LONDON, September 14. /TASS/. A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday described an interview by Skripal case suspects to Russia’s RT channel as an ‘insult to the public's intelligence.’
"The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian state-sponsored TV station are an insult to the public's intelligence. More importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack," he said.
The official added that this is what the UK authorities have come to expect.
The prime minister's spokesman also said that police had set out "very clearly" the evidence against the two Russians.
"They are wanted men and we have taken all steps to ensure they are apprehended and brought to justice in the UK if they ever again step foot outside Russia," he said.
The UK Foreign Office earlier claimed that the two suspects, Russian nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, deliberately lied and distorted facts in the interview to RT earlier in the day. A Foreign Office spokesperson told TASS that the Russians are still being viewed as main suspects in the case.
Petrov and Boshirov’s interview
In an interview with Russia’s RT TV channel released on September 13, Petrov and Boshirov said they had visited Great Britain for tourist purposes. According to them, they are businessmen not linked to the GRU and have nothing to do with the Skripal case. The two men stressed they wanted the media and everyone else to leave them be.
According to London, former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, 66, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, 33, suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such a substance.
On September 5, British Prime Minister Theresa May informed the country’s parliament about the conclusions that investigators looking into the Salisbury incident had come to, saying that two Russians, believed to be GRU agents, were suspected of conspiracy to murder the Skripals. According to May, the assassination attempt was approved at "a senior level of the Russian state." The Metropolitan Police published the suspects’ photos, saying their names were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.