
- Sergei Skripal
A former Russian colonel who spied for the UK is in a critical condition in hospital after being exposed to an unknown substance in Salisbury.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wiltshire-critically-ill-unknown-substance-salisbury-former-russian-spy-a8241121.htmlSergei Skripal, who was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in his home country for treason, was found unconscious on a bench alongside a woman in a local shopping centre.
A major incident was declared at Salisbury District Hospital after the patients arrived, with people told not to attend A&E unless it is “extremely urgent”.
A colonel in Russian military intelligence until at least 1999, Mr Skripal was arrested in 2004 on suspicion of spying for the British.
Eventually, he admitted to high treason for working for MI6 and providing the identities of active agents in Europe in exchange for payments totalling more than $100,000.
In 2006, Mr Skripal was convicted in a military court, and sentenced to 13 years. He was released early, in 2010, following a high-profile “spy swap,” with Russian sleeper agents uncovered in the United States.
The cause of their illness has not yet been confirmed but the case drew immediate comparison to the assassination of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko using tea laced with radioactive polonium.
A public inquiry named Russians Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun as the prime suspects for poisoning Mr Litvinenko at a Mayfair hotel in 2006 but attempts to extradite them from Russia failed.
Another Russian expat and whistleblower called Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed and died in November 2012 in Weybridge Surrey, shortly before he was due to give evidence in Switzerland. Toxicology tests showed he had been poisoned with
gelsemium elegans, a known tool of Russian and Chinese contract killers
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/19/poisoned-russian-whistleblower-was-fatalistic-over-death-threats