are.

  90. I want to come back to the CityStayHotel where R&A spent two nights.
    Earlier, I pointed out that our two missionaries did not return to the hotel after allegedly smearing the door handle.

    Today, two adventurous articles have surfaced reporting a nocturnal orgy from the 3rd to the 4th of March :
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/russia/article-6172497/Novichok-suspects-drug-fuelled-night-cannabis-prostitutes-75-night-London-hotel.html

    I would like to analyze the articles and check their (un) veracity.

    Claim Mark Nicol : “Witnesses say cannabis wafted from their twin room in the two-star City Stay Hotel in Bow,…”

    Claim Thomas Mackie : “Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov spent the night before the poisoning in a £75 twin room at the two-star City Stay Hotel in East London.”

    Fact : R&A spent two nights in room 207, which is a triple room (one double bed and one single bed).

    Claim Mark Nicol : “A guest who recognised the pair from CCTV images… : ‘I could smell weed from their room. It was by the door and in the corridor, it was unmistakable. It must have been around 7pm.’

    Claim Thomas Mackie : “One guest claimed he recognised Mr Petrov from CCTV footage released by the police after he came face-to-face with the hitman in the hotel’s toilet.
    He told the Sun on Sunday: “It must have been around 7pm.”

    Fact : It´s impossible that R&A could have been in their room around 7pm.
    CCTV – Salisbury train station shows R&A at 16:11:27 hrs on 03 March 2018 leaving Salisbury.
    Statement Neil Basu :
    „On 3 March they left the hotel and took the underground to Waterloo station arriving at approximately 11:45am.
    They took a train to Salisbury, where they arrived at approximately 2:25pm.
    We believe they took a similar route when they returned to London on the afternoon on saturday 3 March.
    Leaving Salisbury at approximately 4:11pm and arriving in Bahoo at approximately 8:05pm.“

    Claim Thomas Mackie : “The hotel guest continued to say: “I went to the shared bathroom at about 11pm and saw one of the blokes, I later realised was Petrov. The one without the beard. I’m 100 percent sure it was that Petrov. I’m one thousand per cent sure that they stayed in that room.
    You could hear them speaking Russian. I turned the TV up loud but could still hear them at it.
    I fell asleep at about 11pm and I’m a heavy sleeper.”

    Fact : R&A had their own bathroom in room 207. They didn´t need to share it with anybody.
    Note : The hotel guest met Petrov in the shared bathroom at about 11pm. He fell asleep at about 11pm. So he fell asleep in the bathroom ?

    Claim Thomas Mackie : “A cleaner at the hotel was forced to spend all day cleaning their room, which has since been redecorated.”

    Fact : Room 207 has NOT been redecorated since March 4 (and no other room).
    (I can proof it, if wanted)
    The MET or Porton Down swab team has not even had the carpet removed.
    By the way : Maybe the swab team could even have taken sperm samples of suspects on the carpet.

    What do we have in the articles ?
    Wrong room
    Wrong time
    No shared bathroom
    Room 207 has NOT been redecorated

    Congratulations Mark Nicol and Thomas Mackie ! This is contemporary Western-style journalism.

      1. Liane, the articles are typical British gutter-press ‘guilt by association’. The stories are completely fake… but it keeps the anti-Russia propaganda bangwagon rolling.

    2. Liane,

      Excellent as usual.
      The Met explanation would be 4 people in the room.
      While R&A were returning to London, there were two other Russian agents in the room.
      Dr.Novichok and the myserious agent Lana.
      The were having sex.
      Porton Down have recently revealed that Novichok smells like Cannabis.
      That should cover most of the irregularities in the story.

      1. Let’s not forget the asparagus factor. Only some people can smell Novichok as a cannabis scent while others will not.

      2. Oh, that foolish me (old lady with bad memory) – I really forgot Dr. Novichok and his lady.
        Had a good laugh, Duncan. Thanks.

    5. Haha Is that the best they can come up with after
      six months?
      Very poor story. Haha Novihoax smells of cannabis
      does it? Well I best call my local police because it
      stinks around this area Aahh Major Attack In Progress!

      Thanks

    6. Thanks. Always enjoy 100% sure self-claimed eyewitnesses. Must be more of those super-recognizers with eidetic memories. Well, except for shared bathrooms down the hallway.

    7. Thanks Liane. So:

      “A cleaner at the hotel was forced to spend all day cleaning their room, which has since been redecorated.”

      …but despite this huge clean up they apparently left traces of “Novichok”.

      1. “Novichok” is mystical. Can simultaneously exist and be nonexistent. Deadly on contact or the reaction can be delayed for hours and days. Sometimes lethal and but mostly very survivable. So very Russian as Winston Churchill would say:

        It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

        1. It’s a new insight into the mysteries of Quantum Mechanics, a thought experiment that goes by the name of “Schroedinger’s Novichok”.

        3. @Marie – The following is satire.

          PM May gave the wrong name to the toxic chemical in her first statement on the incident, due to an auto-correct error in her text. It’s not “Novichok,” it’s, “iNovichok.” Developed by Apple Corporation at a secret research facility located in Russia, iNovichok is the first generation of nerve agents using proprietary and programmable Smart NanoParticles (patent pending.)

          MI6 gave the research facility the codename, “SPECTRE,” while the CIA called it, “KAOS.” The facility also developed a phone app to control the chemical. Using the app, the hit team simply specifies the age, sex, weight,and health condition for up to two victims. They then set options for lethality, self-destruction, and time and type of symptom onset; e.g. immediate, gradual, delayed, etc. The Smart NanoParticles do the rest, factoring in enviromental conditions, clothing, and food intake, among other variables.

          Unfortunately, the first, rushed, deployment of iNovichok in Salisbury was a failure, due to the app code blocks for lethality and time delay getting stuck in logic loops, as a result of not going through proper quality-assurance tests.

          The tragic poisoning of Sturgess and Rowley occured because of the long time the container spent in the dark. While Smart NanoParticles have short-life battery properties, they need light for power to keep their programming. Sadly, the programming was scrambled, resulting in some NanoParticles reverting to the default state of full and immediate lethality for Sturgess.

          My sources tell me these problems will all be worked out by the end of Quarter 1, 2019, just in time for the Russian Spring Offensive.

    8. For some reason someone had to prove the two are hetero. But of course – two guys going to London on holidays or business would know what to do in the evenings.

      The times have lots of problems anyway.

      London-Salisbury by rail is 1:30h. Possible trains were late on Saturday because of the snow. And they bought new shoes. But not on Sunday when they were supposed to have left Bow at 8.05h

      They either enjoy staying at stations (?), are inept at taking trains, or CCTV times are off (highly likely).

      This is what the Metropolitain Police says
      “On Sunday, 4 March, they made the same journey from the hotel, again using the underground from Bow to Waterloo station at approximately 8.05am, before continuing their journey by train to Salisbury.
      CCTV shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripal’s house and we believe that they contaminated the front door with Novichok.
      They left Salisbury and returned to Waterloo Station, arriving at approximately 4.45pm and boarded the London Underground at approximately 6.30pm to London Heathrow Airport.
      From Heathrow Airport, they returned to Moscow on Aeroflot flight SU2585, departing at 10.30pm on Sunday, 4 March.”
      Leaving Bow at 8.05 they could be in Salisbury as early as 10:00
      and leaving at 15:00h.
      That would give them 5 hours to do all kinds of stuff, meeting Skripal, Pablo Miller even tourism, whatever.
      Those CCTV times are decoration not information.

    9. Liane,

      If R&A were enthusiastic and left Salisbury at 16-11 on the Saturday then a 90 minute train journey followed by 30 minutes on the tube would get them back at the hotel for 19-00.
      They would need have already purchased their cannabis and their room “service” before then.
      Is the room number “in the public domain”?

      Great work as always.

    1. Yes Milda,

      It seems that this is an unfortunate coincidences which happens frequently if you cross paths with Mr.Putin.

    3. The pussy riot ( main core members the same as Voina , they just rebranded ) are funded by the USA.

      https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/08/who-or-what-is-russias-pussy-riot.html?m=1

      I would not be a bit surprised that this is a very convenient self poisoning with medication to obtain precisely the effect it’s obtaining that Russia and putin poison opponents with strange chemical weapons .

      What the guardian fails to mention is that Medusa had already reported that the Russian hospital had stated that it was an overdose of prescription medication either self administered or administered by others . The medication is of the class of atropine, bronco dilators and other common prescription medication . This stunt flight to Berlin in a private jet ( who paid for it ? ) when there was no need as he was walking already is s PR stunt . I have no doubts the Berlin hospital will find traces of medication on him but I put my hands on the fire that they did it themselves for this precise effect .

  92. The images of A&R just not correct for my liking. Don’t know
    what it is but I can see two Guys looking similar to A&R?

    Yes A&R In London-Salisbury at times stated but I think
    images have been very selectively used to fit the case.

    I still think Met Police have used Lookalikes and made fresh
    images in areas near-close to 47 CM-C.
    Six months easily time to re-enact with Lookalikes.

    Real footage used of two Russians who are innocently visiting
    mixed with fake footage. Wrong place-Wrong time-Setup.
    Maybe I wrong don’t know?

  93. This I isn’t a Logic Problem it’s a game of Life or Death (Ours)
    Putin has decided to play HMG’s game but is playing by different rules.
    HMG decided on which lies to run with, Putin said ok that’s Our Official Narrative too (or at least ours spies timetable) and then added a bit.
    HMG have not flagged that inconsistency. The heavy sleet that sent them home.
    Last hour in Salisbury: bridge, Summer lock, duck feeding, Dauwalders.
    No Sleet!
    Why not flag it?

  94. President Putin doubles down, essentially challenging May to produce some evidence:

    Kremlin says Skripal poisoning suspects have nothing to do with Putin: Ifaxhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-russia/kremlin-says-skripal-poisoning-suspects-have-nothing-to-do-with-putin-ifax-idUSKCN1LW0DM?feedType=RSS&feedName=newsOne

    If Bellingcat had got anything other than cheap forgeries, Putin would not say this – he would keep quiet.

    1. I hope the Met police haven’t seen that video. They’d buy one and ‘discover’ it in some random litter bin, then proudly display it as evidence that the “Russian assassins” had used it to reseal the deadly perfume box after splurging half the contents all over the door handle. (The machine brought over from Moscow in that rucksack – naturally). Then they’d get their partners in crime at PD to go through the motions, by giving it a good swabbing over with a baby wipe – instructing them to find traces of Novihoax® on it. (No doubt leaked from the still dripping nozzle).

  97. ” in a panick this morning about my move on …just tell me when and where ???and they wonder why on meds ffs (…)”

    Dawn’s FB feed on the 25th June .

    who is they ?

      1. It was in Dawn’s FB posts in June . I just though it was odd at the time but it could also mean something as simple as when she would be moved from the shelter to a house.

        1. “They” probably simple means the healthcare and social worker team who look after these unfortunate people.
          Frequently when people have mental health issues it becomes a “me versus them” situation in their daily lives.

        2. There is something else that struck me thinking about Dawn Sturgess and Charles Rowley
          http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/national/16217327.Action_needed_to_stop_drug_gangs____cuckooing____mentally_ill__MPs_hear/
          ” Drug gangs are “regularly taking over the homes” of the vulnerable and mentally ill to use as a base for their nefarious activities, ministers have heard.
          Tory MP Gillian Keegan told MPs the practice, known as “cuckooing”, had become a regular problem in her Chichester constituency.
          According to HM Courts and Tribunal Service there has been 187 convictions of gang members linked to cuckooing in the South of England since 2015.
          Ms Keegan, speaking in the Commons, said: “In Chichester drug dealers are regularly taking over the homes of vulnerable people who suffer mental health problems or drug dependency themselves, in a process known as cuckooing.”

          http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2018-05-16/drug-dealers-jailed-for-cuckooing-in-wiltshire/

          There was some – very brief – speculation in the media that Charles Rowley’s house was used as base for the attack on Skripals but I suppose police stopped that. It would make a lot more sense the poison being left over there than the “charity bin”

          Another media report from July – I suppose that was when they settled on the narrative
          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5969197/Skripal-Novichok-poisoning-suspects-identified.html
          “The perpetrators are believed to be members of the GRU military intelligence service and were not known to MI6 until the Salisbury nerve agent attack, a senior security source has claimed.
          Detectives have traced them from Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury – where they dumped the Novichok poison – to the UK airport they flew from, which is believed to be Heathrow.
          Using facial recognition technology police and the secret services who pored over hours of CCTV footage have identified the two spies now wanted for the March 4 attack.
          They also know they were travelling under ‘fresh identities’ back to Russia after cross-referencing their aliases with the commercial flight’s manifest.”

    2. @ Isa,

      Wasn’t Dawn staying at a homeless shelter at that time? Could the staff of it be the ‘they’ Dawn’s referring to [as most shelters have strict rules when it comes to drugs]?

    1. Since they can’t delete comments here we appear to be getting a troll attack instead… There have been a few in the last 10 days or so.

      Troll baiting is fun – they ask superficial questions and we get to repeat parts of the story they are supposed to stop people reading!

  100. 2018 Orwell prize winner Carole Cadwalladr writes in today’s guardian with ……yes you guessed, another anti RussoPutin article.
    Stating that she’s walked through Salisburys streets hundreds of times, I can only guess with that surname that she’s married to a Rupert military man ?
    It’s a nice bit of doublespeak for those wishing to waste 5 minutes of their Sunday
    Keep up the great work Blogmirers

    1. I read that and it was ironic that she spends several paragraphs describing how the UK’s military and intelligence service is in the Salisbury area while blaming Russia for all the evils of the world . She should te read those lengthy paragraphs and see just how stupid her article makes her .

      The Orwell prize is a good name for the piece she received it for . A prize not covered in glory after the Hari embarrassment :

      https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/27/johann-hari-fresh-plagiarism-allegations

    2. “2018 Orwell prize winner Carole Cadwalladr writes in today’s guardian with ……yes you guessed, another anti RussoPutin article.”
      ———————————-

      And what an evil steaming piece of crap it is.

  101. Unlike many other media, RT Deutsch names their interview partners.
    RT Deutsch has proved credibly that the two “Veolia” bins, taken away by the police on August 2,
    were NO CHARITY BINS BUT NORMAL DUST BINS.

    I translate their main findings about the charity bin :

    Quote : RT Deutsch investigated the matter and determined that the alleged donation container belongs to a shop of “Cancer Research UK” (at 79 Catherine St, Salisbury).
    The back entrance to the store is in parallel to Catherine Street Ivy Street, just next to the pub “The Cloisters”. There are two gray dumpsters of the waste managed by the company “Veolia” in front of a little brick walled courtyard. Passing the two-leaf wooden gate in the wall, one arrives at a kind of construction container and the back entrance of the shop.
    From the conversation of RT Deutsch with Cancer Research UK Salisbury:
    Thea MacLeod-Hall, Manager at Cancer Research UK :
    “The wheelie bins behind a number of shops on Catherine Street, Salisbury, that were being examined, were for garbage collection only and not for charitable donations.”
    RT Deutsch : How many times a month do Cancer Research UK Salisbury or Veolia dispose of the containers? Did Cancer Research UK Salisbury or Veolia emptied, let be emptied or did not emptied the litter bins between March and August 2018?
    Thea MacLeod-Hall: “We can not answer these questions – maybe Veolia would be better able to answer them.”
    Unfortunately, Veolia has not responded to requests from RT Deutsch.
    Julie Byard, Head of Commerce at Cancer Research UK, London :
    “The competent authorities have confirmed that they have no indication that the perfume bottle in question has ever been in our dustbin. The Cancer Research UK business continued to operate normally during these investigations. We were told by the police that there was no risk to our employees or the public.”
    https://deutsch.rt.com/europa/76109-im-mull-gelandet-londons-luge/

    1. ITN broke the story of the bins on 26 July with pictures:
      http://www.itv.com/news/2018-07-26/novichok-charlie-rowley-amesbury-nerve-agent-exclusive/

      On 2 Aug, The Guardian reported:
      The bins were removed on Thursday from behind the Cloisters pub and taken to a government laboratory at Porton Down to be analysed.
      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/02/novichok-inquiry-police-remove-two-bins-from-salisbury-city-centre

      On 6 Sept, The Guardian reported:
      It was only after he spoke to ITV News about the bin that police sealed the area off and took it away.
      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/06/novichok-poisoning-timeline-qa

      At the press briefing on 5 September Basu said:
      “Charlie told police he found a box he thought contained perfume in a charity bin on Wednesday, 27 June. Inside the box was a bottle and applicator.”

      And here are the bins:
      https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.0671862,-1.793229,3a,60y,272.1h,84.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssvFqcdJXR4_e7UGfbwCBzg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

      Donation bins are usually locked metal containers (like a very large post box) so that donations cannot be stolen. These bins are not donation bins!

      It is completly implausible that anything discarded in those bins on 4 March would still be there on 27 June.

    2. Dear Liane , thank you for translating that . It’s most helpful and is consistent with the fact Charlie never identified it with certainty and more importantly the Charity was never advised of said perfume sample bottle in their rubbish .

    3. Liane – it is not 100% clear but the large grey wheelie bins are supposed to be for dry general commercial waste (plastic, packaging, paper, etc). The black bin (in the ITN images) is for non-recyclable waste. The collection schedule varies – each business selects its own preference when the service starts: typically the black bin is weekly, the grey bins are also weekly but pick-ups outside the usual schedule can be made with a phone call and a specific time arranged, if the bins are already full.

      The fact that the charity shop has 2 large grey recycling bins would indicate that they generate a reasonable amount of such waste – i.e. they need more than 1 such bin on a regular weekly schedule, which would be the cheapest option. Also, you don’t get those bins without a contract – the option of having 2 bins on a six monthly collection does not exist.

      I think it is very safe to say that anything put in those bins on 4 March would have been collected within the following week.

      1. I agree with you, Paul. Smoke and mirror on MET´s side.
        They foolish us in any thinkable matter.
        BUT – I know the bin system in Germany, not in the UK.
        Maybe the locals can tell us more about grey wheelie Veolia bins.

      2. Since we’re diving into the bins, I’ll add my two penn’orth 🙂
        Waste collection is overseen by Wiltshire county council. All businesses are legally required to arrange waste disposal, either using municipal collections or registered private contractors. Records of waste collection must be maintained, and held for 2 years.
        So not only would bins in Salisbury town centre be emptied regularly, there would be a record of when and by which organisation for every business.
        The scare at Prezzo restaurant, the removal of bins behind the Cloisters pub, the Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant all being locations of interest causes me to wonder if there’s a connection between bins and poisonings.
        It’s known that there have been Fentanyl poisoning incidents in the region.
        There are drug users in Salisbury, some of whom live in a central homeless shelter; it’s commonplace to see drug users in local parks.
        Add to these basic facts the idea of one or more Fentanyl users searching pub and restaurant bins for food, and it’s not hard to imagine accidental cross contamination risk to staff and customers in those establishments.

  102. Just going to try something here, if it works I should be able to upload an image, if it does I’ll explain, how to do and what this image helps with, and then Rob Willing a whole new exciting tool

    https://ibb.co/dKbYge

    1. Well it works for me.

      I have this image on my computer

      I went to https://imgbb.com and signed up

      Then uploaded the image and got the url for the pic and posted that above

      This pic shows the Official Narrative (confirmed by the spies who can’t be trusted) of the spies movements on the Sunday and their co-location with the Skripals between 1 and 2 pm.

      Time of walk to shell garage more like 15 mins not 10 suggested. Plus we don’t know when they turned around so I am going to put the Wilton Rd excursion down as half and hour bringing them back to the train station.

      So total 2 hours in Salisbury, 30 mins taken off for Wilton Rd that leaves 90 mins to do what they liked in Salisbury

      (Journey to and from Salisbury Station to hotel 4 hours each way 8 hours travelling time)

      We know they took in a Cathedral tour, plenty of Council cctv’s (all working) around the town) so the police have this info.

      What did they do, where did they go? Refer to their interview for assistance. Answers in 500 – 600 words.

      I tried this test but I cab only come up with a one word answer.

    2. Peter that is really helpful – good job! You might add a ‘?’ on the Catherine Street bins. Looking at your map that would only be possible before 13:05.

      Also, if they did visit the cathedral, presumably that would be their first stop on 4 March and the 13:05 picture is them returning from the visit… in which case Wilton Rd looks very doubtful.

      1. Paul the Official Narrative did not happen as we know but I don’t think it is saying that the spies deposited the wrapped / unwrapped / broken / working bottle of poison, I think they are implying that a member of the public (who is presumably is now dead because they were not given any warnings) found the bottle and deposited it sometime later at the charity shop. It seems it must have been a charity shop worker who close to the time of Rowley’s discovery had chucked the bottle in the rubbish (that old lady is now dead too).
        But you are right about the cameras. Where had the pair come from when they appear 1:05 on Pudding Bridge? Well they could have come from the footpath that leads in the Cathedral direction immediately right at the end of the bridge.
        Or they they could have turned up the next right to the Cathedral and have been caught on the camera at the corner of High Street and New Canal
        Or they could have carried on up the the Poultry Cross but picked up on the camera there.
        Or they could have come from across the rd in the Malttings area where they would have been picked up on cameras. Anywhere they go they are picked up on camera

        They were picked up on CCTV cameras in loads of places except the Cathedral interestingly enough.

  103. So within a few days of the police publishing the images of the two assassins we have the press identifying people that knew them from the London hotel (there are cheaper ones in and around Salisbury).
    The press were on it, like rats up, down and up again drainpipes. What a wonderful press they are when they have the bit between their teeth (Tiny rat bits as used by Porton Down).
    Which only goes to confirm my fears that the press could have helped prevent Dawn’s death if they had been allowed.
    Back in the day when the police first had the cctv footage of the spies in Salisbury and knew some of their movements if they had put out an urgent appeal Dawn’s death may have been averted.
    Maybe not but why not try to gather information back then rather than now?
    Why the sudden urgency now to see who remembers them, where they went, what they did?
    Didn’t it seem important nearer the time that the original attack took place?
    Russian Military Grade Nerve Agent used on the streets of Salisbury and no one thought to seek help to identify the suspects and their movement when their existence was first known?

    1. It was so important to show us the faces on the spies now but not Sergei Yulia or the duck boys back when their lives in danger.

    2. Peter, The police had CCTV of all the movements of A&R by May at the latest. They must have seen them heading towards Catherine St – why did they not search the area and find the bottle?

      In fact, while the police farce was paddling around in QEG, they should have been retracing the footsteps of A&R and searching every known point they had been. They were telling people that the evidence hadn’t been found… but do not appear to have been looking where A&R were known to have been…

      Why would they do that?

      1. A&R said in the video that, when they got back to the city center, they had stopped somewhere for a coffee. The police know where that was – have they sent in teams of people to look for novihoax in that cafe/restaurant? Has it been shut down and purchased by the taxpayer? Have the tables been destroyed?

      2. Reference – thanks to DavidC

        Images: Dates taken (TS = embedded date/time stamp)

        #1 – 3 May 2018 – 02/03/2018 (TS) [per Met: Gatwick airport at 15:00hrs on 02 March 2018]
        #2 – 3 May 2018 – 02/03/2018 (TS) [per Met: Gatwick airport at 15:00hrs on 02 March 2018]
        #3 – none – 16:11:27 03/03/18 (TS) [per Met: Salisbury train station at 16:11hrs on 03 March 2018]
        #4 – 2 May 2018 [per Met: Salisbury train station at 11:48hrs on 04 March 2018]
        #5 – none 04-03-2018 Sun 11:58:48 (TS) [per Met: Wilton Road, Salisbury…]
        #6 – 9 May 2018 – 09:00 [per Met CT: Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 13:05hrs on 04 March 2018
        #7 – 10 May 2018 – 17:41 [per Met CT: Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 13:08hrs on 04 March 2018
        #8 – 2 May 2018 – 09:20 [per Met CT: Salisbury train station at 13:50hrs on 04 March 2018]
        #9 – none [per Met CT:Heathrow airport security at 19:28hrs on 04 March 2018]

        Link to Met presentation:

        http://news.met.police.uk/news/counter-terrorism-police-release-images-of-two-suspects-in-connection-with-salisbury-attack-320534

        1. Corrected –

          Images: Dates taken (TS = embedded date/time stamp)

          #1 – 3 May 2018 – 02/03/2018 16:22:43 (TS) [per Met: Gatwick airport at 15:00hrs on 02 March 2018]
          #2 – 3 May 2018 – 02/03/2018 16:22:43 (TS) [per Met: Gatwick airport at 15:00hrs on 02 March 2018]
          #3 – none – 16:11:27 03/03/18 (TS) [per Met: Salisbury train station at 16:11hrs on 03 March 2018]
          #4 – 2 May 2018 [per Met: Salisbury train station at 11:48hrs on 04 March 2018]
          #5 – none 04-03-2018 Sun 11:58:48 (TS) [per Met: Wilton Road, Salisbury…]
          #6 – 9 May 2018 – 09:00 [per Met: Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 13:05hrs on 04 March 2018]
          #7 – 10 May 2018 – 17:41 [per Met: Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 13:08hrs on 04 March 2018]
          #8 – 2 May 2018 – 09:20 [per Met: Salisbury train station at 13:50hrs on 04 March 2018]
          #9 – none [per Met:Heathrow airport security at 19:28hrs on 04 March 2018]

          http://news.met.police.uk/news/counter-terrorism-police-release-images-of-two-suspects-in-connection-with-salisbury-attack-320534

          1. Marie, As I mentioned above, the police knew who these two were in May – at the latest. What your/DavidC’s table proves is that on 2 and 3 May, the police were selecting images from the CCTV and created the jpeg images we have seen (they may well have subsequently edited those images but the created/taken date will remain unchanged). A week later, somebody decided that images at the airports and train station were not enough and so created some more images showing them wandering around Salisbury – those would be images 5, 6 & 7. The problem for us with EXIF data is that it is very easy to edit/remove as you wish. I am surprised the police didn’t remove the EXIF data before they published the pictures.

            My point was that IF the police knew, in May, where R&A had been, why did they not search those places, looking for novihoax?

            1. My comment added confirmatory detail wrt when Met CT pulled several of those images. Early May 2nd through 10th. Not intended to prove anything except the timeframe for when Met CT had those images. I like to have references to refresh my memory when there are so many details to keep track of. Thought maybe someone else might appreciate having this.

              Nothing the police have done or not done should be surprising at this point – and we’re likely only seeing proverbial tip of the iceberg on their mistakes. However, didn’t the hotel owner say that they had searched the room and Met CT claims they swapped it and found an insignificant amount of nerve agent? Of course, as I don’t believe any of their rot and big show in closing some allegedly contaminated establishments and ignoring others. Playing their game, the biggest hammer the public has wrt to their door handle claim is the duck feeding with children allegedly within thirty minutes from contacting the poison and not contacting and informing the parents for two weeks.

              (How you construed my comment as criticism absent anything of the sort in it (fyi, nor was any intended) is bizarre.)

              1. Marie, I didn’t construe your comment as ctiticism. I have just re-read my own reply to you and I can’t see what I said that caused you to think I was criticising you. Please tell me what it was.

                Thanks

    2. You have to ask why the UK government were trying to harm Donald Trump? Is that why the British taxpayer is funding the “security” services? To undermine the leader of the World’s most powerful nation?
      What was Mrs May thinking of? What was Mi6 doing by agreeing to it?
      These are desperately warped people spending money meant for the NHS, Education and the Elderly. Doing illegal things against the interests of Our Country (Not their’s)
      We can’t afford an adequate health service, we can’t give jobs to the school leavers, we can’t send the ones that want further education to university, we can’t care for old aged pensioners who fought in wars to keep Britain safe …..
      But we can afford to go to war for no good reason and destabilise leaders of Sovereign States including Assad and even Trump.
      I need to take a reality check, is this really happening?

      2. Hi Peter and all you truly amazing sleuths, to answer the question why the British services and likely government got behind Steele in his campaign to smash Trump you just have to step back to 2015 and remember that Trump was the radical outsider. He was no establishment person, Hillary was. The Repugnant Party had lots of other establishment people in their contest for the presidential nomination, the Demoneocons had only Sanders.

        I would bet that Tory May and co were out to smash Trump and get their old chum Hillary Clinton into the White House. She was the preferred choice for continuity in foreign and economic policy. Trump was unknowable at that stage and nurturing/trading on his populist appeal to a war weary US populace that were keen for change. Bernie Sanders extraordinary turn outs also spoke of that weariness and hope.

        Simply put I see it as the neocon/oligarchy promoters backed their main hope and got the unexpected. Trump owes Tory May and her mates a black eye. Mind you I think Trump is certainly a different neocon/oligarch stooge and has fully betrayed the war weary and disenchanted.

        Simultaneously I think Trump is the key man for a challenging mafiosi to that supporting Clinton and that has changed the dynamics substantially. Consider Felix Sater of Bayrock located in Trump Tower. Saters dad was a Semion Mogilevitch lieutenant and Sheldon Adelson has foundation links (chains around) Trump.

    1. Trade does not seem involved this time.
      https://m.rusemb.org.uk/article/trade-between-russia-and-the-united-kingdom-could-double-in-the-next-five-years

      “The UK retains its place among the top three in trade in services among all Russia’s partner countries (financial, transport, IT, consulting and other services). According to the Bank of Russia, the turnover of Russian-British trade in services is growing steadily, and over 6 months in 2017 increased by 15.8% to US$3.6 billion.”

      Largest trade partners with Russia – not just services
      http://www.worldstopexports.com/russias-top-import-partners/

  106. Patrick said:

    “Sergei was working for Russia.
    He had a Porton Down scientist supplying him with chemical and biological weapons being made in DSTL.
    These were in his house.”

    Ive always been suspicious of the guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are for testing things. I don’t think its likely Sergei really had them as pets.

    2. Denise, while he probably wasn’t testing known toxic stuff on the guinea pigs, they may have been food and drink testers for him. Food and drink which he wasn’t sure about, cakes baked for him, etc.

  107. A question for British legal buffs:

    Under what law is the UK government able to keep one or more foreigners under wraps [for lack of better words] and what law stipulates they can deny said foreigner’s embassy personnel to see and talk to the foreigner under wraps?

    6 months is a long time for Sergei to remain out of the spotlight…

    1. I cant remember the exact law but this situation usually arises when the individual concerned is fleeing their home country and is claiming asylum and asking for protection.

      1. @ Mark,

        Thanks for your reply. So, Sergei is kept out of ‘harms way,’ according to TPTB, for his own good?

        What tools and/or means does the Russian government have to force [a legal] access to their fellow countrywo/man?

        1. The only tool available to Russia is international law but in HMG’s view, international law is for cissies. The UK doesn’t do international law, they prefer illegally bombing Syria.

    2. Would this be a situation where an individual acting on behalf of Sergei or Yulia could apply for Habeas Corpus to prove before a court they are not being detained against their will, if indeed they are still here.

      1. Since 1992, UK law has been under EU law and many traditional ‘rights’ have been lost in the process. Amongst other things: ‘due process’; Habeas Corpus; trial by jury and ‘innocent until proven guilty’ have all been whittled away. In addition Brits can now be extradited to any other EU country for unpaid speeding tickets!

        It was done so that TPTB could accuse and detain anyone, for practically anything, without having to trouble themselves with needing to prove anything at all.

      2. For the Habeas Corpus you have to ask in court if a person is either in unlawful detention or imprisonment or is in forced disappearance.
        Normally a Habeas Corpus is asked from the person concerned or a person acting on his/her behalf.
        I don´t know if other persons or institutions are allowed to start the procedure.
        I think you will have to prove that the detainee might be held incommunicado.

        https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part-87-applications-for-writ-of-habeas-corpus

    3. As Juliya has said she wants to go home….she is being held hostage by british military intelligence deprived of human rights like reading these blogs probably….incommunicado with family( incl boyfriend?) …in order to preserve the purity of her evidence(or prevent it being re vealed)until Russia says sorry it was us that done it and we promise to do no more…that is what TM says she wants…..BTW…does any one from RussianEmbassy read this blog(please affirm)….CraIg Murray….off-guardian and previous Sushi analysis on saker…..should someone send them all this stuff us sleuthes are doing….

    1. Chris – I have to get out of bed now and get DM! Prostitute and drugs! The GRU you not be happy if the Chuckle Brothers spent their hotel/travel expenses on pleasuring themselves instead of getting the job done.

    1. According to The Sun on 4th September 2018, 2:40 pm Updated: 4th September 2018, 2:44 pm

      What were his first words as he was told about Dawn’s death?
      Charlie Rowley wept after learning of his girlfriend’s death, saying: “They killed her”.

      His brother Matthew told The Mirror how he barely recognised his sibling when he visited him in hospital, calling him “skin and bones”.

      He said: “He was semi-woken and said ‘they killed my girlfriend, they killed my ­girlfriend’. He was very angry and crying.

      Matthew said his brother “still had no idea what poisoned him and Dawn”.

      Charlie didn’t get it from that bin and he knows exactly who “They” are.

      1. I dont know if this has been covered before but there has been speculation in the RT comments section, that the the woman in the Market Walk video is Dawn.

        Apparently there is a picture of Dawn wearing grey pants that are the same as the woman in the Market Walk video and there is also a picture of Dawn with strawberry blonde hair.

    2. I live next door to a dentist. They have those dumpster type bins. Emptied once a week.
      I noticed the phrase “charity bins” has been used but there is no such thing. It is a bin.
      If people in the UK make donations they bring them into the shop or leave black bags outside the shop. The latter is discouraged to prevent scavengers leaving stuff strewn all over.

  110. I feel like Poirot but I think I have it.

    Sergei was working for Russia.
    He had a Porton Down scientist supplying him with chemical and biological weapons being made in DSTL.
    These were in his house.
    Alex and Ruslan came with the cash to give to Sergei to pass on to the scientist. They are GRU couriers (Yulia couldn’t bring it in in case she was stopped by customs).
    Yulia was going to bring samples back for testing to Russia. That is why they were in Nina Ricci bottle/box. Plausible for her to take out.
    But the whole operation was known to MI5.
    Sergei was being watched. As soon as he got the money from A&R in Avon Playground S&Y were incapacitated but all emergency services were there to make sure they didn’t get away or die.
    DSB immediately went to CM road to secure the PD samples but got some on himself.
    Quickly the story had to change from fentanyl OD to novichok as there actually was now novichok loose from CM road.
    Meanwhile A&R had got away. There bumbling around the tube on arrival (Waterloo) had not been stupidity but they were checking they were not being followed, throwing off any tail.
    The PD scientist (or someone else Sergei was running) still had at least one Nina Ricci bottle that wasn’t found in CM road. That person put it in the charity dumpster assuming it was the safest way to dispose of it – not thinking about bin divers.
    A&R had got away after doing the exchange during the duck feeding but quickly all their movements traced on CCTV as their movements had to fit with meeting Sergei.
    The UK just waited until an opportune moment came along for the reveal of A&R.
    The British cannot say anything as they haven’t ID’d the scientist and the massive security breach of nursing a GRU asset to their bosom for the last eight years.
    The Russians can’t say anything because they still hope Sergei will hold out and not reveal other spies in his network (ooh, that could be interesting when you think who he knows!).

    1. The exchange could have been in that service area at the back of The Mill. Yulia could have had an identical backpack that was swopped, could explain how the backpack switched from one Russian to the other.
      Sergei could have fed the ducks as a distraction while Yulia went into Priory Sq..
      And some eyewitness said there were bags on the ground at the bench.
      It would also explain behy no CCTV of S&Y if she had identical backpack.
      And of course it brings in the red bag lady couple as the sprayers.

  111. RT’s Oksana Boyko said on her Twitter page :
    “Petrov’s passport details stopped being a secret once they entered RT’s office, u are required to submit it for inspection. I’m pretty sure #Russia security agencies ran the drill before #Putin offered the pair to come forward with their version of the story”.

    So why does UKG think they were using false names ?

    1. Somewhere a newspaper article said “face recognition, previous entries at the airport”
      It makes no sense for them using false names as they entered from Russia and returned to Russia, are obviously Russian citizens, with Russian ids.
      Faces and fingerprints are what people are id’d on not names.
      Sounds like British authorities want to boast that they know everything.
      I guess if Skripal was a double agent, these two might be double agents, too and if Skripal was doing “research into the Russian mafia, these too might, too.
      Switzerland is a “third country” where spies meet their handlers. They were to Britain before, so Britain could be a “third country”, too.

      1. There also is this case in Spain that is hardly mentioned in British papers
        https://www.propublica.org/article/fighting-russian-mafia-networks-in-spain

        “Rather than simply bribing police officials to facilitate their activities, bosses like Petrov have established themselves as business partners, money launderers and investment scouts for high-ranking officials who have amassed sizeable fortunes themselves, Western security officials say. Those relationships, in turn, have enabled crime bosses to expand their involvement in legitimate business and political activities that are linked to the Russian government.”
        And shortly before the attack on Skripal this trial opened in Spain
        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43112443

        1. According to this article Sergei was “turned” in Spain

          https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sergei-skripal-russia-putin-salisbury-poisoning-spain-madrid-spy-connection-a8254281.html

          Serfei was turned by Pablo Miller of Dnotice fame who was a British agent in Spain in 1995.

          https://www.thedailybeast.com/pablo-miller-the-mystery-man-who-recruited-putins-poisoned-spy

          Pablo Miller later was awarded the OBE in 2015 for services to British foreign policy.
          This entails basically lying and cheating and threating and bribing foreigners to gain an advantage for Britain, economically and geopolitically. Excellent candidate for an OBE don’t you think?

  112. Our best hope for an outcome to the Skripal affair is that the Russians knew it was being planned and decided to get their people into Salisbury for observation that day. Skripal had been acting nervously and agitated for some weeks. He knew this was coming. If the Russians have their own evidence but have decided to sit on it until it’s required (which is very much Putin’s style) then maybe they are waiting for the US and the UK to conduct their imminent bombing of Syria (and subsequent retaliation?) before presenting whatever they have to the world.

    1. Because the victims were not the Skripals, so there would be some explaining to do. Same reason they haven’t mentioned the cordon in The Mill car park and tried to switch the timeline around to mask the significance of The Mill. Zizz/Mill… Mill/Zizzi… now you see it… now you don’t.

      Does anyone have an alternative explanation for the cordon in The Mill car park?

    2. Because they are not looking for the Skripals. There are a lot of privacy issues involved publishing CCTV.

      There should be more independent CCTV though than just the stamp shop.

      1. They say they found a fake bottle of Nina Ricci perfume in Rowley’s house in July. They didn’t tell anyone about it until last week – not even the name.

        They knew 3 boys had been feeding ducks with the Skriplas within days and then waited nearly 3 weeks to tell the parents.

        The paramedics that returned to the helicopter must have had novihoax on their boots and clothes but they let the helicopter visit a primary school the following day and children were allowed into the helicopter.

        Treasonous May says the Russians are GRU (sb GU) but Basu won’t say the same.

        This is not a proper investigation. People have a right to be angry and a right to answers.

        Dawn Sturgess is dead because of a criminal conspiracy.

        1. The Nina Ricci bottle is the issue.

          Charles Rowley says it was sealed and unused. But somehow in the media it became the murder weapon.

          If it was not sealed and unused Charles Rowley was in possession of the murder weapon.

  114. To those of you unfamiliar with London Underground tube trains each car has a map specific to that line on it. The best/only image I could find was someone selling one.
    Once A&R had got on an Eastbound District Line train at Victoria all they had to do was stay on it to Bow Road.
    Google Maps gives the route from Gatwick to City Stay Hotel as LGW – Victoria then District Line to Bow Road.
    I understand that the tube map and stations are not in Cyrillic but unless the guys did zero research and/or did not have smartphones and/or cannot differentiate Green from Silver and/or cannot tell the difference between riding 2 stops or 14 there is no way they accidentally got off at Westminster and either walked over Westminster Bridge to Waterloo or caught the Jubilee Line there.

    https://picclick.co.uk/London-Underground-Tube-Carriage-Diagram-District-line-Map-362359326738.html#&gid=1&pid=4

  115. “TripAdvisor announced on Saturday a temporary block on comments for the Salisbury Cathedral following an upsurge in prank reviews.”

    What has HMG done to Salisbury? The damage to the local economy must be immense and HMG keeps scaring people witless with its novihoax nonsense. Not satisfied with the damage it has already done, HMG is trying to destroy the tourism industry – even the Bishop of Salisbury jumped on the bandwagon saying it “doesn’t add up” that Russian would claim just to be tourists.

    All so they can create an excuse to kill some more Syrians with their illegal air strikes…

    When the missiles start flying and innocent Syrians start dying, I hope the Bishop remembers his words and his part in the criminal conspiracy.

    1. The Bishop will be more concerned about how he and the corrupt institution he belongs to can mouth off about tax avoidance whilst his own church practice that very thing on an industrial scale.

  116. Can I come back to the question of the Shell/Wilton Road CCTV picture? This is the only picture that puts Rus & Alex within spitting distance of the Skripal abode, and is therefore of major importance to the “door handle” story.

    Are there any issues with this picture? I believe it’s been discussed before on this site. I seem to recall two points:

    1) The time stamp of 11:58 suggests that they got there 10 minutes after exiting Salisbury railway station. It’s been said (among others by the athletic Rob Slane) that it can’t be done in 10 minutes. Google maps says 16 minutes. Strange.

    2) Is there anything strange about the image itself? I think it’s been noted that Rus’s raised foot casts a clear shadow but Alex’s doesn’t. Could the image be faked? I think it’s also been pointed out that the guys are just staring straight ahead and don’t seem to be showing any interest in crossing the road, which they would need to do in order to reach chez Skripal.

    1. For this comment I’ll put to one side why are they on the road to start with (Ms Simonyan failed miserably on so many issues), but to me the puzzling thing on the picture is what appears to be the shortness of the stride pattern, they appear to be ambling. I walk most places I need to get to that are within a 2/3 mile radius, my stride pattern does not look anything like theirs, it’s way longer. Looking on the map the route from the train station to the Skripals is not simple, there are many side roads, some roundabouts, the use of a map or mobile app would seem appropriate, but I see nothing in their hands, and yet they have gone from the station front at 11.48 to the Shell garage by 11.58. I accept I haven’t walked it myself but the map suggests they have done pretty well to cover the distance involved considering what seems to be the stride pattern and the distance.

      1. Google Maps states the distance from the station to the footpath next to 86 Wilton Road is 0.8 miles. At a speed of 4 mph (brisk walking) it would take 12 minutes.

        1. There looks to be a small one on the underside of the roof in the middle of the garage, but that is at the wrong angle, where are the ones to get the number plate details for the “drive offs”?

          1. @ Peter Beswick,

            I’ve swept left to right and beck again a few times along the entire station. I don’t see any cameras where I expect to find them. I’ve see footage from gas station in Calcutta with a fistful of cameras covering various angles, in, under and out of the station. Odd.

        2. No, that’s the top of a tree behind the station. The Streetview camera only sees it at that position from one location on the road. The “CCTV camera” on the roof disappears in images taken from other locations, even though other details of the scene remain much the same.

          If you move forward a bit along the road, you can see the tree top to the right of the forecourt roof (above the shop roof):
          https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.074296,-1.8168887,3a,75y,197.49h,91.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srCowX6DPVuscNLX9xPLF-g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

          The CCTV camera position can be estimated from the field of view and approximate height above ground that image CCTV5 is taken from. It must be somewhere near the top corner of the station shop. I can’t find it anywhere by zooming in, so it must be either very small or hidden or only recently installed.

          1. Agreed I can’t see it, on the other side of the garage there are two black dome types, the same a the one in the middle but nothing at the correct angle that I can see.
            May be it is a recently installed camera? By recently I mean more than 6 months ago

            1. Looking at the angle from which CCTV5 must have been taken, could it be in the canopy extension (over the shop) – which is in shade? There must be several CCTVs there: not just ‘exit road’ but overlooking the pumps and none of them are visible. It is possible that it is a concealed syetme to prevent vandalism.

              1. I think you might be right, there is a big blob at the furthest end of the canopy at precisely the right angle

    3. You cannot trust the time stamps of CCTV – people don’t care to set them right.

      So these two were some time around 12 at the shell station on Wilton street which might be an hour off (summer/winter time) or more.

      The police will know who compared CCTV time with real time when they took it.

      1. anidea said “You cannot trust the time stamps of CCTV – people don’t care to set them right.”

        This was said many times in the comments, but is it a well known fact ?

        1. Most commercial systems are linked to a computer and take their time from the computer clock. Other cheaper systems do require you to set the time manually.

          There is not much point having a CCTV system with the wrong time if you intend to use the evidence in court to prove theft, etc.

          1. Paul,
            Indeed.

            CCTV footage would be used in court for prosecutions for theft and robbery.
            Also, car accidents, insurance claims and other parts of the justice system.

            It does not seem correct that just about every CCTV camera in Salisbury is set at the wrong time.

            “M’lord, here is footage of the accused breaking in to the property at 4am. Please ignore the time stamp that says 7-45 as the accused was in bed by then with an alibi, so we will submit the video with the wrong time as evidence of his crime.”

        2. Even computer clocks can drift over a long period of time. They could only reliably keep the precise time if they are synchronised with a reference clock over the internet. But for most surveillance systems an error of a couple of minutes is acceptable.

          1. Sure but most commercial systems are linked to the internet for software upgrades and to save the data off-site. So they sync their clocks regularly. It is only cheaper stand-alone systems, without paid for back-up and support, where the problem could arise. Even then most people use the same computer as they use to connect to the internet so the time should be synced anyway. It is amazing how many times we have been told “Oh the CCTV time is wrong again” in this story! Do you buy it? It seems to me like a case of ‘plausible stupidity’.

    4. Considering that we’ve been rightly suspicious about everything issued by the police, this image is perplexing. The possibilities are:

      1) It’s authentic in every way. But the possibilities as to how and why they came to be at that location at that time and where they’re going are too numerous to waste time on. (The two men can speak for themselves on this even if they want to be coy as to the innocent destination of their trek. Good chance they’ve already explained it to the Russian authorities )
      2) Their images were photoshopped onto an authentic freeze frame without any people or cars in it.
      3) It’s authentic except for the time stamp.

      Note: any later than 11:59 and they couldn’t have reached Skripal’s house and smeared the door handle with nerve agent within the window of opportunity that Met CT claims they had.

    5. john_a,
      – CCTV camera clock could be off by a minute or two, making the walking time about twelve minutes, which is possible.

      – I don’t think it’s possible to judge how fast they were walking from a single still image. All I can say is that they don’t appear to be walking either very slow or very fast.

      – If it were a sunny day, the feet of both Petrov and Boshirov would cast sharp shadows. But on a cloudy day like that, the light source is the entire sky, so shadows are only created when objects block light from a large part of the sky. That’s what happened with Boshirov’s foot because it was just above the ground. Petrov’s foot on the other hand is higher up and allows light to come in from much more of the sky.

      – If we saw the entire sequence of the CCTV video, we might be able to see if they were intending to cross the road. There’s a traffic island just out of view of the CCTV camera and that would be most obvious place to cross. Otherwise they would have to cross Cherry Orchard Lane a few metres further on, and then Wilton Road soon after that (but without a traffic island).

      It might even be possible that one of the other cameras in the station captured them after they moved out of view of the ‘Exit road’ camera that shot the image that we were shown. Those other cameras would not show them clearly but they might possibly show where P&B went to.

      Even if Petrov and Boshirov crossed the road, I don’t think that would prove that they went to Sergei’s house. I suspect that they took a taxi or, much less likely, a bus back in the direction of the cathedral, but I’ll leave that story till another time in the next week.

    1. Just when one thinks it can’t get more ridiculous . Dr novichok ! Of course they have to remedy their nonsense story and explain how the two didn’t contaminate themselves . It seems that novichok can be cured with a walking doctor present eh ?

      1. Yes, A&R spilled the poison in their hotel room, but subsequent CCTV images depict them not only healthy, but also cheerful, without signs of concern for their own health.

    2. For some reason British authorities insist that Borishov and Petrov are not their real identities – and to know the real identities – whilst Russia insists they are real – to the point of leaking internal documents to Bellingcat.
      Who will leak the visa information?

    3. The Guardian doing its job:

      Documents reveal Salisbury poisoning suspects’ Russian defence ministry ties

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/15/documents-show-novichok-salisbury-suspects-alexander-petrov-ruslan-boshirov-links-defence

      […]The documents were published by Bellingcat, an online platform that began with investigations of attacks in Syria, and the Russian investigative outlet The Insider. Both sites also specialised in uncovering information about Russian soldiers active in Ukraine since 2014.

  118. On indirectly related matters , bill Browder is trying to stop people from watching the documentary that exposes him . For those with Facebook details are in the link below :

    THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES was taken down from Vimeo on Demand this weekend after deceptive letters from Hermitage Capital / Bill Browder and Carter-Ruck / Natalia Nikolaevna Magnitskaya. Piraya Film will not be silenced and will provide the film on other platforms soon.

    https://www.facebook.com/351390884880599/posts/2078202778866059/

    2. Having watched the documentary not surprising that Browder would keep trying to have it banned. His own words and behavior in it are the most telling.

      1. Very much so . im happy I saw it in July . I could do with watching it again because there’s so much information in it , difficult to remember all .

  119. Part 2 – something else Freya said….

    The Daily Mail reported an additional item from the PA news briefing on Tuesday 6 March:

    But just 16 minutes later, personal trainer Freya Church, 27, came across them slumped on a bench. She said they seemed ‘out of it’ and assumed they were on drugs. ‘It was a young, blonde and pretty girl and it was definitely the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy. She was passed out and he was looking up to the sky and I tried to get eye contact to see if they were okay.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5470361/Detectives-fear-Russian-spy-sprayed-poison-street.html
    22:38 BST, 6 March 2018

    The important addition here is of course:
    “and it was definitely the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy.”

    The only other major UK MSM outlet that reported this was The Guardian in its live update feed:

    Guardian Live, at 12:33pm, 6 March
    Freya Church said:
    I just finished training and I walked out of the gym and there were a couple outside on a bench. It was a young, blonde and pretty girl and it was definitely the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/mar/06/russian-spy-incident-counter-terrorist-police-investigate-live-updates?page=with%3Ablock-5a9e8d66e4b06779059bb2a0

    Again: “the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy.”

    Firstly, when were the identities of Sergei and Yulia first published:

    At 6pm on Monday 5 March, the BBC’s Dominic Casciani published the following tweet:

    BREAKING: A former Russian spy, given refuge in the UK, is critically ill in hospital in Salisbury after being exposed to an “unknown substance”
    https://twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/970720831591546881

    At 6:02pm he tweeted:

    Former Colonel Sergei Skripal was jailed for treason in Russia – but was allowed to leave for the UK in a later spy swap – he settled in Salisbury where he fell ill in the street yesterday.
    https://twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/970721124957999104

    At 10:29 on Tuesday 6 March, the BBC’s Tom Symonds published the name of Yulia:

    BREAKING: BBC has been told that the woman suspected to have been poisoned alongside Sergei Skripal in Salisbury was his daughter Yulia. She lives in Russia but was visiting the UK and her relatives have not been able to contact her for two days.
    https://twitter.com/BBCTomSymonds/status/970969718571065345

    On 5 March, a few papers picked up on the tweet about Sergei Skripal and published brief details about who he was.

    The Evening Standard at 23:07pm:
    Who is Sergei Skripal, the former Russian spy found critically ill in Salisbury?
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/who-is-sergei-skripal-the-former-russian-spy-found-critically-ill-in-salisbury-a3782201.html

    The Telegraph at 11:02pm:
    Sergei Skripal: The ‘spy with the Louis Vuitton bag’ allegedly poisoned during quiet retirement in Salisbury
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/05/sergei-skripalthe-spy-louis-vuitton-bag-allegedly-poisoned-quiet/

    The Daily Mail at 20:28pm:
    The Spy with the Louis Vuitton bag: How Sergei Skripal narrowly avoided execution after betraying his Russian military bosses by selling secrets to MI6 only to be given a new life living in a £340,000 house in Wiltshire
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5465365/How-Sergei-Skripal-narrowly-avoided-execution.html

    But what pictures were published? You cannot now go to those links and expect to see the original images because the stories have been updated.

    The Evening Standard article was archived at 01:02PT (09:02 GMT) on 6 March, the only image it carried was this 2006 image of Skripal in court:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20180306010628im_/https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2018/03/05/18/salisbury.jpeg?w968h681

    The Telegraph article was not archived until 7 March.
    The Daily Mail article was not archived until 1 April.

    Several articles have been updated to include the video of Sergei buying scratch cards but that video was only released by ITN on 7 March, so could not have been in any of the 5 or 6 March articles.

    The Press association briefing started at 9am on Tuesday when the PA released the copy of the CCTV from Market Walk and by that time, certainly the 2006 image of Sergei Skripal had been published. At that time, however, the name of Yulia was not even known and the first pictures of her were published by The Telegraph at 12:15pm on 6 March – after the PA briefing had ended:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/06/first-picture-daughter-poisoned-russian-spy-fighting-life-hospital/
    6 MARCH 2018 • 12:15PM

    And what had Freya been doing on Monday? She had been in the gym with Cain Prince and the other staff going through the CCTV of Sunday afternoon with the police. The only image that the police were interested in was the picture of the CCTV couple. They didn’t search for anybody else. At that time, the police knew the name of Skripal and told Cain Prince that Mr Skripal was wearing a green coat (which we cannot determine from the CCTV) – but that was before the BBC had made the name known generally and hours before any picture of Sergei had been published.

    So what did Freya mean when she said: “the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy”

    We don’t have an absolute answer but we do have 2 choices:

    1) If the man who was on the bench was the real Sergei Skripal, then it follows that Freya watched the police on Monday searching the CCTV knowing that they had got the wrong man and she chose to say nothing. She might have then read the Standard or Telegraph or Daily Mail, very late on Sunday evening or early on Monday morning, before the PA briefing, said to herself ‘that’s the man I saw’ and again chose not to tell anyone that the man in the CCTV was not the man she had seen on the bench. Instead she allowed everyone to believe that the man she had seen on the bench was the same as the man in the CCTV – as EVERY outlet published on Tuesday, until very late in the evening. If the man on the bench was the real Sergei Skripal, nothing Freya said made any sense at all.

    2) If the man on the bench was not Sergei Skripal, then Freya had not seen a picture of the real Sergei Skripal and believed that Sergie Skripal was the name of the person she had seen on the bench. The one in the news, the one in the CCTV image taken by the police and the one in the CCTV released by the PA.

    On 6th March 2018, at 10:30 pm, The Sun published an ‘Exclusive’:

    Initially it was thought the film was of former double agent Skripal and Yulia, who were out having a meal in Salisbury, Wilts but witnesses insist Yulia had ‘reddish brown hair’
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5742937/cops-hunt-blonde-woman-seen-on-cctv-20-mins-before-ex-russian-spy-spy-sergei-skripal-and-daughter-yulia-were-poisoned/

    Initially it was thought the [CCTV] film was of former double agent Skripal and Yulia, who were out having a meal in Salisbury, Wilts.
    But one witness who had seen the pair hours before they collapsed insisted Yulia was not blonde but had reddish brown hair.
    The [Zizzi] chef, who said Yulia had “shoulder length reddish brown hair”, added: “He was waving his hands and banging the table. She barely said a word.”

    Until The Sun published that article, it was assumed that the CCTV couple was the Skripals but Yulia’s images had not been seen until Tuesday afternoon. Only when people saw she had reddish brown hair did they realise that something was wrong. Freya Church and Olly Field had both said that the woman on the bench was blonde – and nobody had said anything about reddish brown hair at all.

    1. Correction: There is an error above. When I said:

      “…very late on Sunday evening or early on Monday morning, before the PA briefing,”

      I should have said:

      “…very late on Monday evening or early on Tuesday morning, before the PA briefing,”

      Apologies.

    2. The CCTV video from Market Walk was definitely “pictured all over the news”. It was shown on the TV news by the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle and presented as if it showed Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

      1. I haven’t seen anything from Finland but I am not surprised to hear it. On Tuesday 6 March the whole world thought those were the Skripals. To try to understand what happened we must look at what was known on that day – the problem reading those reports now is that we know they are wrong, so we read them with bias and laugh it off as ‘early days’ or some such other nonsense.

        On Tuesday they were ‘the Skripals’ and all the winess statements fitted but a day later we were told they weren’t the Skripals… and none of the facts fitted anymore but nobody asked “why?”

  120. Paul and our fellow Blogmirers.

    Freya Church, one would assume is still working the same job in Salisbury. Anyone could offer to buy her a coffee and speak with her. Even pretend to be a prospective new gym member….

    In fact, with Rus and Alex in the news, it would surely seem appropriate for any investigating officer, journalist, Blog writer to re-visit with Freya.

    “Freya, you saw the CCTV footage of the two GRU agents, were they around the park bench, tell us what you saw….”
    Of course, no one has done this.

    Why?

    If an eye witness saw Rus and Alex in the vicinity of Mill Pub, Zizzi’s, park bench etc. then that would be very important EVIDENCE. We now know from train times and CCTV footage that R&A had left Salisbury before the “park bench attack”.
    However, it would appear that only the cameras saw the GRU Superagents.
    I did read one newspaper report that a panini sandwich was purchased, but that was not too illuminating.
    It does seem significant that no eye witnesses, e.g. Freya, Mill Pub manager, Zizzi’s staff etc. have been further interrogated.
    No word from Charlie, along the lines of “I saw Rus and the other killer gang chap throw the deadly perfume bottle into the charity bin, and I head dived in after it.”

    Remember, Basu is not convinced that the R&A are GRU. But why no follow up with anyone who might have been a witness.

    Based on the times, Aiden Cooper and his two mates might actually have seen something. Sergei taking/giving a package from R&A. This post Sainsbury car park time would be vital, especially as the Met would be desperate to get some sort of proof that there could have been the possibility of contact between the Skripals and the GRU Superagents.
    Well we know why not, because TPTB have all the CCTV.
    As they have not released any more footage of R&A’s expliots, there cannot be any more.
    Mrs May’s “evidence lead” claims are not complete.

    Once again, I advise you to watch what the police do, not what they say.

  121. The evidence of Freya Church: A review of the sources.

    Doubts about what Freya Church actually meant, or how her evidence seems to be fragmented, are frequently raised. My aim here is simply to look at the various sources and see if there is a single version of what she saw.

    It would be perfect if we could all speak to Freya and ask her as many questions as we would like – but that isn’t going to happen. Instead, we must take what we have and we are fortunate because we have a lot! Freya left the gym at 4:03 and saw the couple on the bench 1 minute later; at least 10 minutes before the emergency services were called.

    Freya gave a video interview to the BBC on 5 March and was at the PA briefing on Tuesday 6 March. After that briefing, she was available for interviews with individual networks. Giving so many interviews, it is hardly surprising that there are minor differences in what she said to each – not differences in the sense that she contradicts herself; merely that in each, she adds new information and leaves out other parts.

    It was not up to Freya to decide how each outlet would publish her words – the journalists chose what they would or would not write. It is, therefore, surprising how consistently her words were reported. Anyone who has ever given a press interview knows how reporters present your words to convey the story they seek, rather than what you meant.

    On 6 March, The Guardian had a live update page and published Freya’s words while the PA briefing was on-going:

    10:13am – Freya Church, 27, who spotted the pair “slumped” and “passed out” on the bench told the Press Association, the couple in the CCTV images were “100%” the people she saw on Sunday.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/mar/06/russian-spy-incident-counter-terrorist-police-investigate-live-updates?page=with:block-5a9e84aee4b06779059bb1f5#liveblog-navigation

    This formed the basis for much of the reporting. Most of the red-tops simply used these words in their stories. For example, this is what The Mirror (which was the first to appear) published:

    Speaking to PA, Ms Church, 27, said the couple in the CCTV images were “100 per cent” the people she saw on Sunday.
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poisoned-russian-spy-had-feared-12134627
    Updated 12:56, 6 MAR 2018

    Slightly earlier than The Mirror, The Telegraph had published its first story of the day but the main purpose of its story was to publish the first pictures of Yulia. This is what The Telegraph said about Freya’s interview:

    She had a red bag at her feet. He was gesturing at the sky, doing some kind of movements with his hands. “He was looking up and his eyes were glazed. There was no one else there near them at this point. No one was helping them.”
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/06/first-picture-daughter-poisoned-russian-spy-fighting-life-hospital/
    6 MARCH 2018 • 12:15PM

    The interesting ‘new’ piece of information is that Freya said that ‘there was no one else near them’ when she was with the couple. This answers questions about who else might have been there and whether Freya was consistently referring to the bench couple, or to somebody else, in what she said elsewhere. There was NOBODY else there. What is even more interesting though is that The Telegraph updated the story and published a new piece in the late evening, with more of Freya’s interview:

    Shown the CCTV footage of a couple walking past the gym towards the bench just 15 minutes earlier, Ms Church said it was “definitely them, 100per cent.”
    She had a red bag at her feet. He was gesturing at the sky, doing some kind of movements with his hands. He was looking up and his eyes were glazed. There was no one else there near them at this point. No one was helping them.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/06/did-treacherous-past-russian-colonel-finally-catch-salisbury/
    6 MARCH 2018 • 9:45PM

    Everything that had been in the 12:15pm article was still there but at 9:45pm The Telegraph had added:
    Shown the CCTV footage of a couple walking past the gym towards the bench just 15 minutes earlier, Ms Church said it was “definitely them, 100per cent.”

    This is very similar to the PA briefing words but it is not exactly the same and the reason it is not the same, is that the staff at SnapFitness had given fresh interviews to The Telegraph, after the PA briefing had finished.

    So: “Speaking to PA, Ms Church, 27, said the couple in the CCTV images were “100 per cent” the people she saw on Sunday” (Mirror) and “Shown the CCTV footage of a couple walking past the gym towards the bench just 15 minutes earlier, Ms Church said it was “definitely them, 100per cent.”” (Telegraph).

    Thus we now know that “the couple in the CCTV image” to which she referred, was the “couple walking past the gym”. But is it the same CCTV image and the same couple that we have seen?

    This is what The Daily Mail reported:

    Witness Freya Church, 27, who later spotted the pair ‘slumped’ and ‘passed out’ on the bench, said the couple pictured in the CCTV images released today were ‘100%’ the people she saw slumped on the bench on Sunday.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5467051/Was-Russian-spy-poisoned-Zizzi.html
    Updated: 22:43, 6 March 2018

    Thus: “the couple in the CCTV image” = “couple walking past the gym” = “the couple pictured in the CCTV images released today”.

    ‘The CCTV images released today’, tells us that indeed the couple is one and the same as the couple we all saw in the CCTV images released by the PA at 9:08am on 6 March:

    CCTV footage from Salisbury shows a man and woman walking through an alley between where critically-ill former spy Sergei Skripal had dinner and the bench where he was later found unconscious
    https://twitter.com/PA/status/970949188417740801/video/1

    I now want to look at the ITN video clip that was NOT broadcast. The video comprises 2 parts: an introduction with a voice over; then, a piece by Freya. The interesting part is what Freya was saying during the voice over. Contrary to previous ideas, the Getty website itself describes the first part of the video as “a set up shot”. Not only was the entire piece never broadcast but the 5 second voice over was simply put onto a piece of video that was not even part of the interview – it was a set up shot! What Freya said is now known:

    “And I… sort of got eye contact with them [pause] with the couple that were walking past, and then [long pause] it ends.”
    https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/former-russian-spy-sergei-skripal-and-daughter-remain-in-news-footage/928983862

    We already know that “the couple that were walking past” = “the couple pictured in the CCTV images released today” – but who did Freya try to get eye contact with?

    The staff at SnapFitness also gave an interview to The Times. This is what The Times published:

    At 4.03pm, the camera recorded Freya Church, a 27-year-old fitness instructor, leaving the gym. Two figures on a bench caught her eye. …“My first thought was they were homeless people who had taken something,” she said. “They were completely out of it. She was passed out and he was looking up to the sky and I tried to get eye contact to see if they were OK but there was nothing.”
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sergei-and-yulia-skripal-were-slumped-in-trance-minutes-after-shop-stroll-9zpxpc3wt
    March 7 2018, 12:01am

    Guardian live also reported, at 12:33pm, 6 March, Freya Church said:

    “She was passed out and he was looking up to the sky and I tried to get eye contact to see if they were OK. They didn’t seem with it, to be honest I thought they were just drugged out as they were in a weird state. They were out of it.”

    Freya tried to get eye contact with the people on the bench – “to see if they were OK”.

    Conclusions:

    1) When Freya was at the bench, nobody else was there.
    2) The couple that Freya saw on the bench, was the same couple seen walking past the gym in the PA CCTV.
    3) Freya is not referring to any other CCTV that we have not seen.
    4) Freya tried to get eye contact with the people on the bench (not with anybody else).
    5) These basic facts have been reported consistently, albeit not coherently.

    1. “1) When Freya was at the bench…”
      —————————-

      How do we know how close she was to the bench?

      1. By her own admission, not that close. Only near enough to recognize that the scene at the bench was odd. Not a day – particularly by 4:00 PM – for such a couple to be taking a break there. The couple, estimated relative ages and dress, was inconsistent with their apparent drugged out condition.

        1. That is simply not true – what do you mean by: “The couple, estimated relative ages and dress, was inconsistent with their apparent drugged out condition”?

          1. First interview — older man and younger pretty woman. Something about them not looking homeless. It’s not uncommon to see people on the street that appear homeless and drugged out. Within 500 feet of my home, I can see that practically any day.

            What’s your problem with accepting Church’s initial impression as to why she gave them more than a usual glance? Not too much more as even as she was discomforted by the scene, she walked on by.

            1. “older man and younger pretty woman” – she actually saw them and also saw a clean copy of the CCTV, we have seen neither. I don’t doubt what she said because I have nothing to suggest she was wrong. Do you have anything?

              “What’s your problem with accepting Church’s initial impression as to why she gave them more than a usual glance?” – I don’t have a problem with anything she said and I don’t understand what you mean. She may have ‘walked on by’ but she did say in one piece that she stayed there a minute or so. That was plenty of time for her to be sure ofr what she had seen.

        1. Close enough to try to make eye contact– could be quite a long distance. Certainly does not necessarily mean she was “at the bench”.

          1. It was 4pm, the lighting was good, even if she had been 2 yards away it was easily close enough for her to see the couple very well.

            You seem to wish to nit-pick – the point of what I wrote was to establish what Freya said. So far all you have offered is opinions, which is nothingh to do with what she said. I would prefer it if you could back (any of) it up with some evidence – taken from what was published.

            1. “even if she had been 2 yards away…”
              ——————————

              She could have been thirty yards away. Or more.

              1. You don’t have any details – you have offered nothing. If you wish to produce some other report that contradicts what I have said, I will gladly reply but both here and elsewhere on this thread, you seem to think that you can just offer an opinion without having taken any trouble to support it. It is very easy to say “I disagree” and then walk away – but that has zero value to anyone.

                1. Paul, you asserted that “Freya was at the bench”.

                  I asked: “How do we know how close she was to the bench?”

                  You replied: “She was close enough to make eye contact.”

                  But close enough to try to make eye contact could be thirty yards are more away. It certainly doesn’t mean she had to be “at the bench.”

                  Do you know of any other information that could help establish her location when observing the couple on the bench?

              1. And there are dozens of photos on the net of bench location, that’s how close she was. If she had turned left or right out of Market Walk she probably would not have spotted them, she could not have seen the detail she recalls

    2. “2) The couple that Freya saw on the bench, was the same couple seen walking past the gym in the PA CCTV”
      ——————————————

      Rather, Freya believes it was the same couple.

      1. No that is not true at all. She said she was 100% sure not that she believed.

        You are just trying to make it up!

            1. It’s 100% Freya’s subjective belief, no matter how certain she is. It doesn’t become objective fact until independently verified.

              1. May not be 100% Freya’s subjective belief. She could have misunderstood the question or didn’t completely or thoroughly express herself. To date nobody has been able to get a clarification from her.

                2. ” To date nobody has been able to get a clarification from her.”
                  ——————————–

                  Marie, how much do you really is at stake here?

                    3. We can ignore Freya completely and still be sure that the Skripals were NOT on the bench. The other witnesses say enough for me to draw that conclusion. The reason why Freya is important is that she was the first witness on the scene and has been widely reported. I deliberately left out ALL the other witnesses because if we can see what Freya said, it is actually enough on its own.

                  2. That’s a good question and for which I have no answer as long as Met CT actively suppresses information/evidence and in some fashion has silences those that have or believe they have authentic information. Met CT refuses to state the only one of four possibilities wrt the Market Walk couple:
                    1) They are the Skripals and they were the people found at the bench.
                    2) They are the Skripals and they weren’t the people taken to SDH from the bench.
                    3) They aren’t the Skripals and they were the people taken to SDH from the bench.
                    4) They aren’t the Skripals and they weren’t the people taken to SDH from the bench.

                    Freya Church, in separate interviews, claimed that the man on the bench was “that spy” and the Market Walk couple were the ones she saw on the bench. IOW #1. Paul interprets her statements to mean #3.

                    Initial media reports also said that the Market Walk couple were the Skripals – based on having seen a clear video, speculation, eyewitness report, or a police tip? – but unlike Church had no ability to compare them to the bench people. They later backed off from that claim. Again not offering any basis for that change.

                    Met CT has not issued any official statement. They’re riding on the public consensus, either correct or manufactured, that it’s #4. All four possibilities are problematical for the official narrative. #1 – moments later two jauntily walking people suddenly collapse from contact with a poison several hours earlier. #2 and #3 – no Skripal patients and a massive cover-up involving WPD/Met CT, SDH/PHS, and HMG. #4 – still open or since closed persons of interest, neither of which the police want the public to focus on.

                    However, the timeline of Met CT’/HMG suspects fixes the problem with #1.

                    1. “They later backed off from that claim. Again not offering any basis for that change.”

                      That is not correct. The reason they ‘backed off it’ was that the woman in the CCTV was blonde; Freya Church said the woman on the bench was blonde; and, Olly Field said in 2 seperate inetrviews that the woman on the bench was blonde.

                      However the chef in Zizzi said that Yulia was reddish brown and all the pictures of Yulia published on Tuesday 6 March showed she was blonde.

                      The Sun article was the ‘magic trick’ – they had previously said that the blonde woman on the bench was ‘Yulia’ but changed that to say, the woman on the bench was Yulia… but we don’t know who the blonde in the CCTV is!

                      David Copperfield can’t do that trick any better.

                    2. The woman in the CCTV was blonde (even though it is a very poor quality version that we see, the colour of her hair is unarguable) whilst Yulia is redidsh brown. Thus by your own logic #1 and #2 are impossible – the couple in the CCTV cannot be the Skripals.

                    3. Thank you Marie for the detailed response. Very reasonable.

                      Strictly speaking (plausibility aside) is there a fifth possibility — that the Market Watch couple/couple on bench were Sergei Skripal and another woman (not Yulia)?

                    5. Marie: ” #2 and #3 – no Skripal patients and a massive cover-up involving WPD/Met CT, SDH/PHS, and HMG.”
                      ————————————————

                      The extensiveness of the conspiracy required is a very important consideration, in my view.

                1. quote “memory works a bit like a wikipedia page, you can go in there and change it, but so can other people”

                2. Eye witnesses do err but when you have 2 or more of them that agree with each other, it is likely that they are right.

                  In this case we have more than one eye witness who said the woman on the bench was blonde – and nobody to disagree with that.

                  1. Paul, I can’t reply to your above comments – too far indented; so, will try to respond to all of them here.

                    Speaking only for myself and with more than a quick glance, that dark-haired, swarthy looking man in the photograph released by Met CT of Boshikov doesn’t much resemble that medium-brown haired Boshikov in the RT interview. It’s not just that he appears slimmer in the interview, but his facial features appear softer. (I’m the same way in medium close-up videos compared with bad DMV photos.)

                    Another person(s?) described the woman on the bench as wearing a white parka with the hood covering her hair. The video of the Market Walk woman is so fuzzed up that it’s possible that she has light brown hair instead of the blonde we think we see. You’re placing a lot of weight on what an anonymous chef at Zizzi said about the hair color of the woman he took to be Yulia. Plus we don’t know what color Yulia’s hair was on that day. She could have changed it that morning. What we do know, based on her May interview video, is that her roots were darker than the strands that would have existed on 4 Mar and to my eye, it looked as if the lighter strands had been darkened (not at all an unusual interim phase when a woman decides to stop coloring her hair).

                    For me, the paltry evidence (including the police behavior) is insufficient for me to eliminate any one of the possibilities I listed, much less conclude the single one that’s true. That’s regardless of the fact that only two fit my working hypothesis. Fixing the facts to fit one’s hypothesis is never a good idea.

                    With respect, you’re only accepting one statement from Church and rejecting her “the spy” statement which she made before the Market Walk video had publicly surfaced. You also don’t seem to comprehend just how bad eyewitnesses are at seeing and recalling. The research on this couldn’t be clearer.

                    1. Marie, I am sorry but it is impossible for me to reply to that in any sensible fashion – I don’t believe anyone has ever mentioned a ‘white parka’ anywhere before. Let’s leave it at that.

                    2. Marie: “With respect, you’re only accepting one statement from Church and rejecting her “the spy” statement which she made before the Market Walk video had publicly surfaced. ”
                      ———————————-

                      Good point. I was about to post on that myself.

                    3. @Sibiriak

                      “..rejecting her “the spy” statement which she made before the Market Walk video had publicly surfaced. ”

                      It is not a good point, it is completly wrong!

                      The CCTV was published by the PA BEFORE the briefing started on 6 March and Freya’s comment came DURING the briefing.

                      Did you read and understand my post before you started commenting?

                    4. Paul: Freya Church said the woman on the bench was blonde; and, Olly Field said in 2 seperate inetrviews that the woman on the bench was blonde.
                      —————————

                      So I can fully understand your theory: who in your opinion arranged to have a blonde woman on the bench? Why put a blonde-haired woman there?

                    5. Firstly, this isn’t my ‘theory’: I am simply looking at the facts that have been reported – I didn’t make them up.

                      If I knew who had ‘arranged’ for the couple to walk down Market Walk, I would have written my book by now.

                      If your question is “why was a blonde woman selected to be a patsy?” – nobody knew what the Skripals looked like anyway. I think the bench couple had the Skripals ID in their pockets and that was why they were identified as ‘the Skripals’.

                      The SJ had been briefed about the story in advance (which is why Rebecca Hudson’s use of the #RussianSpy hash tag meant she had to delete ALL her Twitter posts for Sunday and most of Monday – she wasn’t supposed to know) and they were ready to print the story about a Russian Spy on the bench.

                      Now, I do not wish to be rude and if you have a good point and I can help, I will gladly do so but all these points have been raised several times already on other threads. If you would kindly read those threads, before you ask these questions, you will be able to find the answers to most your questions and it would save us all a great deal of time.

                      In fact better than that, it is always useful to have someone read the old threads because there are probably points we have forgotten and they may be relevant to some of the topics we are now looking at.

                    6. Paul: If your question is “why was a blonde woman selected to be a patsy?” – nobody knew what the Skripals looked like anyway.
                      ——————————-

                      You believe the people selecting a patsy did not know what the Skripals looked like? Seriously?

                    7. Paul: If your question is “why was a blonde woman selected to be a patsy?” – nobody knew what the Skripals looked like anyway. I think the bench couple had the Skripals ID in their pockets…
                      ——————————-

                      The same folks who could get the Skripals’ ID into the bench couple’s pockets could not find out what the Skripals looked like– is that your contention?

                    8. The general public, the first responders, etc. etc. did not know what the Skripals looked like. What the patsies looked like was not important because they had the Skripals ID and since you and others here think we should ignore the eye-witnesses anyway, what difference does it make?

                      Asking 50 questions is a very easy thing to do – finding 50 answers is the hard part. If you have a genuine interest in this case, please stop wasting my time with silly questions.

                    9. Paul: What the patsies looked like was not important …
                      ——————————

                      Surely the idea (in your scenario) was to match the patsies to the Skripals, knowing that there would be multiple witnesses to the incident.

                      Surely, hair color would be something easy to match. Why should we believe no attempt to match hair color was made?

                      Why would a blonde-haired woman be chosen to play Yulia’s role?

                      “….what difference does it make?”

                      Well, according to you, witness testimony that the woman on the bench was a blonde proves that she wasn’t Yulia.

                  2. Fine if you don’t want to respond to a challenge to your opinion. However,

                    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/05/alleged-former-russian-spy-critically-exposure-unknown-substance/

                    Georgia Pridham, 25, had been for a hen do lunch and was walking back to her friend’s car when she saw the couple slumped on a bench.

                    She told the Telegraph: “He was quite smartly dressed, which caught my eye. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him.

                    “He had a woman sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder. She looked grey and had her hood up.

                    “I thought ‘that is quite odd, they must be on something’. I remember looking back at him thinking he would catch my eye but he was staring dead straight. He was conscious but it was like he was frozen and he was slightly rocking back and forward.

                    “She was just slumped onto his shoulder. She had a Parka jacket on with her hood up. I thought maybe she was asleep or passed out. He had a jacket and some smart trousers on. He didn’t look like the type to get high.”

                    I did err in stating that the parka was white. I mistook Yulia for the woman wearing the white parka in the Moscow airport video. Her parka is clearly a dark blue or black.

                    1. Marie,
                      First you tell me that I should discount a witness in Zizzi who said Yulia had reddish brown hair (even suggesting she might have changed colour that day!) when we can all see that Yulia had brown hair the day before and is generally pictured with reddish brown hair.

                      Next you tell me that I should ignore what I can see with my own eyes that the woman in the CCTV is blonde and if not blonde certainly not reddish brown!

                      Then you tell me I should discount multiple, consistent comments (including on video) from an eye witness – many points being corroborated by other witnesses.

                      I could say more but that is not a “challenge to my opinion” – on the contrary it is you trying to challenge facts that were reported at the time!

                      Now, having told me how unreliable witnesses are, you cite ONE ‘witness’ who was only interviewed once and whose evidence is contradicted by several other witnesses. Furthermore, we don’t even know who that witness is! There is an individual with the same name who USED to live in Salisbury but now lives and works elsewhere. That that individual might have made a visit to Salisbury for the weekend is quite possible but since she has a job, can you explain how she could have been in Salisbury for interviews on a Monday? And how good was her view of the bench – multiple people had arrived by then. There is a second individual with the same name who lives in France…

                      Georgia Pridham’s ‘parka’ is the ONLY single point raised by ANY of the witnesses that does not fit,

                      Against this mountain of evidence that says it was the CCTV couple on the bench, we have absolutely NOTHING ANYWHERE that says it was the Skriplas on the bench – except the official narrative, which we already know is lies.

          1. So what did the police do with Freya’s 100% evidence? Whether she is sure or not it is evidence and it was rejected as being worthless than useless, tittle tattle from a straw sucking country blonde bird who’s evidence is as reliable as PHE advice on the dangers of Novichok to the public.

    3. You need to add the conflicting evidence of what she said about him being the spy. That’s quite important. When she said it and when Sergei’s mug shot started appearing in the media.

    4. I just noticed on the last clip at 15 seconds Freya say “their bags were down”. I’d only ever focused on the red bag before. Does this imply Sergei had a bag also and if so has it been described anywhere in terms of what was in it?

      1. That was mentioned previously ( a couple of chapters ago) but I don’t believe any of us could make sense of it.

    5. Paul, two quotes of the DailyMail. Both articles were published on March 6 :

      ‘It was a young, blonde and pretty girl and it was definitely the man that’s been pictured in the news – the guy that’s a spy.
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5470455/How-poisoned-spy-plot-unfolded-Salisbury.html

      Witness Freya Church, 27, who later spotted the pair ‘slumped’ and ‘passed out’ on the bench, said the couple pictured in the CCTV images released today were ‘100%’ the people she saw slumped on the bench on Sunday.
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5467051/Was-Russian-spy-poisoned-Zizzi.html

      „pictured in the news“ versus „pictured in the CCTV images“ !
      Unless we can ask Freya what she really saw, we shouldn´t give a penny about media statements.

      I agree with you that Freya wanted to make eye contact with the couple on the bench.
      DailyShocker is wrong with the thesis that Freya saw the hit team.

      1. Thanks Liane, I just put up ‘Part 2’ which I hope answers those points.

        Any well considered criticism will be very welcome.

    7. To add another possibility: Yulia might have worn a blond wig. Maybe they had an appointment and Yulia didn’t want to be recognized too easily.

  123. Guess who collected samples of chemical weapons supposedly used in Syria for MI6?

    “It’s clear that Bretton-Gordon (HBG) had a key role in the MI6 operation to collect samples for Porton Down that was reported in the Times and Telegraph during April 2013.”

    And guess what Bretton-Gordon does now? He is the managing director of CBRN for Avon Protection Systems.

    And guess who has made a major donation to Wiltshire Air Ambulance? Avon Protection Systems.

    And guess where the new headquarters of the Wiltshire Air Ambulance is located? Right next door to Avon Protection Systems.

    Guess who has access to “nerve or related agents” for testing gas masks and chemical warfare protection clothing?

    http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Porton_Down_investigates_Syria#Hamish_de_Bretton-Gordon.27s_role_in_collecting_samples_for_MI6

    1. De Bretton-Gordon also showed “rebels” how to collect and package samples according to OPCW standards and argued that it was not necessary for the OPCW to always collect the samples in person, thus interrupting the chain of evidence. This paid off in Khan Sheikoun where James Le Mesuriers White Helmets brought the samples to Turkey for the OPCW to check.

      As regards Khan Sheikoun, see also Dr. Shajul Islam.

      I am not a native speaker, so please excuse clumsy or even wrong expressions.

        1. “But in this case, another small detail may make you wonder about what you are being told. In some reports of the alleged atrocity, a supposed ‘British doctor’, Shajul Islam, was quoted or shown on the spot, described as a ‘volunteer treating victims in hospital’.

          Actually, he shouldn’t really be called a British doctor. He was struck off the British medical register for ‘misconduct’ in March 2016. The General Medical Council won’t say why.

          And in 2012 Shajul Islam was charged with terror offences in a British court. He was accused of imprisoning John Cantlie, a British photographer, and a Dutchman, Jeroen Oerlemans.

          (…)

          It takes a couple of minutes to find this out if you look. But only one major Western news outlet, The Times, has put two and two together. Why is that?”

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4394216/PETER-HITCHENS-noble-cause-Bombs-Al-Qaeda.html

          Indeed, why is that?

    2. acloserlookonsyria is always a source of important background information.
      If someone turns the Skripal case into money, it’s Hamish. Cui bono…

  124. Mill Public House. Was doubted about Land Rovers. Ok not a problem
    and understand they be would be to obvious.
    Weather was unpredictable so a 4X4 best option. Smash way through
    if Op compromised [weather unpredictable-good vehicle needed]

    Range Rover-Audi-Merc. Very good but not off road. Range Rover
    not a true Off-Roader now unless you know what doing.

    Good Old Land Rover. Vehicle for job if S***hits fan.

    Witnesses seen masked people prior to attack. All set-up.
    Air Ambulance airlifted away Government Agents.

    Skripals gone into history..D.S.Bailey well..carrying the can?

    1. Roads in the city are fine so car, waiting for S&Y in The Mill car park, is nothing special – it was seen on CCTV on the way in.
      Driver and minder already in the car when S&Y arrive.
      Car drives down Priory Square – seen on CCTV again but it is the only way out.
      Nobody is looking for them yet but need to swap vehicle as the first will be too easy to track on CCTV.
      Drive somewhere busy nearby (out of CCTV shot) where another car is waiting.
      Swap vehicles, Skripals drive to safe house or airfield; first car drives around leaving a CCTV trail.
      Skripals gone.

  125. Personal things aside if our two guys are gay so what?
    That’s not the Issue. As long as they happy and it is 2018.
    I understand different ideas in Russia about homosexuality
    but that’s not the issue.

    Two Men accused of poisoning Skripals and in Salisbury
    at time. Ok so what. Did they do it-No proof at this time?

    Yes they Russian but so what. Wrong place-Wrong time.
    Give Us The British People The Cctv Evidence That These
    Two Russian Gents Put Highly Deadly Russian Type-Stuff
    On Mr Skripals Front Door Handle. You Can Not!
    I Rest My Case……..

    Live and let live..Thank you Members of the Jury.

    1. The point is that they seem to know they are “GRU” officers but let them in and out of the country on – probably – business visa.
      German Wikipedia – not English Wikipedia – claims foreign intelligence agencies are mainly tasked with economic espionage
      https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glawnoje_Raswedywatelnoje_Uprawlenije
      This here an early British expose on Christoper Steele
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/28/bond-broadband-back-business-spying-coming-full-circle/
      ““Former intelligence agency people sit very comfortably in that area,” says Mr Hughes, who himself was trained as a high-risk security operative for private sector work. These companies are largely very discreet, he says, and often do not have anything more than a one-page website.

      They get their business through word of mouth, and through recommendation. Law firms and investment firms, eager to leave no stone unturned, are regular clients, while they can also be used on a more political stage.”

      And on using gay people as spies
      https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/so-whats-new-about-gay-spies-1253692.html

      1. German Wikipedia is correct. The main role of MI6, CIA and SVA is economic intelligence, and this has been the case ever since the early 90s. With the ending of the Warsaw Pact, there was a massive shift in priorities. The same applied to SIGINT operations GCHQ, NSA, etc.

        Be very wary of what you read on Wikipedia if the subject matter is controversial or related to intelligence matters.

  126. Rob, your piece (very well done btw and on an iphone no less) reminds me of one of my experiences thirty years ago as a juror. Only five of the twelve jurors understood that we were supposed to first evaluate the prosecution’s case and unless it were reasonably convincing, there was no need to consider the defense presentation. (Interestingly, the prosecution’s narrative and evidence failed at different points for those five. For me the primary prosecution witness, a cop, was lying from the get go (the truth, which I later discovered, was that he was lying which made the search illegal). Some kept pointing out that the defense narrative and witnesses, including the defendant, weren’t believable; so, they sided with the prosecution. It took two days of deliberations to get four more of the jurors to first carefully consider the prosecution’s case and conclude that it hadn’t established guilt. We ended up a hung jury at 9 to 3 and the three were the only senior citizens on the jury.

    While above is anecdotal, the bias in favor of the state within the general population is a solid majority and those in that majority don’t seek out and have trouble hearing and evaluating alternatives.

    Like that long-ago cop lying from the get-go, the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by Russia/Putin was the get-go state lie for me in this incident. Initially, more like “anthrax that could only have come from Saddam’s stockpile,” but slowly built up much as the WMD mega-lie had been, ending with the onus on Saddam to prove that he had no WMD. (Technically, he did but that was dismissed and denied by USG and HMG.)

    From early on – and none of the subsequent evidence and speculation has dissuaded me and much tends to be confirmatory– I’ve seen an incident that could have been accidental but more likely perpetrated by one individual. From there, one or more attending physicians (PD trained) misdiagnosed the two patients, Met CT exploited that, and then HMG ramped up the exploitation. HMG went so far out on a limb that they couldn’t back down when the science couldn’t confirm Novichok. Met CT couldn’t back down when they couldn’t find an assassin/murderer at/near the bench and couldn’t find ground zero for a deadly poison. So, with great difficulty and hiding all the real evidence they have collected, they concocted both. The ridiculousness of both doesn’t matter as long as proffered alternatives lack evidence and veer into woo-woo territory.

    1. From Craig Murray’s place:

      Very good points and having faced attacks from these people myself in the past, I salute you standing up to them. It matters not a wit to the government wether their fantasy story is believed or not. We can go on for years refuting it with the facts. They are intent on war. That is clear and the propaganda will continue to prepare the peoples minds for it. We have to keep struggling to reveal the facts, to show them for what they are. but the question becomes, as they continue despite that, what can be done make turn away from a war they seem to desperately need. But in waiting for an answer to that question, my respects for your courage and the determination.

      Christopher Black,
      Barrister
      International criminal lawyer
      Counsel list, ICC
      Exec member, Canadian Peace Congress
      Former defence counsel ICTY ad ICTR.
      Canada

  127. Just to reiterate a thought I had below. On Friday evening when A&R went to Waterloo maybe they were not intending to go to Salisbury, but Sergei was coming up to London to meet them.
    Only the snow prevented him.

    1. Also they could have gone straight to Bow Road (near hotel) from Victoria on the District Line.
      Diverting via Waterloo makes no sense if they had CityStay already booked.

        1. Hmm, Cascadian, of course coming from Moscow they could be easily confused by Metro systems.
          Poor lambs got on the District Line going in the right direction, then so confused were they, instead of staying on the correct train on the correct line, they got off at Westminster, got on the Jubilee line and went one stop.
          Shouldn’t be let out without Mummy.

          1. The Moscow metro is world famous for its cleanliness, architecture and it runs on time.

            I have had a lot of experience of the London underground, I worked in London for years back in the 90s.

            For a non-Londoner the tube can be very confusing, not least because the tube map is non-geographical (you do know that, I suppose?). And I say this from experience of taking people who are non-Londoners to London and witnessing their confusion.

            Maybe you shouldn’t be let out without mummy.

  128. I just found this:

    http://www.wunc.org/post/one-small-nc-city-stands-out-lgbtq-pride#stream/0

    “One Small NC City Stands Out In LGBTQ Pride ”

    and an idea came up:

    The two should come out and tell the world, why the wanted to go to Salisbury. All of a sudden they would have the world wide gay community to defend them. And it would bring the GRU-assassination-accusations to a screaching halt. Imagine Theresa May after Elton John is done with her…

    What about tolerance and human rights for the poor, russian gay men, almost outed by this terrible
    Russian state TV-woman, who shuold well know about the risks and danger they face in their country.

    And now they can’t even go any other place thanks to the Brits pursuing them and threatening to have them arrested as soon as they cross the border.

    Coming out is the only chance they have, and it might help not only them but all homosexuals in Russia. I hope, s.b. is encouraging them, otherwise they won’t get their lifes back.

    1. I’d like to think they were gay and some spies even Russian ones are still driven by ideology and homosexuality.

      Britain’s spies once were and these cornerstones were replaced by money.

    3. @Chris – great idea! The U.S. Deep State, with British help, along with most Democratic (and many Republican) politicians and the generally leftist media in the US have created and used anti-Russia hysteria as an effective club against Trump.

      Your idea would force them to choose between being pro-gay or anti-Russia. I think the pro-gay side would be more popular. It’d be nice to see the New York Times, CNN, or the Washington Post be as skeptical towards the Skripal official narrative as they are to some of Trump’s narratives.

        1. @Zee Piers – I wake up every morning singing, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” It doesn’t help much…

  129. Absolutely Fantastic Comments Everyone!
    Keep It Up.
    Excellent Work!
    HMG said it is an insult to British Peoples and all Lies.
    Well HMG You Would Know Wouldn’t You!
    Met Police..Well No More Said..History Of Lies-Fitting
    People Up!

    So Proud Of You All..Best Wishes!

  131. The story so far:

    The UK want to assist in the further destruction and destabilisation of the Middle East to allow the US the secure its hegemony and permit the further illegal expansion of Israel into adjoining lands.

    The Syrian civil war is a good device to justify the continuing perpetual war. But Russia intervened and helped Assad beat back all comers. To re-ignite and revitalise the conflict the US need to get involved with missile attacks. They have a rule in the US that they need an excuse, however lame and dishonest it is and Assad Gas Attacks are always a good Stand By.

    Russia also needs weakening and international pressure heaped on them. It would also be useful if they can be integrated into the use of chemical weapons lie.

    If that can be done whilst also dealing with a local difficulty that Mrs May and Mi6 have by being caught out in helping to discredit Donald Trump and sabotaging his Presidential election chances that would be helpful.

    So a scheme was formed: A patsy ex Russian spy now resident in Salisbury is set up for providing false information to Mi6 about Trump. We are then led to believe the Russians tried to kill Sergei and his daughter with nerve agent.

    But before that Sergei is told that Mi6 have intelligence that the Russians are going to kill him and so will help him disappear.

    This bombshell is dropped on Sergei in the period whilst he is being interviewed by another intelligence and BBC insider Mark Urban, the interviews are intended to reflect Sergei’s intimate knowledge and experience of the Cold War. That is not their real purpose, their real purpose is to frame Sergei for providing information he didn’t even have. (a la Gilligan and Kelly)

    Sergei smells a rat, he knows the Trump Dossier has hit the fan, May and Mi6 need a scapegoat.

    When he is told that HMG will help him disappear and that he will be presumed dead but actually extracted to a safe new life in comfort for the rest of his days……….. He rightly thinks they (HMG) are going to kill me.

    So he tells his Russian colleagues of the Urban / Miller / Steele plot (Mi6), the plan to make him disappear and that he has evidence that shows HMG has sided against Trump (before and after the elections) in favour of the Zionist Warmongers, that he has evidence of Russia being set up for using military grade Novichok nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury as an excuse to demonise Russia, attack Syria and turn international diplomatic relations sour for Russia ….. Russia says OK we’ll talk.

    The plan is simple but Sergei wants Yulia to be safe, to be with him, she is vulnerable in Russia. Russia want the evidence that Sergei has first.

    The day is set, weather looks like it might be a problem but it recedes.

    The HMG Plan 1 (told to Sergei). S & Y poisoned by nerve agent taken to hospital later “dies”, shipped off to new life. S & Y don’t even need to be sprayed with anything, just act weird, they will soon have stooge first responders all around then – literally within seconds.

    The HMG plan 2 (actual plan) S & Y poisoned, S & Y die for real.

    There is no merit keeping Sergei alive he will always be a risk.
    When Russia are put back in their box, Assad killed, Syria taken by US puppets a la Iraq and Lybia and Israel beginning its new land grab ……….. no one is going to remember Sergei and Mrs May is on a very tight leash.

    The Russian Plan: Get the Evidence / Verify. Swap S & Y before they get to the bench, get them out of the country. See how the US want to play it. (The UK is irrelevant).

    By the time it established that the real S& Y are not in the hospital it has already been leaked to the press that he was an ex spy and nerve agent was involved in the attack. That couldn’t be put back in the box.

    But HMG and USA realise that S & Y can appear on telly any day sat next to Putin laughing and joking. Why haven’t they?

    Putin wants to negotiate.

    All of the above could all be bollocks except we haven’t seen the faces of the people on the bench or a verifiably recent photo or footage of S & Y together.

    I think the Yulia’s Reuters appearance was a courtesy to HMG and proof of who had her.

    Come on HMG give us evidence that it was Skripals on the bench and they are well then I and everyone else can believe your story but at the moment it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and will be suspected of being false for nefarious reasons.

    1. Peter, that makes a lot more sense that the official story… but it means the bench couple actually died and their deaths were covered up. That makes some sort of sense – whatever they used was nasty (not a nerve agent) which is why Bailey got worried and went to SDH.

      1. Not necessarily the bench people could have been sprayed with a “related compound” or as a incapacitant and its usually known, not good for them to tell their tale though that could be ambition limiting.

        1. I meant that if HMG went with what you described as the ‘actual’ plan (because there was no merit in keeping Sergei alive) then the bench couple are dead. If it was only an incapacitant (or something else that was relatively harmless) then Bailey would probably never have needed hospitalisation either. If they meant to kill Sergei, they killed somebody else instead – which might explain why we have not heard from them since..

          1. Its a possibility, they are playing for high stakes, Dawn Sturgess was killed to keep a lid on so yes the impersonators could have been “acceptable losses”

            Did you notice we never heard a peep out of the police re the cctv couple’s ID after they asked for help in identifying them.

            Plus all we were given was the awful screen capture from a phone which had presumably taken it from the cctv monitor.

            No these people didn’t matter a jot to the police and they were prime suspects / witnesses at the time, in fact I think they were the Skripals for a while weren’t they? (officially not actually). And was that Yulia’s bag she had?

            So many questions answered by so many puzzles

            1. Nice read, Peter. Much of it forms my prime suspicions too. That Sergei was told he had to disappear. That Sergei didn’t trust that.

              “Did you notice we never heard a peep out of the police re the cctv couple’s ID after they asked for help in identifying them.”

              Yes. Still waiting for the police to thank Russia for their help in identifying them… lol

    2. Sergei smells a rat…

      Sergei is a rat. His past MI6 handlers, including PM, knew that best and also knew his limitations. The possibility of Sergei’s eagerness to contribute to the Steele dossier if he’d known of it, didn’t alter the fact that he offered little to nothing for the project.

      1. It didn’t matter what Sergei knew or didn’t know, what he knew or didn’t know
        When it came to the time that Urban said Sergei said this that and the other Sergei wasn’t going to be around to deny it.
        Gilligan played the same game of betrayal on Kelly. MI6 wanted to get the source of the ridiculous 45 minute claim out. Gilligan said Kelly had told him, Kelly hadn’t told him. Kelly was used and it didn’t matter how much harm was done to Kelly, they couldn’t care less when he died. Incidentally Gilligan knew Kelly was dead before his body had been found and that painkillers were involved on the death several hours before the blister packs of pills were found on the body by the forensic team.
        This is what the BBC and MI6 do, they set people up for murder, are involved in the crime and the cover up and we pay them to do it.

        1. Don’t disagree that an unavailable or dead Sergei Skripal makes for a good patsy as the source of the Steele dossier. However, that’s viewing this from a post-Salisbury Incident perspective. If Steele and/or associates recognized earlier than the beginning of March that they needed an unavailable or dead patsy, they had resources to accomplish that in several simple ways that I can easily imagine and likely many more. Going with being incapacitated on a public bench introduced far too many uncontrollable variables and too many pre and post-participants that had to knowingly or unknowingly play their assigned roles. Too many potential weak links in the chain. (Something that fiction writers never adequately deal with.)

          1. Several birds trying to be killed with one stone. That is why it was so weak and fell apart so quickly.
            Too clever for their own good.
            1) A Scapegoat needed for May using Mi6 to sabotage Trump POTUS bid and destabilising hi m after he had won.
            2) Conflate Assad and Putin use of Chemical Weapons against innocents
            3) Whip up international outrage against Putin, demonise him and isolate.

            1. Only #3 and following the maxim of let a good opportunity go to waste is required for HMG.

              That’s why in the initial stages of the Salisbury Incident the HMG response was eerily similar to the US anthrax attacks by the USG. (‘Get Saddam’ was on Bush/Cheney’s to do list before the 2000 election.) This was shortly after their inability to tag him for 9/11, although they did try. They reformulated that in 2002-03 and settled for insinuating a connection between Saddam and 9/11.

    3. Agree to the first part and that both skripals were at first in on the plot (to disappear because “Trump/ the CIA or whoever were after them”) and tried some backup involving Julia and maybe those russian tourists and the couple on the bench.
      No, I don’t think the Skripals succeeded in escaping their attackers, otherwise Yulia would not have had to borrow a mobile phone to phone her cousin. I think “they” kept or are still keeping Sergej as a hostage separate from Yulia, in order to get her to comply with “them” whoever “them” may be (that they are alive may have changed now since Julia saying to her cousin “I understand everything now, forgive me”). Yes, there may have been a switch on the bench, because Freya Church has clearly stated, that those in CCTV were the people on the bench. The couple in the CCTV: that man is neverever Sergej Skripal, Sergej is smaller and of broader stature.
      I believe that DS Bailey was MI5/6’s watchdog of Sergej and lost him in the mill’s pub (after them having been to Zizzi’s).
      Theories:
      If the couple on the bench were attacked there from behind (which I assume) any possible CCTV of the attack cannot be shown by MET. Maybe the plan was inititally to let the world see some maniac russians attacking the Skripals with a nerve agent in broad daylight. Think of the sighting of a man with a sars masc. But because the attackers saw too late that the couple were not the Skripals, plans had to be changed. DS Bailey perhaps rushed to the scene too early and got some nerve agent or BZ or whatever unto his face/hands. Later he immediately searched for the Skripals in their home.

      More thoughts:
      Maybe our tourists got some small item (data stick, details Steele dossier) from Sergej as his life insurance either at a road crossing or in the Mill’s pub on sunday. Maybe not and they were really a gay couple, maybe into trade of anabolica. If you read only the transcript it sounds ok, but their body language and mimic still disturbs me. They had clearly rehearsed their answers so that their mimic looks as if they were lying or knowing more than they say. That may have been because they are lying or because they had rehearsed questions/answers too often.

      1. The scenario of the Skripals fleeing after the mill’s pub and an improvised reaction of MI5/6 would also explain the immediate rush of specialists to the scene at the bench and the strange movements of the helicopter (directed to where the Skripals might have been found).

          1. Sibiriak, such is the trouble with this blog format. A friendly forum we could all join would be very helpful, not least for those interested in particular areas of the case.

            Your best bet might be to open every blog-post of Rob’s, and search for “helicopter” and “air ambulance” (find next, find next). Unless someone has a better idea or has compiled their thoughts on it elsewhere.

            1. Rob uses hashtags on all his articles so go to the top right part of this page where there is a Categories heading and a “select category” option. “Skripal case” “Sergei Skripal” and “Novichok” are the ones to select – there will be some overlap but I don’t think Rob has used a single hashtag for all the relevant articles. “Skripal case” will get nearly everything since May but some of the earlier ones are “Novichok”. In total there are about 7,000 comments on all the articles.

              If you open each in turn and then save as pdf (or whatever format you want), you can have your own library of all past articles and comments.

              Once you have them all downloaded, it is very easy to search through them for whatever term you want, without having to constantly open them all again online.

              For the helicopter, in addition to the 2 terms you suggest, also search for WAA and AA (meaning Wiltshire Air Ambulance and Air Ambulance).

            3. I found a good introduction to the “strange helicopter movements” theory here:

              The 10 Main Holes in the Official Narrative on the Salisbury Poisonings: #4
              Peter Beswick August 27, 2018 at 10:43 pm and following posts

              (Many assertions, unfortunately, don’t have supportive links or citations.)

      2. If the Russians have the Skripals then they are assuredly being “protected” because if either say the wrong thing at this time the Russian position could be weakened that will not be allowed.
        The future of the earth may depend on it.

        1. What Julia said to Victoria in their first call contradicts the assumption that the Russians have them. Far easier for MI5/6 to track them again than the Russians to get them to a safe house.

      3. Body language is not in fact universal. They are very Russian. Bearded one (can’t remember which one is which name-wise) is a wound-too-tight type and very, very frustrated at the turn of events. Stocky clean-shaven one is the calm, shoulder-shrugging, don’t-look-for-trouble type. One of the reasons I tend to think they are really a couple is that the interview reminded me of me (I’d be the bearded one) and my husband. The calm ones let the wound-up ones natter on, and they talk, trying to put some calm perspective into the conversation when the anxiety-ridden ones run out of steam.

        1. And if they are gay, yeah, they rehearsed what they had to say because they want to tell the truth while making it clear that they are not gay . . .

    4. “The Russian Plan: Get the Evidence / Verify. Swap S & Y before they get to the bench, get them out of the country. See how the US want to play it. (The UK is irrelevant). By the time it established that the real S& Y are not in the hospital it has already been leaked to the press that he was an ex spy and nerve agent was involved in the attack. That couldn’t be put back in the box.
      But HMG and USA realise that S & Y can appear on telly any day sat next to Putin laughing and joking. Why haven’t they? Putin wants to negotiate.”
      —————————

      Not very believable, imo.

    5. An interesting scenario, Peter. Tell me, would introducing Galantine as a preventive measure against organophosphate poisoning change any of the details ?

    6. Even more likely is the bench couple were crisis actors, deliberately selected for their visual similarity to the Skripals. Maybe from actors’ academy or possibly they work for HMG. I see no reason to have used novichok or indeed any other substance in this charade. I don’t believe anyone suffered physically throughout this drama.

  132. There is one possibility that seems to make sense of quite a few of those odd circumstances.

    Suppose that HMG, eager to add to the “weight of evidence” (i.e. propaganda) in the Skripal affair, decided long ago to find specific Russians on whom to blame the “poisoning”. That decision would presumably have been reached in March – which, as you will recall, was six months ago. Half a year. A good long time.

    Suppose they collected all the information they could find on Russian visitors to London on March 3rd-4th, and picked the two who suited their purposes best. Namely, who travelled to Salisbury on the two relevant days, and who could conceivably be falsely described as GRU officers. If Petrov and Boshirov were the best they could come up with, that merely shows that the field was a thin one. It explains why their appearance, behaviour and movements seem completely wrong for such agents; and it even accounts for their having flown directly from Russia to Gatwick. (The selection criteria would have insisted on that, in order to strengthen the impression of Russianness).

    It would be interesting to know how many Russians travelled to Salisbury on March 3rd-4th, and what they did while there. We might find that Petrov and Boshirov were the only ones who could, even very crudely and roughly, be forced into the mould of “Russian agents”.

    1. How about they started as you suggest in early March, with border police records of arrivals in all UK ports of entry of Russian citizens coming from Russia (as matching names in passports to photos is already done on arrival) then outsourced image searching to “super-recognisers” looking for any matches in the “mountain” of CCTV images from Salisbury around 4th March, but struck lucky with two chaps who travelled to Salisbury on 3rd AND 4th?

  133. Sounds like RT has taken over the role of investigative journalists.
    https://twitter.com/OksanaBoyko_RT?lang=de
    “It would be ironic & in line with Moscow’s style of trolling, if RT_com & @bellingcat turn out to be part of the same identity leak operation. Saving all these high-five tweets for later, looking frwd to being proved wrong”
    “Highly likely the pair was in #Salisbury on some shadowy business, which coincided with #Skripals going off GPS for a few hours. Surely, #UK intel already established Skripals’ whereabouts in the morning but keeps mum about it. Anyone anticipating @Bellingcat scoop on that?”

    1. Anidea – I see it as a comedy of errors.
      Could be Friday evening Sergei was meeting them at Waterloo but snow stopped his train.
      Saturday – Sergei wanted to stay at home to meet A&R but Yulia got stroppy when he suggested coach, train or taxi – she rang Ross and Mo, they said they’d drive up and then Sergei had to go, missing A&R again.
      Sunday, they finally do rendezvous during duck-feeding but MI5 on to Sergei – BZ Skripals in Zizzis or Mill, have emergency services ready so they don’t die.

  134. NOVICHOK IN THE HOTEL ROOM

    I want to work it out with logical considerations – on the basis of the MET indictment :

    Alex and Ruslan had the Nina Ricci perfume in a sealed box in their luggage when they arrived at CityStayHotel.
    Would they have opened the box in their hotel room ?
    NO ! It would have been far too dangerous !

    MET told us that Alex and Ruslan smeared/sprayed Sergei´s door handle at around 12:10pm on March 4.
    That means, they opened the perfume box, put the plastic applicator on top of the bottle and contaminated the door handle.
    From this moment on, one of the two men could have Novichok on his hands.

    MET told us that the suspects then thrown away the box somewhere in Salisbury and Charly found it in a charity bin.
    Charly said he found the perfume in a SEALED box with the applicator separated in the box.
    That would mean the suspects had to remove the applicator, put it in the box and then seal it again with a portable mashine to do it.

    Other possibility : The suspects had TWO Nina Ricci perfume boxes.
    The one they used was never found. The unused one was found by Charlie.
    In any case the perfume box(es) stayed behind in Salisbury.

    Now MET could claim that the suspects contaminated their hotel room when they returned on March 4.
    The little problem : THEY DID NOT RETURN TO THE HOTEL !

    They checked out in the morning before going to Salisbury and paid the bill in cash or with credit card (which was easy for the MET to check).
    Their luggage they left in a locker anywhere.

    Question to MET : How do you explain the contamination in the hotel room, as the suspects didn´t return on March 4 ?
    Do you really assume that the suspects have prepared the bottle in the hotel room and then started the journey to Salisbury ? Why should they take such a risk ?

    1. That is a very good point and once again exposes the lies of HMG.

      As previously noted, since the test ‘result’ cannot be reproduced, claiming that a single test did find novihoax has zero probative value – it cannot even be used as evidence in court because nobody can check whether it was right or wrong. But now that they have said it anyway, it has propaganda value for them – that is the only value it will ever have.

      The whole ‘novihoax in the room scam’ was to link the hotel to Salisbury and once again to scare the public with tales of novihoax – and what a great job HMG was doing to protect the public! It is a clear lie. Everything to do with novihoax is a lie – it never happened.

      1. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the one thing I am certain of in this whole fiasco is that whatever else may have happened and for whatever reason, no military grade nerve agents were let loose in the City of Salisbury.

        1. You’re right. Play it again, Sam.

          Keep playing it and encourage everyone to write to their MP. Tell them about the evidence given under oathby the Porton Down analyst to the high court:-

          “Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound.”

          This is not some fake news, coinspiracy theory or Kremlin press release. It is as stated in the Judge’s Report, Para 17 i). The link to the full report is here:-

          https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/sshd-v-skripal-and-another-20180322.pdf

          While this statement does not rule out the use of a nerve agent, it does confirm the possibility that something other than a nerve agent might have been used. HMG misled the world in saying it was defintely Novichok.

  135. Eliot Higgens has spoken:

    In answer to questions about Aeroflot’s online booking system – Each time a passenger interfaces with the Aeroflot PNR system, a single transaction is entered. The full list of possible transactions is: preliminary booking (optional), booking, online registration (optional),
    https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1040913785404448769

    Our Skripal article is looking like it’ll be the most read article we’ve ever published on @Bellingcat, join the fun here:
    https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1040915066844065793

  136. Some commenters seem to think that an extradition is possible, but it isn’t : the Russian law forbids extradition of Russian people by Russia. But, if I’m not wrong, it would be possible that British police were allowed to interrogate the suspects in Russia.

    Other point : is it sure that Petrov and Boshirov are the real names of the “suspects” ? They refused to show their identity documents to their RT interviewer. (I don’t pretend that this is incriminating.)

      1. Paul quoted : “Simonyan stressed that she had no doubt she was talking with those people whom London suspected of being involved in the Skripal case.
        In addition, both “suspects” showed her their internal Russian passports…”
        Thanks, Paul. Apparently, I relied on a bad source.

    2. No, extradition is not possible, and Blogmire’s readers and commenters are aware of that. Those commenting on HMG’s lack of an extradition request are pointing out that despite compliance, if HMG believed what they are saying, they would make the request anyway – you know, legal principles and all that old-fashioned nonsense.

  137. Good to see you back, Rob. I feared for your safety!

    Thanks for the excellent work you are doing, especially when the entire British print and broadcast media are so compliant and credulous of any official claims, however ludicrous.

    You point out the decline in long accepted norms of British justice. I think we are heading back to (medieval) traditional British justice, where by Bill of Attainder the state could simply declare an accused person guilty then proceed to swift execution. If Petrov and Boshirov were to come before our courts, how could they possible receive a fair trial having already been declared guilty of heinous crimes by HM Government and the entire UK press?

    Good wishes to all on the blog.

    1. Bills of attainder were in fact heavy artillery, as they required an Act of Parliament and were not therefore deployed against ordinary people. Usually they were used to get rid of contenders for supreme power in medieval England (and under the Tudors and Stuarts).

      Magana Carta, in 1215, contains the famous provision “Nullus liber homo”:

      “Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur, aut disseisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae”.

      “(No freeman shall be taken or [and] imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or [and] by the law of the land)”.

      It’s frightful pig Latin, but the principle it lays down is the keystone of English justice.

  138. I still think one one the most important elements is not timelines, or amount of snow on the ground, or CCTV footage. It is the question of whether any of Sergei Skripals family in Russia have had any contact with him – and if not why

  139. Neil Basu did not just fail to support the claim that the suspects were Russian military intelligence officers, he stated that the investigation had no evidence linking the suspects to the Russian state. I suspect that discrepancy means that there is no evidence to prove May’s claim, and that she made it purely on the basis of so called intelligence.

    Regarding Petrov and Boshirov’s interview. The interviewer stated that they looked tense, but actually they seemed frightened and I suspect that this is because they perceive the United Kingdom’s “evidence” has outed them, not as agents of the Russian state, but as homosexual men.

    http://viewsandstories.blogspot.com/2018/09/skripal-case-suspects.html

    1. This ‘they are afraid because they are gay’ line overlooks one possibility, that a gay male couple is also great cover for intelligence operatives working together, it usefully explains them sharing a room, for examole.

    2. I think it is a serious mistake to believe that “being outed as gay men” in Russia is a worse fate than being caught up in a terrifying network of state deception, kidnapping and murder by HMG.

      Moreover, the whole insinuation is a red herring. It is no one’s business what those men’s sexual proclivities are; the fact that they go around together and share a hotel room implies nothing; and in fact Russians are quite tolerant people. Actually, far more tolerant than the British and Americans, who may swing wildly from despising homosexuality to practically insisting on it – but are never less than certain of their rectitude.

    3. If the whole incident is a false flag R&B are right in fearing for their lives. Any secret service of those countries that want to get Russia out of the Security Council would like to get and eliminate them with trying to pretend it would have been the GRU.

    4. Just like her assertion that a chemical weapon attack was launched on Syrian children was not based on actual evidence other than youtube videos.

  140. With the presentation of Petrov and Boshirov by the Metropolitan Police along with a series of CCTV images from 3nd March to 4th March 2018, the Skripal case seems to be closed for the British government.

    Nevertheless, one must ask oneself the question,

    1) What a state this is that can simply make foreign nationals (Yulia Skripal) disappear.

    2) What’s wrong with the press of this state, if this press doesn’t notice it, or doesn’t want to notice, that (only one example) the Metropolitan Police presents numerous CCTV recordings of Petrov and Boshirov but not a single usable one of the two Skripals.

    On the other hand, one also has to ask oneself why the Russian government reacts very cautiously in the case of Yulia Skripal’s disappearance.

    1. One more small remark:

      As far as Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey is concerned: he certainly had colleagues and friends and they would also have to think about his whereabout. With this state of the affair, the culprits are known, the case is closed, Nick Bailey should be back on duty. Is he? And when not, why not?

    2. What it boils down to is that the UK today is behaving, not at all like a civilized nation of educated, urbane and thoughtful human beings, but like a mob of angry, self-righteous apes filled with hatred against “the other” and just looking for any opportunity to turn that hatred into physical violence. If that violence involves serious and obvious injustice, so much the better.

  141. To make my point I want to narrow Rob´s post to this :

    „TMP/CPS/HMG:
    B) Has sent no further evidence to the Russian Attorney General, calling for the extradition of the men.
    Which means that the accused — Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — have presumably seen as much of the evidence against them as you and I have.
    Have TMP/CPS/HMG presented credible evidence to back up their claims against the two?“

    In case of an extradition call HGM would be forced to present its evidence to the Russian Attorney General. Put the cards on the table. But HGM´s actions never were overt.

    I think, the simple reason is : They have no proof for a Russian state involvement in the Skripal poisoning. Maybe they even have proof to the opposite.

    Putin’s foray may be aimed precisely at forcing HGM to request extradition.
    “Look, here are the men, kindly ask for the delivery.”

    However, I’m afraid that TM is insolent enough to shake off this request.
    Instead, the snappiest dogs are off the leash, including Bellingcat, Bill Browder and co.

    1. It would be interesting to see what evidence was presented to the courts in order to obtain the European arrst warrant. This warrant cannot be granted merley on suspicion.There must be a prima facie case put forward.

      1. @ Jack,

        The west went to war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya without a shred of verifiable evidence, so why would justice be different this time around?

    1. Well done, Elena.
      Here is what she wrote :

      1. ATlantic council’s fellow Higging and @bellingcat
      created a new opus on Petrov and Bashirov, implying that they are members of GRU, Russian secret service. Lets look at “facts” they provided to prove these allegations.
      2. Bellingcat implies that there is an alleged stamp on Alexander Petrov’s passport dossier:
      “Do not provide any information” and his handwritten name. All passport documents in Russia are typed,without exclusion. There is no point to duplicate the name on top. Real 1P form below
      3. This conclusion Bellingcat supports with another EMPTY document with a handwritten note on top stating that somebody recommended to make is confidential “совершенно секретно” “С.С.”
      We have to BELIEVE that its Petrov’s form. BTW, those words are always stamped, not handwritten.
      4. Google easily found that as Bellincat stated “Mandatory for Russian citizens over the age of 14” passport became mandatory only on 13th March 1997. Being born on 13 July 1979, Petrov became 14 in 1993, so his first passport was issued not at 14, but when he was 16, in 1995.
      5. This passport was issued by the police dept of the place where he lived at the time (in 1995), it may be small Kotlas or even any place in former USSR republics if his family traveled for work in USSR. So his first passport might not be issued by Russian Federation in 1995
      6. Most likely, as he was born in the area of Russian Federation, he was entitled to be a citizen of Russian Federation, no matter where he lived in 1991, when USSR fell apart.
      7. Another reason for the alleged missing records- the united database, that Belligcat either hacked or bribed somebody to access, started to fill in only in 2014. There were separate databases before-for border control, migration service, police, etc.
      8. Petrov, as everyone else, graduated from Secondary school at 18, i.e. in 1997. 2 year military service was compulsory for boys ( until 14th June 2006). So he served in the army until 1999. Military people do not have passports in Russia, they always have different documents.
      So, that’s why he was issued a passport in 1999, when he finished military service and not because he was a GRU agent in his teenage years, as Bellingcat implies.
      10. Petrov’s 1999 passport was not in the central passport database because the database was created in 2014, there were some errors occurred during databases merging, some passports were even declared invalid
      11. Petrov’s 1999 passport was replaced because it became “unsuitable for usage”, a marking typically used when a previous passport has been damaged, this does not make him Russian Secret service GRU agent. It simply means that his 1999 passport was damaged.
      12. Bellincat’s claim that “Boshirov and Petrov’s passport files, indicating that they were separated by only 3 digits (-1294 and -1297), meaning that they were issued at nearly the same time”- so they are GRU – is funny, as their are gays, a couple that applied for passports together
      13. Bellingcat : “Additionally, Fontanka noted that Petrov and Boshirov bought two separate return flights back to Moscow on March 4” Well,Anatoly Shariy internal sources stated that they bought tickets only for one return trip,places 22a & 22c, and he is cheking his facts carefully
      14. Anything left from the Bellingcat’s claim that they found that Petrov & Boshirov are GRU agents? Nothing. As Petrov and Boshirov being agents of Secret service of another country, a sleeper cell in Russia – that’s another matter, that’s possible.

  143. 13.05 Bridge St/Fisherton St. (I think they got there by cutting through footpath at the side of The Mill, crossed at crossing, hence direction)

    13.08 Summerville Approach.

    They could have then gone back towards The Maltings on Chapel Place.

    R&A could have been in Avon Playground at 13.45 met Sergei during “duck feeding” then cut through PriorySq/Malthouse Lane to Dauwalders at 13.49.

    That would explain why they were on the other side of the road from 13.05 picture.

    And earlier when in Montgomery Gardens play area they literally had got “the wrong park”. Maybe the noticed lack of ducks and double-checked instructions. Or that was the original meet changed because Yulia’s unexpected presence.

    I suspect both Russia and the UK know the other knows R&A met Skripals in Avon Playground. But neither wants to show their hand. If Sergei was getting a cash delivery to run his own recruits in Porton Down neither side would own up to that.

    Hence station time doctored but Dauwalders blew that timeline.

    1. I think you’re right.

      Something about the whole thing suggest to me that a)Sergei was up to no good and b) the Russians were involved in that in some way, and c) it suits both the UK and Russia to keep whatever it was very quiet.

      Hence why the UK has concocted the ludicrous doorknob poisoning story, and why the Russians haven’t really been that upset by the accusations. Hence why the evidence of the Russian pair is so slim – they were obviously in Salisbury at the time and undoubtedly not gay lovers cruising for a bit of cathedral spire action, but somehow involved in whatever ended up with the Skripals being poisoned. But there is no evidence of them spraying the doorknob – if there was it would be released – slam dunk Gotcha! for the UK. Its all circumstantial.

      So I think its a case of ‘We’ll call you Novichok murderers, you pretend to be outraged, and we can both hide what’s been going on’.

      1. “Hence why the UK has concocted the ludicrous doorknob poisoning story, and why the Russians haven’t really been that upset by the accusations”.

        The Russians have not been acting overtly upset because they know full well that they are dealing with violent, murderous, unprincipled lunatics. It’s the kind of behaviour they expect from Washington and its catamites.

    1. @Daniel Rich – that pic is funny, just needed the faces of Petrov and Boshirov pasted over the guys behind Putin.

    1. Sergei’s friend was Ross Cassidy.

      There were early reports that Sergei used to travel to London monthly; the source was I believe a taxi driver. There are numerous other reports suggesting that he was visiting the Russian Embassy but I don’t think we have any specific dates.

  146. Very glad to hear from you Rob and read your latest excellent analysis. I thought you may have been apprehended for your previous article asking questions of the Metropolitan police.. Having read the interview of the 2 Russians Petrov & Boshirov, it appears they are appalled at their situation being the focus of intense scrutiny worldwide, especially by UK authorities who unlawfully accuse them of a crime without clear evidence or proper investigation. Their lives are quite possibly threatened in various ways,. They could fear for their friends, family, and job, employment prospects now and n the future. Most people in these unique circumstance could be unwilling to reveal everything they did in Salisbury, or about their lives generally, for a variety of understandable reasons..

  148. I would assume that Putin will let this ferment for a while in the MSM and then when it is time, he will invite the Met, maybe even ACC Basu himself, to interview Rus and Alex.
    It would have to be an invitation which was accepted.

  149. OT

    Some forum members mentioned it’s a bit of a pain in the rear to navigate these pages.

    The following might be handy to [at least] find your own entries back, for some of you:

    Press Control+F [Windows] or Command+F [Mac] when on a Blogmire page [or any other web site’s page].

    Depending on your browser, a search field will open either at the top of the page or bottom.

    Type your name or handle into it.

    You will then see the number of entries you’ve entered, plus 2 arrows that allow you to jump from one entry to the next and back again, until you’ve found what you’re looking for.

    Hope this helps.

    Cheers.

      1. A question for British legal buffs:

        Under what law is the UK government able to keep one or more foreigners under wraps [for lack of better words] and what law stipulates they can deny said foreigner’s embassy personnel to see and talk to the foreigner under wraps?

        6 months is a long time for Sergei to remain out of the spotlight…

  150. Rob,
    (By the way, I meant my last post to be a reply to Paul’s short comment, but I put it in the wrong place). This is on the same theme.

    You say “For some time now, I have been concerned that our generation has been busy burying some of the most cherished legal concepts that many of our forebears seemed to instinctively understand, and which were enshrined into English Common Law. Concepts such as innocent until proven guilty, and that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove its case against the accused, rather than on the accused to prove his or her defense against the accusations”.

    So have I, very much, however, where intelligence matters are concerned this lack of ethics we are seeing now has a long but hidden history. What I am more concerned about is that the rule of law is being eroded in British courts on a daily basis throughout the country. We rarely hear about the corruption involved in minor cases, but the human cost is great. Corruption has become endemic in parliament, the legal system and the police force. Ostensibly, police Professional Standards Departments (and the ‘independent’ police complaints system) are to protect the public from police malpractice In reality they are more about protecting the police from genuine public grievances – unless in extreme cases where the police have no room to wriggle free.

    British establishment figures brag about their legal system being the ‘best in the world’ and speak of corruption in other countries, but they speak with forked tongues, and use the term in a narrower sense – meaning open to bribery. The British version of corruption is usually a lot more subtle, and often a lot more unjust.

    They also speak of ‘British values’ as if ethical behaviour is an exclusively ‘British’ quality. They even teach ‘British values’ to immigrants. Such arrogance ! Only ‘dumbed down’ minds could dream up such meaningless embarrassing drivel. It is *civilised* values that matter, qualities found in human beings across the globe – honesty, empathy, humility, tolerance, justice, etc. The British didn’t invent them! The Skripal affair perfectly shows just how empty these ‘British values’ are in reality. There’s no rule of law; justice is not blind; the innocent are guilty; due process is a sham, and the legal system has become an expensive charade run as a lucrative business. Polititicians, judges, lawyers and police officers can all be ‘bought’, and very often are. Hypocrisy rules.

    I only wish the churches would do more to fight injustice and corruption in their own countries. Maybe an idea for a sermon, Rob ?

  151. Exactly, Paul. Public servants are being paid by the people they serve to lie, to frame the innocent and to kill – and to make endless wars. When can’t the people see what to me for decades has been so blindingly obvious?

    We are behaving like hired fools, mugs, patsies, mindless puppets… in allowing this to sorry state of affairs to continue. The leaders and their minions lack any shred of integrity or empathy. Their morals are absent. They have no concept of what it means to behave ethically. Sociopaths are running the country and their compliant slaves are carrying out their orders without question – victims every one of them but so also are the public. The only solution is for the public to wake up out of their long sleep of reason, and see the light. Only then can a mass movement of civil disobedience take hold. Only then will the foul, corrupt and rotten system collapse.

    The ‘democratic’ electoral system is rigged to prevent people of integrity, wisdom and independent thought getting anywhere near positions of power. Truth and justice are its enemies. That’s why all this has happened; honesty is a threat to the corrupt capitalist system – a psychpathic-minded materialist system motivated by greed and ruthlessness that can only thrive by having a constant supply of victims – willing and unwilling.

    WAKE UP, PEOPLE ! TAKE OFF THOSE BLINKERS !!

    1. The only point I would challenge you on is that this is not a capitalist system. It is no more capitalist than the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” is either democratic, or belongs to its people.

      It once was capitalist but those days are long since gone. The US and EU are now corrupt oligarchies and have been for some time. We need to get back to ‘real money’ – politically manipulated and controlled fiat systems are the root of the problem – no government should be able to print money and government borrowing should be severely restricted. As soon as any government borrows money, then corruption starts.

      1. I offer “financialist” as a more accurate alternative. But “plutocratic” is already there and fits the bill.

        1. Yes, I understand what you’resaying, Paul. Tom, I like those words, more accurate than ‘capitalist’. I’d add kleptocratic to the list too.

    2. And who actually teaches “our” children morality…legality…reasoning..thinking..civil law…. parenting….personal and civic responsibilities…personal behaviours….teaching pupils about multiple intelligences…learning styles…. they need to be properly taught about finding out who they are with all these things to discover the range of abilities and potentials to help family friends and education fulfill their potential…

  152. “Concepts such as innocent until proven guilty, and that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove its case against the accused…”
    ————————–

    In a propaganda war, the only burden is to persuade, by any means necessary.

    1. @ Sibiriak,

      Quote: “In a propaganda war, the only burden is to persuade, by any means necessary.”

      Reply: I never knew so much could be condensed into so little.

      Brilliant!

      Hat in hand.

    2. Very true, Sibiriak.

      It’s not often that realpolitik hits the headlines. Its usual modus operandi is to shamefully lurk in the shadows, out of the public gaze.

      If only this affair would act as a wake-up call for ordinary people to question why they vote in elections, and whether it’s ethical to pay taxes to a government who wrecklessly stage a multi-million-pound fear-mongering theatre on the streets of Salisbury.

  153. Possibility three . . . but what they’re not telling us seems to me more likely to be embarrassing than illegal.

  154. Russia ridicules Bellingcat!

    “Was the Federal Migration Service [FMS] database hacked just today? London had made an announcement about Petrov and Boshirov long ago … So, not a single database was hacked before? No, it was not. Because another idea was promoted: these people just do not exist [as the names were said to be fictitious]. This is what the UK police said, posting their photos. Now the people are found. But the main question is different. Why Bellingcat finds it easier to ‘hack the FMS database’ overnight rather than get any evidence of the ‘involvement’ of Petrov and Boshirov in the poisoning?” Zakharova wrote on Facebook.”
    https://sputniknews.com/russia/201809151068049912-russia-salisbury-suspects-bellingcat-investigaiton-report/

    1. If Belling at needs to be engaged to back up the government story then we know it doesn’t hold water. Belling at is the go-to self-styled ‘expert’ to try to back up rubbish with pseudo-science. He”s wrong every time.

    2. If the British tax code is anything like the one here in the US, those wages are paid through taxes extracted on pain of financial ruin, imprisonment, and death, depending on your level of resistance to being legally robbed.

      1. Clarification: there’s no death penalty in US tax law but that would be the end result in the extreme case where federal agents, armed with real ‘”assault rifles,” storm your house and most likely shot you at the slightest sign of resistance.

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