RUSSIAN POISONINGS: SERGEI SKRIPAL (PART 4)
In this series, we have covered the poisonings of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal. We explored the events that led up to the pair comatose on a park bench and fighting for their lives. In Part 3, we looked at how two individuals, Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, where responsible for the attack. Eventually, investigative journalists found that Ruslan Boshirov was GRU Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga, and Alexander Petrov was, in fact, Alexander Mishkin. He is a doctor in the GRU.
In the final instalment of this series, we will have a look at the devastating death of Dawn Sturgess. A British national that thought she got some nice perfume as a present, but instead it was a death sentence. We will also check what the international and British reaction was to these tragic events.
DAWN STURGESS
On June 30th, Charlie Rowley found a bottle of perfume called Premier Jour by Nina Ricci. It was wrapped up in plastic, so he thought he scored a good find, which he took home and gave it as a present to his partner, 44-years-old Dawn Sturgess.
Dawn Sturgess |
When he gave her the perfume bottle, she was ecstatic. Charlie helped get the small bottle out of its packaging. Unfortunately, the liquid got all over his hands when he went to assemble the nozzle, but Charlie went to wash his hands.
Dawn sprayed the liquid on her wrists and rubbed them together, thinking she was smart to apply the fragrance on her pulse points. After fifteen minutes she started to develop a headache, and asked Charlie if he had any headache medication. He went to find some painkillers for her. Upon his return, to his horror, Dawn was lying fully clothed in the bath tub looking very ill. Charlie also collapsed in a coma.
Both people were taken to hospital. When Charlie woke up from his coma, he was informed that he was poisoned by Novichok, a deadly Russian nerve agent. He was one of four people in the world who have been poisoned with novichok and survived. The other three being the Skripals and Nick Bailey, an officer who attended the Skripal crime scene.
Charlie Rowley in his interview with ITV |
Dawn, sadly, did not wake up from her coma. She was in hospital for eight days until she passed away, 8 July 2018.
One month after her death, Charlie gave an interview describing the harrowing experience. He had been unable to return to his home as it was now being decontaminated, but he also didn't wish to come back. "Too many bad memories there for me", he said in the same interview.
Now a public inquiry has been called for to analyse what had happened to the perfume bottle and why it was not detected for four months between the Skripals' poisoning and the death of Dawn Sturgess. There has been a few sessions already on the case, and public inquiry will be held in 2022.
ENGLAND STRIKES BACK
England's prime minister, Theresa May, was under a lot of pressure to have a strong reaction against the perpetrators. The English government said that if Russia was found accountable for this attack on British soil, they would be punished severely.
On 12 March, Prime Minister May came out and publicly accused Russia in her speech to the House of Commons. After this, investigations were opened into 14 other cases of suspicious deaths of Russian exiles and businessmen in the United Kingdom.
Britain decided to take a very hard stance on displaying their displeasure with Russia by:
- Freezing Russian owned state assets where there was evidence that they could be used to harm a British national or resident.
- Making plans considering new laws to increase defences against hostile state activity portrayed by another country.
- Boycotting of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, that was held in Russia, by UK ministers and the Royal family.
- Expelling 23 diplomats from United Kingdom.
Andrey Lugovoy |
Alexey Navalny |
References
- https://dawnsturgessinquest.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ds300321.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Amesbury_poisonings#Interview_with_Rowley
- ITV News interview with Charlie Rowley
- https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/dawn-sturgess?CMP=ILC-refresh
- https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-fake-perfume-bottle-of-nerve-agent-used-in-skripal-poisoning-2018-9?r=US&IR=T
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/novichok-bottle-missing-salisbury-b1923954.html
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