Deja vu: Convicted "spy" poisoned in UK

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by ponderingturtle

Wait you mean exotic russian assassination plans are not the leading cause of public unconsciousness in the UK?

It's probably not even in the top ten.

As an aside, there was recently (within the last six months) a BBC radio programme (either World Service or Radio4) about the history of Soviet and Russian assassinations from Trotsky onwards, and the liking for exotic poisons.

My google-fu is weak though

ETA: did any of the other UK posters hear this?

[Ambrosia]

Originally Posted by jimbob

As an aside, there was recently (within the last six months) a BBC radio programme (either World Service or Radio4) about the history of Soviet and Russian assassinations from Trotsky onwards, and the liking for exotic poisons.

ETA: did any of the other UK posters hear this?

I don't recall a radio program on this but I did watch this a few weeks back.

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[Henri McPhee]

I agree that people like Beria in Stalin's time, and the Russian Mafia, have been known for a long time to have bumped people off. It seems an unusual and sensational way to me to have used radioactive and nerve agent substances. What about good old-fashioned arsenic or cyanide? To my mind it's a bit like MI6 trying to bump off Kim Philby, or Princess Diana, or the Americans disposing of Edward Snowden in Moscow.

What is a fact, and which I firmly believe, is that there have been false flags in the past used in wartime, and peacetime, which have been used in the past by Britain and America and Israel, and probably Turkey, and they may now wish to discredit Putin. It's not just the Russians who use subversive propaganda. Polite firmness is not much use. You need to take a firm line. There is a bit of waffle about this sort of thing in a book called The Russian Outlook by Lieutenant-General Sir Giffard Martel in 1947:

Quote:

It is quite certain that we will have no success without a good deal of bargaining. We naturally want to remain in a dignified position. We do not want to reduce ourselves to the Russian level. At the same time, it is unlikely that Russia will cease her unpleasant form of propaganda unless she receives a sharp lesson. A reprisal, or the threat of a reprisal, would be understood at once by Russia. She would not think that we were being unduly unpleasant. She would merely think that we had come to our senses at last and wonder why we had had not done so long ago.

A brief word about the future. The ways of the East and of the West are so different that it is highly unlikely that we shall really understand each other for a long time to come.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...n-s-spies.html

[William Parcher]

The daughter lives in Moscow and came to visit her father only a few days before they were stricken.

Investigators are checking out a cemetery where his wife (and son also?) is buried. This is because dad and daughter visited with flowers. They are checking if there is contamination at the gravesite.

There is also mention of an interest in "a present" that she brought from Moscow which I think is at the house or was there.

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

The report that Skripal lost his temper in the restaurant just before they left suggests to me the daughter told him something he really didn't want to hear. If either recovers we might learn what that was.

It doesn't seem like he was angry at his daughter...

Originally Posted by BBC News

One witness, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the BBC that he saw Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Zizzi at about 14:00 GMT.

He said Mr Skripal appeared to lose his temper and was shouting at employees. "It was very, very strange behaviour," he said.

The witness described Yulia Skripal as quieter than her father with dark hair.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43315636

[William Parcher]

Insider tells Daily Mail that the flowers at the gravesite are possibly the source...

Originally Posted by DailyMail

This possibility centres on the idea that the flowers, now being examined by chemical experts, were sent to Mr Skripal’s home by whoever targeted him. It is thought they may have been accompanied by something – a card perhaps – to suggest they came from a friend of his wife and a request to take them to the cemetery.

The source said: ‘It’s all about the flowers at the moment… the fresh flowers along the grave, and it appears he [Skripal] went there just before he went to the car park [in Salisbury centre].’...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...t-flowers.html

[Childlike Empress]

Originally Posted by Ambrosia

If that's what local media are reporting then they are as guilty of making **** up as CNN are.

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Well, are they/did they? If so, based on what? I'm not a local. You are.

Apparently Ambrosia, despite feeding us wrong "local" information earlier, doesn't feel like informing us about what those local news were, so I checked and found the Salisbury Journal which has reported at least four times that they heard from "emergency services" that fentanyl might have been involved, as you can see in the four top linked articles of the search on their site I linked. Interestingly enough, the fifth link goes to an article from a month ago which is about a local who has been selling the stuff on the darkweb and has apparently been sentenced to eight years in prison for it, something I suspect will have been talk of the day on the "soporific" streets of that town.

[Ambrosia]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Apparently Ambrosia, despite feeding us wrong "local" information earlier, doesn't feel like informing us about what those local news were, so I checked and found the Salisbury Journal which has reported at least four times that they heard from "emergency services" that fentanyl might have been involved, as you can see in the four top linked articles of the search on their site I linked. Interestingly enough, the fifth link goes to an article from a month ago which is about a local who has been selling the stuff on the darkweb and has apparently been sentenced to eight years in prison for it, something I suspect will have been talk of the day on the "soporific" streets of that town.

Reading comprehension is not one of your stronger suits.

I said in reply to your earlier post "if that's what the local media are saying they are as guilty of making **** up"

if CNN quoted the local rag as saying that "fentanyl may have been involved" then you can be pretty sure that that's what the local rag said.

Our local paper, the Salisbury Journal, wrote early on, quoting an unamed emergency service source as saying that "fentanyl may have been involved"

It's a major incident in a tiny English city, something that our local journalists have never had to deal with, everyone and their dog is running round in circles interviewing random people and putting out any old stories they can to sell copy. It doesn't mean that there is any truth to it.

Hence my "making **** up" comment which goes as much for CNN as it does for our local press.

They know what the poison used was, they aren't telling us, aside from it being a rare nerve agent. That rules out fentanyl which is the current opiate drug du jour, as it's not a nerve agent. It's an opioid. One that you can buy from pretty much any decent sized town or city in the UK if you know the right people.

They don't roll out specialist army units, cordon off businesses and whole areas of a city for opiate contamination.

[Jack by the hedge]

I don't think there's any mystery or anything suspicious about someone in the emergency services initially telling their local paper's journalist that the symptoms of a couple of people found collapsed in the street looked like fentonyl. Events have moved on. It wasn't that. Today, everyone who visited the pub or restaurant are being advised to wash their clothes and clean their possessions as a precaution. This was something outside the experience of the average ambulance crew.

[Myriad]

Or as the old joke goes, for Russian expats Putin dislikes, they died of natural causes.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

I don't think there's any mystery or anything suspicious about someone in the emergency services initially telling their local paper's journalist that the symptoms of a couple of people found collapsed in the street looked like fentonyl. Events have moved on. It wasn't that. Today, everyone who visited the pub or restaurant are being advised to wash their clothes and clean their possessions as a precaution. This was something outside the experience of the average ambulance crew.

This.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by Henri McPhee

I agree that people like Beria in Stalin's time, and the Russian Mafia, have been known for a long time to have bumped people off. It seems an unusual and sensational way to me to have used radioactive and nerve agent substances. What about good old-fashioned arsenic or cyanide? To my mind it's a bit like MI6 trying to bump off Kim Philby, or Princess Diana, or the Americans disposing of Edward Snowden in Moscow.

If I were an evil regime (and I'm not), I'd want people to figure out it was me killing off traitors. So they'd be properly scared, realizing that nowhere was safe from my vengeance, no amount of time or distance would enable them to escape. It's not just about eliminating spies after they've already spilled their secrets, it's about keeping your other spies in line. I definitely wouldn't want my current spies to think if they betrayed me they could expect a cushy retirement in another country, then die from an accident or health issue.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

If I were an evil regime (and I'm not), I'd want people to figure out it was me killing off traitors. So they'd be properly scared, realizing that nowhere was safe from my vengeance, no amount of time or distance would enable them to escape. It's not just about eliminating spies after they've already spilled their secrets, it's about keeping your other spies in line. I definitely wouldn't want my current spies to think if they betrayed me they could expect a cushy retirement in another country, then die from an accident or health issue.

It's probably even better if it's like the archetypal Mafia hit, where everyone knows who was responsible, but there is nothing to tie them to it.

There are questions as to whether under Cold War "spy swap" etiquette, Skripal would have been considered to have paid his due:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sergei-skripal

Some people are saying this never really happened though.

[William Parcher]

Some reports are saying that Officer Bailey did attend to the victims. Some say he was only at the house. Some say it was both. I can't figure out where exactly he was.

[Information Analyst]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

3am is their Favorited time isn't it?

Broad daylight is the new 3am. Or vice versa.

[Information Analyst]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

If I were an evil regime (and I'm not), I'd want people to figure out it was me killing off traitors. So they'd be properly scared, realizing that nowhere was safe from my vengeance, no amount of time or distance would enable them to escape. It's not just about eliminating spies after they've already spilled their secrets, it's about keeping your other spies in line. I definitely wouldn't want my current spies to think if they betrayed me they could expect a cushy retirement in another country, then die from an accident or health issue.

On the other hand, it's probably counter-productive if Russia wants to do any more spy-swaps in the future.

[Childlike Empress]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

Some reports are saying that Officer Bailey did attend to the victims. Some say he was only at the house. Some say it was both. I can't figure out where exactly he was.

There's contradictory information about several aspects of this event. Here is a useful thread.

[Henri McPhee]

Personally, I think Putin's policy to the Crimea and Ukraine and Syria is logical from a Russian perspective, and RT reports things which BBC Pravda will not touch. When he first came to power he acted drastically when financial weakness was plainly visible, and he cracked down on bank fraud. He dealt ruthlessly with Russian oligarchs who tried to interfere in Russian politics, and he seems to have sorted out the inherited Chechen mess. He does not want to interfere with international trade, or cut the supply of natural gas to Europe.

As I have said before, I don't understand why he would want to cause a public controversy with a nerve agent just months before the football World Cup in Russia, and risk a boycott by British allies. I suppose there is nowt so funny as folk. There seems to be a Russian Mafia and terrorists in Russia. Israel and Turkey have been known to bump people off in the past and they know about chemical warfare and nerve agents. There have also been unsolved murders in the past, and wrong assumptions, and faulty organisation in the police.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Henri McPhee

Personally, I think Putin's policy to the Crimea and Ukraine and Syria is logical from a Russian perspective, and RT reports things which BBC Pravda will not touch. When he first came to power he acted drastically when financial weakness was plainly visible, and he cracked down on bank fraud. He dealt ruthlessly with Russian oligarchs who tried to interfere in Russian politics, and he seems to have sorted out the inherited Chechen mess.

Of course he might have been rather behind the whole chechen thing and certainly it helped him shore up his power.

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

There's contradictory information about several aspects of this event. Here is a useful thread.

I don't consider this useful at all...

Originally Posted by off Guardian

Was he poisoned while he was “attending” the Skripals on the legendary bench where they were found “collapsed” as alleged by the Telegraph on March 8?

The blog author is calling the bench "legendary"?

I got no time for that kind of thinking and talking.

[Bob001]

UK government says Russia did it.

Quote:

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday that British investigators had concluded it was "highly likely" that Russia was responsible for the poison attack that left a Russian double agent and his daughter comatose on a park bench last week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.41c900788d83

[The Great Zaganza]

Imagine that - a government that seriously tries to uncover Russian intervention in their country....

[Childlike Empress]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I don't consider this useful at all...

Being able to track who said what on a particular aspect is at least more useful than "William Parcher said some say this while some others say that" even if used language is not nice enough for William Parcher himself.

[Captain_Swoop]

Corbyn called out the Tories at PMQs today over their party funding and donations from Russian sources.
It didn't go down well with them.

Corbyn: May I suggest that the Government not take foreign donations from a country that’s committed a terrorist attack on Britain.

Tories/Labour MP’s: You disgraceful man, this a non Party political issue!

[Skeptic Ginger]

Press conference Suckabee could only say we stand with the UK and completely talked around the Rusher thing.

[Giz]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Corbyn: May I suggest that the Government not take foreign donations from a country that’s committed a terrorist attack on Britain.

Yes, he would never take money to appear on terrorist supporting regimes propaganda channels like Press TV (Iran) or Russia Today.

[Darat]

Should the UK attempt to retaliate in kind? We would have plenty of opportunities to carry such killings in the UK as London is somewhere that many of Putin's associates like to spend their time.

[Undesired Walrus]

Is the use of a nerve agent in these cases due to practical reasons or propaganda reasons?

I ask as presumably there are easier ways to assassinate than nerve agent? Is it deliberately used to shock the world and say 'dont mess with us'?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Darat

Should the UK attempt to retaliate in kind? We would have plenty of opportunities to carry such killings in the UK as London is somewhere that many of Putin's associates like to spend their time.

Putin seems to respond when his money or his oligarch friend's money is threatened. Sanctions involving bank accounts and other money laundering assets.

[Aber]

Originally Posted by Bob001

UK government says Russia did it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.41c900788d83

Key elements in the statement:

"Military grade nerve agents" - either you did it, or someone can get it from your stores; no chance that it was a mad scientist in a basement.

"unlawful use of force" - ie breach of international law, so going after the Russian state, not just the individuals who carried out the attack.

I'd expect to see pressure from the UK for a co-ordinated international response through NATO and the EU, but given Trump and Brexit, who knows.

[Aber]

Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop

Corbyn called out the Tories at PMQs today over their party funding and donations from Russian sources.
It didn't go down well with them.

He wasn't listening to the statement.

Accusing Russia of "unlawful use of force" is only one step down from "armed attack" in diplomatic language.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by Aber

He wasn't listening to the statement.

Accusing Russia of "unlawful use of force" is only one step down from "armed attack" in diplomatic language.

He was utterly rubbish.

"we should continue our robust dialogue"

[Information Analyst]

Originally Posted by Undesired Walrus

Is the use of a nerve agent in these cases due to practical reasons or propaganda reasons?

I ask as presumably there are easier ways to assassinate than nerve agent? Is it deliberately used to shock the world and say 'dont mess with us'?

There's probably an element of a heavy hit that, "we still have this stuff."

I do think, though, that the Russians are probably surprised that the whole thing has been aired to publicly, though. They probably assumed that the UK would want to keep it low key.

[Information Analyst]

Originally Posted by Aber

He wasn't listening to the statement.

Accusing Russia of "unlawful use of force" is only one step down from "armed attack" in diplomatic language.

And the most diplomatic language to describe Corbyn's response would be "utter twat...."

[William Parcher]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

Being able to track who said what on a particular aspect is at least more useful than "William Parcher said some say this while some others say that" even if used language is not nice enough for William Parcher himself.

I see my name twice in there but I don't understand what you are saying. Maybe you could rephrase the whole thing.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I see my name twice in there but I don't understand what you are saying. Maybe you could rephrase the whole thing.

I will translate

Just because it uses Russian WMDs it's nothing to do with Putin. And they deserved it anyway, even if Putin had been responsible, which he hadn't.

Or:

I won't present an argument, I'll post a mocking meme to make it seem as though the idea is ridiculous, without explaining how:

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

[jimbob]

From Badscience

Originally Posted by woodchopper1

May’s statement also states that Russia should immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the Novichok programme to the OPCW (the body in charge of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention.

That suggests that Russia has nerve agent production or stocks that haven’t been declared to the OCPW (as they should have been under the Chemical Weapons Convention).

This is really bad. The assasination attempt looks like a message to the rest of the world that Russia has new chemical weapons and is prepared to use them.

[Childlike Empress]

Originally Posted by William Parcher

I see my name twice in there but I don't understand what you are saying. Maybe you could rephrase the whole thing.

The data provided in the "open thread" I posted is more useful than your post, because it adds the information on the big dubyas: where when who (why is missing so far, what is what you have provided). Of course what you said is true, but it is of lesser use for sharing with someone else in an argument about this topic.

[Childlike Empress]

I'm just glad jimbob came out of today with no reason to think the unthinkable.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Childlike Empress

I'm just glad jimbob came out of today with no reason to think the unthinkable.

Which scenario is the unthinkable one? State-sanctioned use of Russian chemical weapons in England or the state's failure to prevent unsanctioned use of their chemical weapons?