LONDON, December 4. /TASS/. The British Foreign Office summoned Russian Ambassador to London Andrey Kelin following a report on the death of Dawn Sturgess, a British woman who is believed to have died from nerve-agent poisoning in Amesbury in July 2018.
The Foreign Office said that the envoy had been summoned to answer questions about Moscow’s alleged "hostile activity against the UK."
The report on the outcome of a public inquiry into Sturgess’ death says that she was an accidental victim of the incident in Salisbury, where the British authorities say an assassination attempt on ex-Russian military intelligence Colonel Sergey Skripal had taken place. London claims that the attack involved the Novichok nerve agent originating from Russia. The document puts the moral responsibility for Sturgess’ poisoning on the Russian leadership. Moscow was also directly accused of involvement in the poisoning of Skripal.
Russia has repeatedly rejected these accusations. 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.
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. Russian diplomats stressed that the coroner’s inquest had been "replaced with an even vaguer procedure," which makes it possible to classify evidence as secret. They also slammed the British Home Office’s decision as another step "aimed at ensuring a quasi-judicial confirmation of the political narrative."