Former spy Sergei Skripal believes Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible for poisoning him with Novichok, the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry has heard.
In an interview in May 2018, two months after he, his daughter Yulia and then-police officer Nick Bailey, were poisoned in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in March that year, a police officer put it to him that he believed President Putin was responsible, to which he replied “It’s my private opinion”, said Andrew O’Connor KC, counsel to the inquiry.
They were poisoned when members of a Russian military intelligence squad are believed to have smeared the nerve agent on Mr Skripal’s door handle.
The counterfeit perfume box found by Charlie Rowley (Metropolitan Police/PA)
Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after being exposed to the Russian nerve agent which was left in a discarded perfume bottle in Amesbury, Wiltshire, in July 2018.
In the last week, Mr Skripal provided a further witness statement to the inquiry, in which he said “it is not honourable to kill people who have been exchanged and the attack on Yulia and me was an absolute shock”, the inquiry was told.
He added in the statement read by Mr O’Connor: “I had received a presidential pardon and was a free man with no convictions under Russian law.
“I never thought the Russian regime would try to murder me in Great Britain.
“They could have killed me easily if they wanted to when I was in prison.”
Mr Skripal also said that, after leaving Russia, he lived “quite a normal life”, but he thought returning to Russia would be “dangerous”.
Military personnel at the site near the Maltings in Salisbury (Ben Birchall/PA)
He said President Putin “must have at least given permission for the attack”.
Mr Skripal said: “I believe Putin makes all important decisions himself. I therefore think he must have at least given permission for the attack on Yulia and me. Any GRU (Russian Federation) commander taking a decision like this without Putin’s permission would have been severely punished.”
Mr O’Connor also said that Jonathan Allen, a senior FCDO official, provided the inquiry with a statement in which he said it is the Government’s view that Putin “authorised the operation”.
The inquiry will look into whether the UK authorities took appropriate precautions in early 2018 to protect Mr Skripal from being attacked.
Mr O’Connor said the fact that Mr Skripal was a former senior GRU officer living in the UK “arguably placed him at some risk”.
He added that Mr Skripal recognised this himself in a police interview in 2018, in which he said: “I am a very important man of special services. Still now I know a lot of Russian secrets, top secrets, they are really dangerous for Russian special services.”
The inquiry will also examine whether the poisoning of Ms Sturgess could have been prevented.