Sergei Skripal: who was behind the Salisbury poisoning?

[Tintin]

Posted by Hervé (here)

Posted by Cidersomerset (here)
Novichok victim Charlie Rowley leaves hospital: Link to post.

Just look at that title... makes one wonder if the people at BBC have any neuron left anywhere:

• A Novichok Nerve Gas Agent type poison leaves between 30 seconds to 3 minutes max to its contacted victim to concoct a prayer and/or collect themselves to meet their maker...

• so, how come a "victim" of such a lethal NGA walks out of a hospital?

Well, quite. I didn't buy the mainstream narrative from the moment it 'broke'.

I remember one of Craig Murray's blog write ups around this incident - now of course these incidents - incorporating Lewis Carroll when he wrote: "...being asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast."

For anybody wanting another view from similarly quizzical persons may be interested in Rob Slane's slant on this whole peculiar series of events. I sense he may have sourced Craig Murray's articles for some of his research over here on TheBlogMire.

Here's a taster tweet from him as well -

[greybeard]

Posted by Hervé (here)

Posted by Cidersomerset (here)
Novichok victim Charlie Rowley leaves hospital: Link to post.

Just look at that title... makes one wonder if the people at BBC have any neuron left anywhere:

• A Novichok Nerve Gas Agent type poison leaves between 30 seconds to 3 minutes max to its contacted victim to concoct a prayer and/or collect themselves to meet their maker...

• so, how come a "victim" of such a lethal NGA walks out of a hospital?

Further to this.
Where exactly is Charlie Rowley at this moment?
Last I read he was being "protected"
Protected from what ?

Sigh!!

Chris

[greybeard]

Novichok Survivor Charlie Rowley Feels Like He Is 'To Blame' For Partner's Death

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/novichok-s...180504836.html

[Did You See Them]

C Rowley looks like a Spook !
I bet he has no social media history ( Just put that down to being a healthy looking H addict who hung around bars and pubs all day near porton down !! - Handy eh !)
He's "sad" for his partners death - I'd be furious and heart broken - not just "sad" !
I don't buy any of what we are being told about this and the Skripals !
The proximity to Porton down was the first of many red flags for me.

[greybeard]

Im not pro or anti.
Im just interested in truth.
What really is going on?

I doubt very much that we will ever know.

Chris

[Tintin]

Posted by Did You See Them (here)
C Rowley looks like a Spook !
I bet he has no social media history ( Just put that down to being a healthy looking H addict who hung around bars and pubs all day near porton down !! - Handy eh !)
He's "sad" for his partners death - I'd be furious and heart broken - not just "sad" !
I don't buy any of what we are being told about this and the Skripals !
The proximity to Porton down was the first of many red flags for me.

Yes, he does have a social media history, of sorts, although he seems not to have used his Facebook account in quite some time.

Those of us of a certain age - he's a little younger than me - use it only extremely sparingly, or not really very much at all, so that isn't necessarily conclusive of anything. It could just be a dormant account.

[Tintin]

It may well be very prudent indeed to assume that there is another part of an ongoing agenda potentially being played out around these incidents ---there clearly isn’t just one story going on here.

This is not wild conjecture on my part, trust me, but I will make this slightly more than tentative suggestion at this point:

There may be a sub-plot going on to scare the general public into accepting enforced vaccinations in the event of a false flag “real” outbreak of a virus (as yet undetermined) by continuing this narrative

It would need to be borne in mind that the real perpetrators of these sorts of things are much more likely to be aiming to achieve several mission goals at the same time, under the guise of what appears to be just a standalone series of events, as in the case of these Salisbury “poisonings”.

[norman]

Spooks, is a generic term that can cover a spectrum of recruits into the Secret Service Circus.

After a few decades of letting the penny drop, I've come to the conclusion that I myself was once a potential recruit in the eyes of a small team who I think targetted me for a "tap". I do not kid myself that they saw "James Bond" potential in me. Far from it. I think they saw "Lee Harvey Oswald" potential in me.

I've come to believe that the vast majority of people they tap are seen as disposable assets to be used and trashed.

[Tintin]

Here's another blog entry from Craig following the recent interview with Charles Rowley conducted by ITV, and his usual astute observations (my comments after the article in purple):

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Silence of the Whores
25 Jul, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig

The mainstream media are making almost no effort today to fit Charlie Rowley’s account of his poisoning into the already ludicrous conspiracy theory being peddled by the government and intelligence agencies.

ITV News gamely inserted the phrase “poisoned by a Russian nerve agent” into their exclusive interview with Charlie Rowley, an interview in which they managed to ask no penetrating questions whatsoever, and of which they only broadcast heavily edited parts. Their own website contains this comment by their journalist Rupert Evelyn:

“He said it was unopened, the box it was in was sealed, and that they had to use a knife in order to cut through it.

“That raises the question: if it wasn’t used, is this the only Novichok that exists in this city? And was it the same Novichok used to attack Sergei and Yulia Skripal?”

But the information about opening the packet with a knife is not in the linked interview.

What Rowley does say in the interview is that the box was still sealed in its cellophane. Presumably it was the cellophane he slit open with a knife.

So how can this fit in to the official government account?

Presumably the claim is that Russian agents secretly visited the Skripal house, sprayed novichok on the door handle from this perfume bottle, and then, at an unknown location, disassembled the nozzle from the bottle (Mr Rowley said he had to insert it), then repackaged and re-cellophaned the bottle prior to simply leaving it to be discovered somewhere – presumably somewhere indoors as it still looked new – by Mr Rowley four months later.

However it had not been found by anyone else in the interim four months of police, military and security service search. [My italics - Tintin.]

Frankly, the case for this being the bottle allegedly used to coat the Skripals’ door handle looks wildly improbable. But then the entire government story already looked wildly improbable anyway – to the extent that I literally do not know a single person, even among my more right wing family and friends, who believes it. The reaction of the media, who had shamelessly been promoting the entirely evidence free “the Russians did it” narrative, to Mr Rowley’s extremely awkward piece of news has been to shove it as far as possible down the news agenda and make no real effort to reconcile it.

By his own account, Mr Rowley is not a reliable witness, his memory affected by the “Novichok”. It is not unreasonable to conjecture there may also be other reasons why he is vague about where and how he came into possession of this package of perfume.

The perfume bottle is now in the hands of the Police. Is it not rather strange that they have not published photos of it, to see if it jogs the memory of a member of the public who saw it somewhere in the last four months, or saw somebody with it?

The “perpetrators” know what it looks like and already know the police have it, so that would not give away any dangerous information. You might believe the lockdown of the story and control of the narrative is more important to the authorities than solving the crime, which we should not forget is now murder.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would suggest, only, that in the tragic case of Dawn Sturgess this was most likely a homeland state sponsored homicide to push an altogether different strand --- one that is for obvious reasons not being openly stated --- of an ongoing agenda.

The supposed culprit --- Russia --- in her role as the fictional "Spectre" is to the authors/scriptwriters not really the main story - a decoy narrative - although attaching the blame is clearly serving someone's purposes, somewhere.

Maybe, tragically, Dawn Sturgess was a sacrificial lamb and required to speed-up whatever this other sub-plot may be?

Maybe there is sufficient doubt now in the minds of a critical thinking element within the population that was finding the first two episodes in this saga increasingly ---and rightly ---difficult to swallow, and the real perpetrators needed to amp up?



(Tintin Q)

[Tintin]

DISINFORMATION



More mainstream media tomfoolery afoot dear members and guests.

And more apparently very elementary mistakes being made with disinformation presentation, specifically, peculiarities in this snapshot presented by the media yesterday - pay careful attention to the timestamp.



At 18:00 hours yesterday the BBC were showing this 'doctored' image after they had been rolling this ridiculous narrative earlier without a timestamp

What follows is Craig Murray's blog entry from where I obtained this image (above) and his blog, which has been updated by him today in light of some helpful commentary from some of his readers, some comments of which I will share here as well.

The more eagle-eyed of you and those with image manipulation expertise on the forum may be able to also corroborate independent findings shared below the article.

________________________________________

The Impossible Photo
5 Sep, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig
________________________________________

UPDATE
I am prepared to acknowledge that, given the gate design, they could have passed through different gates in exact synchronicity and this may be a red herring. I am leaving this post up here as it is good to acknowledge mistakes.

Russia has developed an astonishing new technology enabling its secret agents to occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same time. (see photo above)

These CCTV images released by Scotland yard today allegedly show Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov both occupying exactly the same space at Gatwick airport at precisely the same second. 16.22.43 on 2 March 2018. Note neither photo shows the other following less than a second behind.

There is no physically possible explanation for this. You can see ten yards behind each of them, and neither has anybody behind for at least ten yards. Yet they were both photographed in the same spot at the same second.

The only possible explanations are:

1) One of the two is travelling faster than Usain Bolt can sprint
2) Scotland Yard has issued doctored CCTV images/timeline

I am going with the Met issuing doctored images.

UPDATE (from September 5th)
A number of people have pointed out a third logical possibility, that the photographs are not of the same place and they are coming through different though completely identical entry channels.

The problem with that is the extreme synchronicity.

You can see from the photos that the channel(s) are enclosed and quite long, and they would have had to enter different entrances to the channels. So it is remarkable they were at exactly the same point at the same time. Especially as one of them appears to be holding (wheeled?) luggage and one has only a shoulder bag.
I have traveled through Gatwick many times but cannot call to mind precisely where they are.

Can anybody pinpoint the precise place in the airport? Before or after passport control? Before or after baggage collection? Before or after customs? The only part of the airport this looks like to me is shortly after leaving the plane after the bridge, and before joining the main gangway to passport control – in which case passengers are not split into separated channels at the stage this was taken. I can’t recall any close corridors as long as this after passport control. But I am open to correction.

________________________________________


And here, below, some of the interesting and at times quite amusing comments on his blog. Note - reference to W.O.O.C (P) here.

[Mari]

Posted by Tintin (here)
DISINFORMATION

Attachment 39017

More mainstream media tomfoolery afoot dear members and guests.

And more apparently very elementary mistakes being made with disinformation presentation, specifically, peculiarities in this snapshot presented by the media yesterday - pay careful attention to the timestamp.

Attachment 39018

At 18:00 hours yesterday the BBC were showing this 'doctored' image after they had been rolling this ridiculous narrative earlier without a timestamp

What follows is Craig Murray's blog entry from where I obtained this image (above) and his blog, which has been updated by him today in light of some helpful commentary from some of his readers, some comments of which I will share here as well.

The more eagle-eyed of you and those with image manipulation expertise on the forum may be able to also corroborate independent findings shared below the article.

________________________________________

The Impossible Photo
5 Sep, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig
________________________________________

UPDATE
I am prepared to acknowledge that, given the gate design, they could have passed through different gates in exact synchronicity and this may be a red herring. I am leaving this post up here as it is good to acknowledge mistakes.

Russia has developed an astonishing new technology enabling its secret agents to occupy precisely the same space at precisely the same time. (see photo above)

These CCTV images released by Scotland yard today allegedly show Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov both occupying exactly the same space at Gatwick airport at precisely the same second. 16.22.43 on 2 March 2018. Note neither photo shows the other following less than a second behind.

There is no physically possible explanation for this. You can see ten yards behind each of them, and neither has anybody behind for at least ten yards. Yet they were both photographed in the same spot at the same second.

The only possible explanations are:

1) One of the two is travelling faster than Usain Bolt can sprint
2) Scotland Yard has issued doctored CCTV images/timeline

I am going with the Met issuing doctored images.

UPDATE (from September 5th)
A number of people have pointed out a third logical possibility, that the photographs are not of the same place and they are coming through different though completely identical entry channels.

The problem with that is the extreme synchronicity.

You can see from the photos that the channel(s) are enclosed and quite long, and they would have had to enter different entrances to the channels. So it is remarkable they were at exactly the same point at the same time. Especially as one of them appears to be holding (wheeled?) luggage and one has only a shoulder bag.
I have traveled through Gatwick many times but cannot call to mind precisely where they are.

Can anybody pinpoint the precise place in the airport? Before or after passport control? Before or after baggage collection? Before or after customs? The only part of the airport this looks like to me is shortly after leaving the plane after the bridge, and before joining the main gangway to passport control – in which case passengers are not split into separated channels at the stage this was taken. I can’t recall any close corridors as long as this after passport control. But I am open to correction.

________________________________________


And here, below, some of the interesting and at times quite amusing comments on his blog. Note - reference to W.O.O.C (P) here.

Attachment 39019

Attachment 39020

Attachment 39021

Good post Tintin. I've been eagerly scouting the Alt media for 'exposures' (inevitable) of the latest lies in the attempt to bolster May's popularity. Nice try, won't happen.
Lets have more....!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by Tintin (here)

DISINFORMATION

More mainstream media tomfoolery afoot dear members and guests.

And more apparently very elementary mistakes being made with disinformation presentation, specifically, peculiarities in this snapshot presented by the media yesterday - pay careful attention to the timestamp.

I would say this corridor was almost definitely a pier/jetway as one exits the plane. I wasn't aware they were surveilled with cameras.



Not identical, but there are many varieties. It's also technically possible that the plane had more than one jetway operational - that depends on the plane. A large plane like a jumbo or A380 will have multiple,eg:



I don't know what type of plane they flew in on. But it's likely they sat together, in which case they would've used the same door to exit. But even if they did sit separately, and used a different jetway, the chances are slim they did so at the same time, and vanishingly small to reach the identical point along the two jetways to be photographed at the exact same second.

Highly suspicious.

[norman]

Interestingly, the BBC has done a bit of juggling between presenters. ( keep in mind that the beeb is chock full of circus operatives )

I don't want to name names here, at all.

But, a quite genuine guy who asks good questions has been swapped out of a radio slot very recently and replaced by a guy I have very good reason to believe is more circus than newsman. Yesterday, the new guy handles the entire story about the release of this crap.

We are completely over run with these clowns.

[Baby Steps]

Are there any image experts who can comment on the obvious alterations in the below?

[IMG][/IMG]

[Eric J (Viking)]

SPUTNIK NEWS - September 12, 2018: The article highlights that Russian President Vladimir Putin urges two persons suspected by London of being involved in the Skripal case to appear and talk with media.

Russian authorities have identified the two people suspected by London of poisoning Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (September 12, 2018).

"We know who they are, we have found them," Putin told the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok.

The Russian president noted that the "suspects" were civilians. "I hope that they will show up and tell everything themselves. There is nothing particularly criminal there, I assure you," he said. Putin also urged the two individuals to talk to media.

END

Viking

[Tintin]

Posted by Baby Steps (here)
Are there any image experts who can comment on the obvious alterations in the below?

[IMG][/IMG]

Yes, although I am definitely not an expert but have a reasonably keen eye for detail, I certainly noticed that these individuals do seem to have been picked up and dropped into a CCTV footage of...a pavement, in a town/place that could really be just about anywhere in the entire world.

I rather imagine, still - I did at the time - that they were maybe just two innocent chaps just visiting the area.

I reside in Trowbridge where we have a very large Polish community and a fair spattering of others too, so, it is no great surprise at all that two citizens of 'Russian' (sic) origin --- and that still hasn't necessarily been conclusively established either -- may be there.

What does puzzle me is that Scotland Yard (and not necessarily the local Wiltshire Constabulary, with I must add a very good track-record in its undertakings) has been tasked with overseeing this investigation (sic). Presumably though to ensure that the narrative stays on-message is my best guess right now.

And absolutely why would these individuals travel from London - Salisbury - London the day before to then return the next day? If they were agents, which I highly doubt, they would surely have been established in-situ without recourse to moving around unusually.

That's another part of the narrative that doesn't sit sensibly with me in any way shape or form.

But, yes, back to the actual image and Baby Steps' inquiry - it would be helpful to have corroboration on the enlarged image shared here.

[Deux Corbeaux]

That two colored blue jacket (body lighter than the sleeves) is not the same jacket as the plain blue jacket the man is wearing that walked in the corridor, coming out of the plane.
That’s what I noticed.

[Tintin]

Here's another very good briefing note from the team on the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media

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The following briefing note is developed by academics researching the use of chemical and biological weapons during the 2011-present war in Syria. The note reflects work in progress. However, the substantive questions raised need answering, especially given the seriousness of the political situation in the Middle East and UK-Russian relations. We welcome comments and corrections.

Authors: Professor Paul McKeigue, Professor David Miller and Professor Piers Robinson(piers.robinson@sheffield.ac.uk/+447764763350)

Acknowledgements
We thank Professor Rudy Richardson of the University of Michigan for advice on the toxicology of nerve agents.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linked here: http://syriapropagandamedia.org/work...ury-poisonings

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Briefing Note: Update on the Salisbury poisonings

Key points

• The Skripals were exposed to a phosphoroamidofluoridate compound named A-234, of high purity indicating that it was most likely prepared for research purposes.

• A-234 or similar compounds have been synthesized at bench scale by national chemical defence labs in Russia and the US in the 1990s, and more recently in Iran and Czech. A small quantity of A-234 from a Russian state lab was used in the murder of Ivan Kivelidi and Zara Ismailova in 1995.

• No data on the toxicity of A-234 are available in the public domain. The police statement that the Skripals were exposed through contact with their front door is implausible as there are no known nerve agents that cause onset of symptoms delayed by several hours, and it is improbable that absorption through the skin would cause both individuals to collapse later at exactly the same time.

• Although Russia is one of several countries that have synthesized A-234 or similar compounds, there is no evidence other than Vil Mirzayanov’s story that these compounds were ever developed (implying industrial-scale production and testing of munitions) for military use. Mirzayanov’s credibility as an independent whistleblower is undermined by his role in a Tatar separatist movement during 2008-2009, backed by the US State Department.

There are multiple indications that the UK is hiding information:-

• the withholding of the identity of the compound as A-234. For example, the UK statement to the OSCE 12 April 2018 states only that ‘ the name and structure of that identified toxic chemical is contained in the fall classified report to States Parties’. See also this briefing. The Chief Executive of Porton Down, in his statement 3 April, referred to the compound only as ‘Novichok’.

• the withholding of information about its toxicity
• the issue of a Defence and Security Media Advisory notice on the identity of Skripal’s MI6 handler and the attempt to conceal or deny his role in Orbis Business Intelligence.
• the sequestration of Yulia Skripal.

The UK government’s case against Russia, stated in a letter to NATO, is based on asserting that “only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals”. Each of these points is open to question:-

• Technical means: it is not seriously disputed that compounds such as A-234 can be produced at bench scale in any modern chemistry lab.

• Operational experience: it is alleged that Russia has a track record of state-sponsored assassination, but this is not enough to support the assertion that “only Russia” could have enough experience to attempt unsuccessfully to assassinate two unprotected individuals.

• Motive: No other attempted assassinations of defectors from Russian intelligence services have been recorded. Even if such an assassination campaign had been ordered, the Russian state would have good reasons not to initiate it in the first half of 2018. In contrast there are obvious possible motives (outlined below) for other actors to have taken steps to silence Sergei Skripal at this time.

What was the agent used?
An early report that the hospital was dealing with poisoning caused by an opiate such as fentanyl was most likely based on the initial working diagnosis. Signs of organophosphate poisoning – constricted pupils, vomiting, reduced consciousness and reduced breathing – could easily be mistaken for opiate overdose, usually a more likely diagnosis. OPCW has stated that the BZ detected by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection in one of the samples sent by OPCW was not from Salisbury but was in a control sample.

The Russian ambassador reported that on 12 March the Foreign Secretary had told him that the nerve agent used against Mr and Ms Skripal had been identified as A-234. The OPCW report issued on 12 April did not identify the agent but stated that they had confirmed the identification made by the UK and that this identification had been included in the confidential report provided to “States parties”. On 14 April the Russian Foreign Minister stated that A-234 had been reported by the Swiss Federal Institute for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection that was one of the four accredited labs used by OPCW to analyse the Salisbury samples.

Based on public reports, a ChemSpider record for A-234 has been created which assigns it the IUPAC name ethyl [(1E)-1-(diethylamino)ethylidene] phosphoramidofluoridate. Its predicted vapour pressure is very low indicating that it is predicted to be non-volatile. No information on its stability is available.

The OPCW director Uzumcu stated in a newspaper interview that the agent “seems to be very persistent,” and “not affected by weather conditions”. This was confirmed the next day by an OPCW press statement that: “the chemical substance found was of high purity, persistent and resistant to weather conditions”. Ian Boyd, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was reported to have stated: “The chemical does not degrade quickly. You can assume it is not much different now from the day it was distributed”. No experimental studies of the stability of A-234 have been reported.

Who could have produced A-234 in bench-scale quantities?
It is no longer seriously disputed that, as noted in our earlier briefing, any well equipped university lab can synthesize and purify such chemicals at bench scale. OPCW reported that the agent (presumably A-234) was of high purity with “almost complete absence of impurities”.

This suggests that it was from a batch that had been synthesized for research, rather than for assassination purposes where it would be unnecessary to purify the agent.

Uzumcu stated in an interview with the New York Times that he had been told by UK officials that 50-100 grams of the agent was used.

“For research activities or protection you would need, for instance, five to 10 grams or so, but even in Salisbury it looks like they may have used more than that. Without knowing the exact quantity, I am told it may be 50, 100 grams or so, which goes beyond research activities for protection”

OPCW quickly contradicted this in a statement that “OPCW would not be able to estimate or determine the amount of the nerve agent that was used in Salisbury on 4 March 2018. The quantity should probably be characterized in milligrams”.

Who has studied A-234 or similar compounds?
Bench-scale research on the toxicity of agents that might be used in chemical warfare is entirely legitimate under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and does not have to be declared to OPCW.

• Russia

Since our last briefing note, more material from the investigation of the Kivelidi poisoning has been published by Novaya Gazeta, updating the earlier article published on 22 March. The second article includes an image of the mass spectrometry profile of the sample recovered from the telephone handset, which matches that submitted by Edgewood to the NIST98 mass spectrometry database.

The Russian experts who commented on the original result appear not to have had access to the mass spectrometry profile of A-234, and to have incorrectly reconstructed the structure from a best guess, based on the mass-charge ratios of the fragments, as something like the GV agent (both agents have molecular mass 224 daltons, and a 58-dalton fragment). This establishes that Russia had synthesized this compound at bench scale by the mid 1990s, but does not confirm that it was ever developed for military use as alleged by Mirzayanov.

• US

A 1997 newspaper article refers to a secret US army intelligence report referring to Russian development of A-232 and its “ethyl analog” A-234, indicating that the designation of these compounds and their structures was known to the US by this time. As noted in our last briefing note, the Edgewood lab submitted a mass spectrometry profile for A-234 to the public database NIST98, which was current from 1998 to 2001.

A patent application submitted by a US government lab in 2008 mentions “Novichoks”, but examination shows that the structures given for these compounds were the dihaloformaldoxime structures previously published as supposed “Novichoks”, not the phosphoramidofluoridates published by Mirzayanov later in 2008. This does not indicate that the applicants were studying these compounds – most likely they included them to make their patent as broad as possible.

• Iran and Czechia

A study from Iran published in 2016 reported synthesis for research purposes of a compound similar to A-234, differing from it only by the presence of methyl instead of ethyl groups. In an interview with Czech television, President Zeman stated that in November 2017 the related compound designated A-230 was studied at the Brno Military Research Institute.

• Other labs

The director of Porton Down has declined to comment on whether Porton Down has stocks of A-234 for research purposes. The OPCW labs that identified A-234 in the specimens from Salisbury were most likely matching it against a mass spectrometry profile in OPCW’s Central Analytical Database.

What is known of the toxicity of A-234?
No data on the toxicity of A-234 are available in the public domain. The printout of the entry in the NIST 98 database appears to cross-reference an entry in the database RTECS (Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances) but no entry for this compound now exists in RTECS.

Why was the structure of A-234 revealed?
The structure of A-234 was revealed in a book by Vil S Mirzayanov in 2008, some 13 years after he had emigrated to the US with the story of a secret programme to develop chemical weapons of a class named “Novichoks”. During 2008-2009 the US government, with an active part for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was encouraging the development of a separatist movement in Tatarstan. As part of this, Mirzayanov was declared head of a Tatar government-in-exile in December 2008.

The publication of his book may thus have been part of an effort to build up Mirzayanov’s status as a dissident. His role in this operation may explain why subsequent discussion of his book by OPCW delegates was closely monitored (and discouraged)by the US State Department. Mirzayanov’s involvement in this operation undermines his credibility as an independent whistleblower.

When and where were the Skripals exposed to A-234?
A summary of the different versions on which journalists were apparently briefed by security sources was given by the Russian embassy:-

– The Skripals could be sprayed with poison by attackers in the street (Daily Mail, 6 March, source: “Anti-terror police”).
– The nerve agent could be planted in one of the personal items in Yulia Skripal’s suitcase before she left Moscow for London. According to this theory the toxin was impregnated in an item of clothing or cosmetics or else in a gift that was opened in the house of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, meaning Yulia Skripal was deliberately targeted to get at her father (The Telegraph, 15 March, source: “Senior sources in the intelligence agencies”).

– The nerve agent could be planted in the air conditioner of the car of Skripals (Daily Mail, 19 March, source: “Security expert Philip Ingram”).

– The Skripals could be poisoned through buckwheat that Yulia Skripal had asked her friend to buy and bring for her father, because she had forgotten to pick up the grocery gifts herself (The Sun, 1 April, source: “British investigators”).

On 28 March the police announced that “at this point in our investigation, we believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent from their front door”.

Although it is possible that a nerve agent could be prepared in a formulation that would be absorbed only slowly through the skin, it is implausible that two individuals exposed through contact with the front door would have received doses that caused them to collapse suddenly and so nearly simultaneously that neither had time to call for help, at least three hours later. It is more likely that they were attacked shortly before they were found collapsed on the park bench. [my italics and emboldening - Tintin]

Sergei Skripal’s link with Orbis: possible motive for murder
In the first few days after the poisoning there were media reports that Sergei Skripal had been in regular contact with his MI6 handler, whose Linked-In profile had stated that he was a consultant for Orbis Business Intelligence. It appears that this profile was deleted by March 7, and a Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice was issued to caution journalists against disclosing the identity of this consultant. However at Skripal’s trial in 2007 his MI6 handler had been identified as Pablo Miller, and the link between Skripal and Miller had been described in detail by Russian opposition media on 6 March.
This link between Skripal and Orbis may be relevant to the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, the founder of Orbis, containing derogatory information on Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. This dossier had been used by the FBI to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order authorizing surveillance of Trump’s campaign. By early 2018 the unravelling of this story was creating serious difficulties for Steele and for those he had worked with.

These difficulties included a referral for criminal investigation by two US Senators, a libel case in the US against the publisher of the dossier which had led to a court ruling that Steele should be questioned in an English court, and a libel case in England against Orbis and Steele.

It is not difficult to postulate a situation in which the potential for damage to US-UK relations could have provided a motive for actors on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that Sergei Skripal would not be available to give evidence.

The UK government’s position
This was summarized in a letter from the National Security Adviser, Sir Mark Sedwill to the NATO Secretary-General on 13 April 2018. Sedwill’s letter made several assertions that were substantiated only by “intelligence”:

• By 1993, when Russia signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, it is likely that some Novichoks had passed acceptance testing, allowing their use by the Russian military
• Russia further developed some Novichoks after ratifying the convention
• During the 2000s, Russia commenced a programme to test means of delivering chemical warfare agents and to train personnel from special units in the use of these weapons. This programme subsequently included investigation of ways of delivering nerve agents, including by application to door handles.
• In the mid-2000s, President Putin was closely involved in the Russian chemical weapons programme
• Within the last decade Russia has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks

Appearing before the House of Commons Defence Committee on 1 May, Sedwill (11:39) extolled the government’s reaction to the Salisbury incident as “an example of the Fusion Doctrine in practice”. The Fusion Doctrine brings other government departments under the National Security Council with “the introduction of senior officials as senior responsible owners to deliver each of the NSC’s priorities”.

Sedwill’s involvement in the preparation of the now widely discredited dossier ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction’, released in September 2002, calls into question his credibility in making these uncorroborated assertions. The UK government’s case as set out by Sedwill is based on asserting that “only Russia has the technical means, operational experience and motive for the attack on the Skripals”

Each of these points is open to serious criticism:-

• Technical means: it is not seriously disputed that A-234 can be produced at bench scale in any organic chemistry lab.
• Operational experience: it is alleged that Russia has a track record of state-sponsored assassination, but this does not support the assertion that only Russia has the operational experience for such an assassination. On the contrary, the failure of the assassination attempt, against two unprotected individuals, suggests that the perpetrators lacked the operational experience and competence that one would expect of state-directed assassins.

• Motive: no other attempted assassinations of defectors from Russian intelligence services have been recorded. If the Russian state had decided to begin assassinating these defectors, it is unlikely that they would have chosen to start in March 2018, just before the presidential election and three months before the FIFA World Cup. However, as noted above, it is possible to identify motives for other actors to silence Sergei Skripal at this time.

[Tintin]

From Rob Slane in his TheBlogMire, some further observations and questions that many of us interested in this saga may well have pondered too.

If any purpose is being served here with the attention to detail, which I think is important, it is maybe to serve the purpose of reinforcing, and providing some evidence, which may help to provide further proof of establishment and official source duplicity, of which there can surely be very little doubt.

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Petrov, Borishov and the missing 42 minutes

http://www.theblogmire.com/petrov-bo...ng-42-minutes/

Not for the first time in the Skripal Case, there are some distinctly odd things to come out of an official timeline. This time, it is the timeline put out by the Metropolitan Police on 5th September, when they formally accused two people – named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, of being the perpetrators (although according to Assistant Commissioner, these may well be aliases and so they may not be called Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov after all. Ho hum!).

In addition to the timeline, the Met released a series of images showing the alleged assassins. I want to concentrate this piece on three particular images, but before I do, first some more general comments.

Firstly (sarcasm alert), I just wanted to say how pleasing it is to see that Scotland Yard finally found some CCTV footage, after apparently being unable to find any of Mr Skripal and Yulia Skripal from that day (even though it does exist), and in the end having to settle for two seconds of grainy footage of two people walking through The Maltings.

Secondly, one of the most obvious things about these images is that they show the two men doing whatever they are doing in broad daylight. This alone is enough to raise questions about the validity of the claim that these men were GRU Intelligence Officers on a mission to assassinate Mr Skripal. Not being an Intelligence officer or an assassin, I cannot be 100% sure, but I’m reasonably persuaded that the normal modus operandi is to do such things with minimum exposure, not in full glare of a plethora of cameras.

And thirdly, the images and the timeline allege that the two men came to Salisbury from London on Saturday 3rd March, when the snow from the “Beast from the East” was still wreaking havoc on the transport system, on a reconnaissance mission. This visit lasted for approximately 1 hour and 46 minutes — which was apparently enough time for them to get their bearings, stake out Mr Skripal’s house, walk across town to find the “right bin” for their plan (in Catherine Street), before heading back to catch the train. I might wonder, since they went to all that trouble, why they didn’t just do the “door handle” job there and then. Mr Skripal was out, after all. Why bother staking out his house on the Saturday, and finding a bin on the other side of town, so that they could return on the Sunday to the very thing that they could have done on the Saturday? Not the sharpest tools in the box, these GRU Intelligence officers, are they?

Anyway, the particular images I want to draw attention to are Image 6, Image 7 and Image 8, but before I do, I want to ask you a question. Just supposing these men had been sent from Moscow to England to carry out an assassination using a deadly nerve agent in the Cathedral City of Salisbury, and assuming they chose to do it by spraying gel (don’t blame me — I didn’t make that up) in broad daylight on the door handle of the target’s house, would you then expect them to:

a) Walk quickly to their target’s house and then go back to the station as quickly as possible to try to get the next train back, so as to leave the country as soon as possible?

b) Or would you expect them to walk to the house, then walk back past the station, missing the next train, and pop into town for an hour or so (sightseeing or shopping perhaps), in order to discard the substance in a bin over on the other side of town (having apparently resealed it), before sauntering back to the station to get the 14:27?

The Met wants you to believe that these alleged GRU Intelligence officers not only chose one of the most stupid ways of “targeting” someone that could ever be chosen (stupid because it isn’t actually very targeted), in broad daylight, but that after they carried out their mission, they walked past the train station and went into town for an hour or so. Ho Hum!

Anyway, let’s look closer at those images (6,7 and 8):



According to the Met’s official timeline, Image 6 was taken at 13:05. Where are they? They are on the bridge opposite The Mill pub. Which means that they apparently left the train station, allegedly went to Christie Miller Road, and then instead of catching the next train, went into town, and in this image they are seen returning, heading in the direction of the train station.

Image 7 is then even more interesting. The Met timeline for this is 13:08, that is, three minutes after Image 6. It is of interest for four reasons:

Firstly, they appear to have stopped walking at that point, and one of them has his hand up as if he’s trying to sight something afar off.

Secondly, this is on the opposite side of the road to the one they were on at 13:05. Why is this a bit odd? Because if you were walking to the station from the place they were at 13:05, you wouldn’t need to cross the road. Crossing the road, which the CCTV shows they did, just means having to cross back over again to get to the station a bit further up. Didn’t they remember which side of the road they needed to be on when they were walking from Christie Miller Road to the town centre? What do they teach them in Russian military schools!

Thirdly, the image is taken at 13:08, but the next image (Image 8), which shows them entering the train station, is taken at 13:50. Again, unless these guys were doing some shopping, this is faintly ridiculous. The walk from the location in Image 7 at 13:08 to the station in Image 8 is doable in less than 5 minutes. And with the next train at 13:27, you would have expected them to get there for that train, in order to get out as quickly as possible. Instead, they missed the 13:27, and presumably got the 14:27. Which begs the questions: Why did they only get to the station at 13:50? Why did they not get the earlier train? And what were they doing in between?

Fourthly, the road they are standing next to – Summerlock Approach (going to the right) – is the road that Mr Skripal’s car drove down to get to Sainsbury’s car park a little while after. He apparently parked his car at approximately 13:40 (according to the official timeline), and was seen driving down the Devizes Road (about 3 minutes drive away) at about 13:34. Now, this of course may be pure coincidence. Then again, maybe it’s not.

I cannot possibly know the answer to this last point, and would need to see further CCTV footage to be able to answer it. But what I do know is that it sure doesn’t take 42 minutes to get from the junction at Summerlock Approach to the station. That’s 35 minutes or so too long. So what did they do in that missing 42 minutes?

And above all, when are we going to hear from the man that they apparently targeted?

UPDATE:

Sorry, it just gets weirder and weirder. According to the Met image of the men going through the turnstiles at Salisbury Station, this was at 13:50:56. The Summerlock Approach image is said to be 13:08. Hence my question above about the missing 42 minutes.

However, the CCTV images from Dauwalders show timestamps ranging from about 13:48 to 13:49.02, which you can see here: https://en.mogaznews.com/World-News/...Salisbury.html

So Dauwalders at 13:49.02 (and they’re still hanging around at that time). Train platform at 13:50:56.

At the end of my piece, I asked why it took them 42 minutes to get to the station. What were they doing? The new question is how they managed to get to the station and through the turnstile, a walk of 7 minutes according to Google maps, in just over a minute and a half. Dodgy CCTV timestamp again? Possibly, but it really is frustrating that this stuff gets released without anyone in officialdom or the media appearing to notice or care.

[Did You See Them]

Novichok suspects say they had nothing to do with Salisbury poisoning on TV interview.

Two men suspected of targeting the Skripals with novichok have denied being agents or having anything to do with the poisoning..

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov told Russia Today (RT) they were only in Salisbury as tourists to visit Stonehenge.

They said they are victims of a "fantastical coincidence" and would like an apology from the real poisoners.

The pair, who claim that is their real names, said their friends had told them to visit "this wonderful town, Salisbury which has a famous cathedral and 120m spire, and is famous for its clock".

They said they wanted to go to Stonehenge but were prevented from doing so because there was "muddy slush everywhere" so they got wet and went back to London an hour after arriving, as there was an intermittent train service.

more: https://news.sky.com/story/novichok-...oning-11496511

As an aside I also found the descriptions of symptoms here to be very similar in this story.

Pussy Riot activist Pyotr Verzilov in 'critical condition' amid poisoning fears

https://news.sky.com/story/pussy-rio...fears-11496278