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Russian envoys could be expelled
SALISBURY ATTACK
RUSSIA will face “robust” consequences if it is found to be behind the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has warned.
Foreign Office officials are thought to be going through a list of Russian diplomats to identify potential candidates for expulsion.
The minister declined to comment on possible Russian involvement in what Miss Rudd described as an “outrageous crime”.
But she revealed that other government ministers were already working on reprisals if the link to Moscow is proved, saying: “There will come a time for attribution, and there will be further consequences to follow.”
She added: “The use of a nerve agent on UK soil is a brazen and reckless act . This was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way. People are right to want to know who to hold to account.
“But, if we are to be rigorous in this investigation, we must avoid speculation and allow the police to carry on their investigation.” Privately, Whitehall sources believe it may be days before detectives can show a clear trail leading from Moscow to the park bench where former Russia double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found earlier this week.
Miss Rudd indicated that new “Unexplained Wealth Orders”, which allow for the confiscation of criminal assets, could be used against cronies of Vladimir Putin. Ministers also faced calls to approve a so-called Magnitsky Law, which would introduce sweeping powers to freeze the assets of Russian officials accused of human rights abuses. Former Conservative minister Sir Edward Leigh, said: “The circumstantial evidence against Russia is strong. Who else would have the motive and the means? Those of us who seek to understand Russia know that the only way to preserve peace is through strength. If Russia is behind this, it is a brazen act of war and humiliates our country.”
Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said evidence of a Russian link would have to be met by a package of “extremely stiff sanctions”.
He urged ministers to deploy the Unexplained Wealth Orders, saying: “We need to use the type of laws we use against criminals around the world – why shouldn’t we use the same measures we use against drug runners against this different type of criminal?” Labour’s Yvette Copper urged Miss Rudd to review 14 deaths in the UK that, according to BuzzFeed news website, have been linked to Russia by US intelligence agencies.
Miss Cooper, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, also suggested Miss Rudd consider going to the UN Security Council and asking for a statement from all nations to provide assistance. But the Home Secretary insisted: “Now is not the time to investigate what is actually only, at the moment, rumour and speculation.”
Nerve agents and their deadly effect
CHEMICAL WARFARE
NERVE agents are among the most deadliest chemical weapons used in warfare and assassinations over the last 30 years.
Experts say the clear liquids can be made at only “a few laboratories in the world” and are strictly government-controlled.
They can kill within minutes, by disrupting electrical signals through the nervous system which makes it difficult to breathe. People cough and foam at the mouth as their lungs fill with mucus, they vomit, sweat, become incontinent and their eyes run. Victims typically die from suffocation.
It is described by experts as “turning on all the taps”. Dr Simon Cotton, from the University of Birmingham, says: “If you have ever seen a fly sprayed it drops on its back and lies with its legs in the air, twitching – this is the result of nerve agents taking hold.”
. See also History is littered with examples of chemical and biological attacks…
Nerve agents were developed in Germany in the 1930s as pesticides but were found to be extremely toxic. The first modern nerve agents, including sarin – released by a Japanese cult on the Tokyo subway in 1995 – were devised by the Germans during World War II.
Germany never used chemical weapons, despite producing ten tons of sarin. Production was taken over by the Soviet army after it captured the plant at Dyernfurth.
A new generation of the chemical weapons including VX, which was invented by the British during the Cold War and is 150 times more deadly than sarin. The UN classes it as a weapon of mass destruction.
A “fourth generation” of nerve agents, developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, are said to be even more toxic than VX. These Novichoks, meaning newcomer in Russian, contain two harmless chemicals which become toxic when mixed in an aerosol or missile. This makes them easier to store and transport safely.
Professor Malcolm Sperrin, of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, says: “Symptoms of exposure may include respiratory arrest, heart failure, twitching or spasms – anything where the nerve control is degraded.”
Scientists do not want to say how nerve agents are created, for fear of copycat attacks. However, the ingredients are cheap and easy to obtain. They were first used in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
VX is one of four main nerve agents and is usually inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Just a fraction of a drop can take effect within seconds and “fatally disrupt the nervous system”, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. They can be administered via aerosol or smeared on a victim’s face.
North Korean leader’s Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, died within 20 minutes after his face was smeared with VX at an airport in Malaysia last February.
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