LONDON/BRUSSELS—A military-grade nerve toxin attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter may have left them with compromised mental capacity and it is unclear whether they will recover, a British judge said on Thursday.
Britain has said Russia used a Soviet-era chemical weapon called Novichok to attack Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the first known offensive use of such a weapon on European soil since World War Two. Russia has denied any involvement.
Britain is asking other European Union states to crack down together on Russian spy networks, though there is unlikely to be a concerted response at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, a French source said.
A London court gave permission for blood samples to be taken from the Skripals for examination by chemical weapons inspectors to confirm the conclusion of Britain’s Porton Down military research laboratory.
An unidentified doctor who is treating the Skripals said they were both heavily sedated and unable to communicate, and that it was not possible to assess when or to what extent either may regain mental capacity, according to the court’s ruling.
“The precise effect of their exposure on their long-term health remains unclear, albeit medical tests indicate that their mental capacity might be compromised to an unknown and so far unascertained degree,” Judge David Williams said in his ruling.
Skripal, once a colonel in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, and his 33-year-old daughter were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the southern English city of Salisbury on March 4.
They were both in a physically stable condition and were being treated “on the basis they would wish to be kept alive”, the doctor said, according to Williams’s ruling at the London’s Court of Protection, which makes decisions about the welfare of people who are unable to do so themselves.
Williams said the application to take the samples had been made urgently on Tuesday. Both Skripal and his daughter were critical but stable, although he added: “It is not inconceivable that their condition could rapidly deteriorate”
Judge Williams said an unidentified analyst from Porton Down had given evidence that blood samples taken from the Skripals indicated exposure to a nerve agent. “The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent,” his ruling said.
A policeman who fell ill after helping the Skripals was released from hospital on Thursday after more than two weeks of treatment, officials said.
Insult To Russia
Russia’s ambassador to London, Vladimir Yakovenko, said on Thursday that, had Novichok been used, the Skripals would have died.
Yakovenko rebuked British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for comparing Russia’s hosting of the soccer World Cup this summer with Nazi Germany’s hosting of the Olympics in 1936.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin discussed Britain’s “unfriendly and provocative” policy at a session of the national security council, RIA news agency quoted the Kremlin as saying.
By Michael Holden and Gabriela Baczynska
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