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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @11:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the did-he-expose-himself? dept.

A retired Russian military intelligence officer has fallen ill in England after exposure to an unknown substance. Does that sound familiar?

A man identified by local news reports as a retired Russian military intelligence officer who once spied for Britain is critically ill at a British hospital, and the authorities were investigating his "exposure to an unknown substance."

According to several reports, the man, found unconscious on a bench in the city of Salisbury, is Sergei V. Skripal, 66. He was once jailed by Moscow, then settled in Britain after an exchange of spies between the United States and Russia in 2010.

The British police have not publicly identified the man in the hospital or a 33-year-old woman who fell sick with him at a shopping mall called the Maltings.

The authorities have, however, released enough detail about what they called a "major incident" to draw some comparisons, however premature, to the case of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who was poisoned in London in 2006.

Also at BBC and Reuters.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:23PM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:23PM (#648499) Journal

    Woman in Russian spy mystery is Sergei Skripal's daughter [theguardian.com]

    The second person found unconscious in Salisbury alongside the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal is his 33-year-old daughter.

    Yulia Skripal was discovered on a bench next to her father on Sunday and is in a critical condition in hospital. She lives in Russia but was visiting the UK, the BBC reported, adding that relatives had not heard from her for two days.

    The apparent poisoning of the pair follows the death of Skripal’s wife, Liudmila, in 2012. She arrived in Britain with her husband – who was swapped in 2010 as part of a spy exchange – and had lived with him in Wiltshire.

    A certificate recorded the cause of her death on 23 October 2012, aged 59, as “disseminated endometrial carcinoma”. Skripal’s son also died recently, aged 43, on a visit to St Petersburg with his girlfriend, the BBC has reported.

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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:51PM (1 child)

    by legont (4179) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:51PM (#648640)

    His son aslo died recently while visiting St. Petersburg with his girlfriend. It appears, his brother died as well, but I did'nt see any details.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:57PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:57PM (#648648)

    Mystery solved then: Dying abruptly is just congenital.

    • (Score: 2, Redundant) by DannyB on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:02PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:02PM (#648652) Journal

      It might not be congenital.

      It might be an occupational hazard. Or indirect exposure via direct relation to someone in that occupation.

      Or it could be due to being born in a certain place and not wanting to stay there. Or knowing certain people.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.