LONDON, December 4. /TASS/. The British woman who died of poisoning in connection with what London believes was an assassination attempt on ex-Russian military intelligence Colonel Sergey Skripal was an accidental victim, former Justice of the British Supreme Court Anthony Hughes said in a report into the death of Dawn Sturgess.
"On the morning of Saturday, June 30, 2018, Dawn Sturgess and [her partner] Charlie Rowley were together at Charlie’s flat at 9 Muggleton Road in Amesbury, Wiltshire. Charlie Rowley gave Dawn Sturgess a gift of a small bottle of what was labelled as - and he believed to be - Nina Ricci perfume. He removed the packaging and attached to the bottle the dispensing pump that came with it. Using the pump, Dawn Sturgess then applied to her wrists the substance inside the bottle, which she believed to be perfume. She may well also have inhaled some of the vapors of the substance. In fact, the substance inside the bottle was a deadly nerve agent from the Novichok class of organophosphorus chemicals," the document reads.
"Dawn Sturgess became seriously ill very quickly. Charlie Rowley called an ambulance, and paramedics attended the flat. By the time they arrived, Dawn Sturgess’ heart had stopped beating. Although the paramedics managed to resuscitate her, she had sustained an unsurvivable brain injury. She received expert medical treatment in hospital but never regained consciousness and died some days later, on July 8, 2018," the report notes.
Skripal case
Hughes also found it necessary to look into the Skripal incident in Salisbury, claiming that Sturgess’ death could not be seen in isolation from it. He added that an attempt on Skripal’s life involving the Novichok nerve agent took place on March 4, 2018.
Hughes alleges that Alexander Petrov, Ruslan Boshirov, and Sergey Fedotov, officers of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, arrived in London from Moscow on March 2, 2018, in order to eliminate Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for the UK and moved to Britain in 2010 as part of a prisoner swap. According to the report, Petrov and Boshirov traveled to Salisbury the next day to explore the area where Skripal lived. The report says they returned to Salisbury on March 4 and applied the Novichok agent to the handle of his house’s front door.
The document also claims that "Petrov and Boshirov brought with them to Salisbury the ‘Nina Ricci’ bottle containing Novichok made in Russia that was subsequently responsible for Dawn Sturgess’ death." "They recklessly discarded this bottle somewhere public or semi-public before leaving Salisbury on Sunday, March 4," the report says. Hughes points out that it’s impossible to know where and when Rowley found the bottle.
British inquiry
In November 2021, the British Home Office established a public inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess following a coroner’s inquest in order for the judge to get access to a number of classified documents and be able to answer additional questions about the woman’s death, including those concerning Moscow's alleged involvement in the incident.
The Russian Embassy in London stated earlier that the outcome of the inquiry could not be trusted due to the political nature of the alleged incident.