“ASTONISHINGLY RECKLESS”
Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped unconscious on a park bench in the city of Salisbury in March 2018 after the door handle to Skripal’s house was daubed with Novichok.
They survived after intensive hospital treatment and now live under protection.
The bottle containing “Novichok made in Russia” was brought to Salisbury by two suspects, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – thought to be GRU agents, the report states.
It was dumped by them in the city after they likely used it to attack the Skripals.
“The conduct of Petrov and Boshirov, their GRU superiors, and those who authorised the mission up to and including, as I have found, President Putin, was astonishingly reckless,” the inquiry chair, former senior judge Anthony Hughes, said after the report was published.
“They, and only they, bear moral responsibility for Dawn’s death,” said Hughes, adding Sturgess was “the entirely innocent victim of the cruel and cynical acts of others.”
The inquiry found that while there were some “failings” in the handling of Skripal’s security, it was not “unreasonable” for British intelligence to believe there was no high risk of assassination.
