British police have identified two suspects in the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN on Thursday.
The source said investigators have been combing through months of surveillance camera footage from UK airports and from Salisbury, where the Skripals were poisoned in an attack the British government blames on Russia.
Using facial recognition technology, authorities discovered two “fresh identities” – individuals not known to have been spies or used in other attacks – the source added.
Investigators cross-checked that information with the manifest of the commercial flight to Russia on which the suspects were believed to have left Britain soon after the attack in March. They travelled under aliases, the source said.
A British station in Cyprus intercepted a coded Russian message to Moscow just after the poisoning saying that the pair had left the UK, the source said.
The suspects do not seem to have been spies previously known to British authorities, the source said. It is not clear whether the pair are Russian.
Russia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko shrugged off the claims at a Russian Foreign Ministry event in Moscow on Thursday. “These are the reports of the media,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, we don’t have official statements from the British side. I want to hear from Scotland Yard or the Foreign Office. A lot of versions have been appearing in the newspapers, they are not supported by the statements of the Foreign Office,” he said.
The British Foreign Office declined to comment, directing CNN to the police. London’s Metropolitan Police, which is leading the investigation into the Skripals, declined to comment.
Britain’s Press Association news agency also reported Thursday that police had identified suspects in the case.
The attack on the Skripals led to a diplomatic dispute with Russia, with The UK expelling 23 Russian diplomats and more than 20 other countries, including the United States, followed suit.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack and has put forward multiple theories as to who may have been behind it.
The Skripals were found unconscious on a bench in the city of Salisbury on March 4. They were treated for exposure to the rare Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent Novichok and discharged separately from hospital several weeks later. Police believe they came into contact with the substance via the door handle of Sergei Skripal’s house.
Tensions escalated further earlier this month when two British residents of Amesbury, a town eight miles north of Salisbury, fell ill after being exposed to the same nerve agent. Dawn Sturgess, 44, later died, while her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, remains in hospital.
Although police said there was no suggestion that the couple had been deliberately targeted, a murder investigation was launched. Last week, police announced that they had identified a small bottle found in Rowley’s home as the source of the nerve agent that killed his partner. It is unclear where Rowley found the bottle, or whether it is the same batch of nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals.
