The British government announced Thursday the opening of a public inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess, a collateral victim of the poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal in Novitchok in 2018. Aged 44, Dawn Sturgess , a mother of three, died on July 8, 2018 after using what she thought was a perfume, but which was in fact Novichok, a nerve agent contained in a vial picked up by her companion.
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The Skripal affair
, the art of looking at the news in the rearview mirror
Target of poisoning, the former double agent Sergei Skripal was found with his daughter Yulia, both unconscious, on a bench in Salisbury (southern England), and had been hospitalized in serious condition.
They survived and now live in hiding under protection.
"We are setting up an investigation to ensure that all relevant evidence is considered, with the hope that Dawn Sturgess' family can get the answers they need and deserve," the minister said. of the Interior Priti Patel in a press release.
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The inquiry will be chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament.
The affair had provoked reciprocal expulsions of diplomats, unprecedented since the end of the Cold War between Russia and the West.
Despite London's conclusions to this effect, Moscow has always denied any involvement in the Skripal affair.
On the criminal front, three agents of the Russian intelligence services have been indicted by the British justice and are under arrest warrants.