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UK Home Secretary Rudd calls for COBRA crisis meeting on Skripal poisoning probe updates

This will be the second meeting of Britain's interior minister Amber Rudd with intelligence and security chiefs, top civil servants and other ministers

LONDON, March 10. /TASS/. UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd is convening on Saturday a meeting of the COBRA crisis committee to discuss updates of the investigation into the poisoning of former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

This will be the second meeting of Britain's interior minister Rudd with intelligence and security chiefs, top civil servants and other ministers. The first urgent meeting was held on March 7.

On March 5, UK media reported an incident involving former Russian military intelligence (GRU) Colonel Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia, who had reportedly been poisoned by an unknown substance. According to the local police, they were found unconscious on a shopping mall bench in Salisbury, which is located 140 kilometers to the southwest of London, on March 4.

In 2004, Russia’s Federal Security Service (the FSB) arrested Skripal and later on, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for high treason. Six years later, the former colonel was handed over to the US as part of a swap deal involving espionage suspects. In the same year, Skripal arrived in Britain and settled there.

The Financial Times reported on Friday citing security officials that Skripal continued to provide information to western intelligence agencies after settling in Britain in 2010. According an unnamed former senior security official, Skripal was still valuable for "friendly’ spying agencies.".

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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