Accessibility links

Breaking News

Chemical Weapons Watchdog Confirms Novichok Use in Amesbury


FILE - Specialist team members in military protective suits use a jar in the front doorway as they search the fenced off John Baker House for homeless people in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018.
FILE - Specialist team members in military protective suits use a jar in the front doorway as they search the fenced off John Baker House for homeless people in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018.

Laboratory tests by the chemical weapons watchdog confirmed British conclusions that two people in Amesbury, southwest England, were exposed to a Novichok-type nerve agent, it said Tuesday.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said analysis by designated laboratories of samples collected by its team "confirm the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical."

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after she and her partner were exposed to the toxin near the city of Salisbury where Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were struck down with the same poison in March.

The OPCW said "it is also the same toxic chemical that was found in the biomedical and environmental samples relating to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal."

The U.K. has accused Russia, which developed the toxic agent in the Soviet Union era, of poisoning the Skripals. Moscow denies all involvement.

Britain is ready to ask Russia to extradite two men it suspects of carrying out the nerve agent attack on Skripal.

  • 16x9 Image

    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

XS
SM
MD
LG