Poisoned Brits handled contaminated item, police say as UK demands answers from Russia over Novichok poisoning
Novichok is a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the cold war
The British couple who were hospitalised after being exposed to the Novichok nerve agent fell ill after handling a contaminated item, police said on Thursday.
That finding bolsters the theory that Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, may have stumbled across traces of the nerve agent, which was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia earlier in March.
The finding came the same day that the British government demanded that Russia explain how the Soviet-originated nerve agent found its way into the country, and promised that police will “leave no stone unturned” in their investigation.
The Skripals spent weeks in critical condition after being attacked with Novichok in the southwest England city of Salisbury in March. Sturgess and Rowley collapsed in Amesbury, a few miles away, on Saturday. They are in critical condition in Salisbury District Hospital.
The Metropolitan Police force said Thursday that “following further tests of samples from the patients, we now know that they were exposed to the nerve agent after handling a contaminated item”. Detectives have cordoned off several sites in Amesbury and Salisbury as they search for the source of the contamination.
Russia, which is currently hosting the soccer World Cup, has denied any involvement in the March incident and suggested the British security services had carried out that attack to stoke anti-Moscow hysteria.