LONDON, March 11. /TASS/. A preliminary hearing of the case of the death of Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury in the summer of 2018 is scheduled at London’s Royal Courts of Justice on March 25, the UK Home Office said on Friday.
"The appointment of Lord Hughes of Ombersley as Chair of the Inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess was announced by the Home Secretary [Priti Patel] on 10 March 2022, together with a set up date for the Inquiry of 17 March 2022. Lord Hughes intends to hold a preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on 25 March 2022, starting at 10.30 am. (13:30 Moscow time - TASS)," it said, adding that it will be an open directions hearing.
"A CLOSED directions hearing is to be held shortly after the OPEN directions hearing at a venue to be confirmed," it noted.
The inquiry was initially supposed to be chaired by Baroness Hellet but in December 2021 she was appointed chair of the inquiry into the UK authorities’ actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK Home Office said earlier that the case was unlikely to be ready for a review on the merits until late 2022 or early 2023.
The probe into Sturgess’ death was turned into public hearing at coroner’s demand in November 2021. It means that the judge will study a range of classified documents to be able to answer extra questions about the circumstances of her death. Nevertheless, this format leaves room for closed hearings to interview secret witnesses.
The Russian embassy to the UK doubted the reliability of the probe findings due to its politically motivated nature.
Salisbury and Amesbury incidents
If the British version of the affair is to be believed, Sergei Skripal, a former GRU colonel, earlier convicted in Russia of spying for Britain, and his daughter Yulia, were affected by a nerve agent in the British town of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. London later claimed that the substance had been developed in Russia and Moscow was allegedly behind the incident. The Russian side strongly dismissed all speculations on this score, saying that no programs for developing such a substance had ever existed either in the Soviet Union or in Russia. Specialists at Britain’s laboratory in Porton Down said they were unable to identify the origin of the substance that had been presumably used for poisoning the Skripals.
Dawn Sturgess and her companion Charles Rowley on June 30 were taken to the hospital in Amesbury in critical condition. On July 8, the news arrived Sturgess had died in the hospital. Rowley was discharged on July 20 only to be hospitalized once again; this time diagnosed with meningitis.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons on September 4 said in a report that Sturgess’ death was due to a contact with the same chemical that had earlier affected the Skripals.
On September 5, 2018 the then British Prime Minister Theresa May briefed parliament on the results of the investigation, saying that two Russians were suspected of an attempt on the Skripals’ lives. They carried passports issued in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. British secret services suspect they are GRU agents. Petrov and Boshirov in an interview to the television broadcaster RT dismissed these charges.