- Russia still considered prime suspect
- Sergei Skripal and Maltese journalist Caruana Galizia both investigating Cambridge Analytica/SCL
- Both Sergei and Yulia Skripal have connections with Malta
- Russian whistleblower – and Caruana contact – Maria Efimova handed herself in to Greek police on hearing of Skripal attack, in spite of warrants for her arrest and risk of extradition
- Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie claims predecessor poisoned in Kenya
- Govt claim that Russia is only plausible suspect doesn’t stand up
The Establishment and its media estate continue to perform contortions to defend the lying Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
These contortions have even gone as far as stretching years-old ‘news’ to claim that the government has identified the specific laboratory where the Salisbury toxin – which according to Cornell University chemistry professor David Collum is so simple that any number of commercial labs could make it – was produced.
However, the consensus – and the government’s line – has been that Russia had the most reason to attack Sergei Skripal.
That has already been challenged, with Irish newspapers in particular pointing out that, having exchanged Skripal with the UK in return for its own agents, Russia might stand to lose out on future exchanges if it targeted the subject of a previous one.
But on balance the lack of solid evidence pointing to Russia hasn’t meant they weren’t the most likely suspects.
Daphne Caruana Galizia
However, it shouldn’t pass without comment that Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia – murdered by a car bomb – is known to have been investigating Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the centre of the huge Facebook data scandal and exposed by Channel 4 News discussing dirty tricks to swing election campaigns – as Labour MP Ben Bradshaw raised in a Commons debate. She was also investigating its parent company SCL.
Caruana Galizia also had connections to another Russian, whistleblower and alleged embezzler Maria Efimova – who handed herself over to Greek police after hearing about the Salisbury poisoning, in spite of warrants outstanding for her arrest. Maltese media had even claimed that Efimova was Caruana Galizia’s source for information on a company she was investigating.
Meanwhile, Skripal – today said to making a ‘shock recovery’ a day after his daughter told a Russian relative, during a recorded phone call, that he was on the mend – was also said by a source close to the Russian to have been investigating… Cambridge Analytica.
In addition, Skripal – before his arrest and conviction in Russia for betraying secrets to the UK intelligence services – was on long term assignment in Spain and… Malta – where his daughter Yulia is also known to have spent time.
In a further interesting coincidence, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie has claimed that his predecessor was poisoned in a Kenyan hotel and that local police were bribed not to investigate.
None of these things mean, of course, that Russia couldn’t be the culprit in the Salisbury attack or that Cambridge Analytica has any connection to the the deaths.
But they certainly do mean that while Russia may still be the primary suspect, the government’s ‘Russia is the only plausible suspect‘ line doesn’t stand up to even a few quick Google searches.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Sergei apparently sold the identities of many Russian undercover agents to the British; a reverse Kim Philby (except he didn’t do it for cash). Those agents would have suffered similar fates – execution, covert or otherwise. Maybe there is some resentment about that among survivors and families? He also stole millions from the Russian State and then defected so he could spend it in the UK. There must be plenty of ‘Patriots’ who disapprove of that. If the Russian State had it in for him they wouldn’t have released him 8 years ago.
Food poisoning or something similar NOT nerve agent. I would say from what I’ve read that no way were they poisoned by nerve agent
The Russian ambassador to the UN said there is an antidote if you are in possession of supplies of exactly the same nerve agent; I’ve seen this stated by a scientist on Twitter too.
I do not know about that.
However, Sky News yesterday interviewed someone who worked on the Soviet nerve agent programme.
He said that 1mg would be fatal. That is just 1/1000 of a gramme.
They must have been hit by more than that. And so, how could they have survived?
Now that they are recovering, perhaps we can learn more about this.
Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) have a lot of curious connections it seems.
Here’s a bit more of their story:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/adam-ramsay/cambridge-analytica-is-what-happens-when-you-privatise-military-propaganda
is it me, or is it looking more like the british interfered in the 2016 us election and the brexit referendum? a certain group of british, anyway!
There’s going to be a lot of embarrassed people in the UN Council if as this looks ‘highly likely’ to blow-up in the faces of May and Johnson. It’s getting dodgier by the day and something has to give soon. So many ifs and buts and clearly there’s something amiss.
Either way for me, Jeremy and the majority of Labour have called it right and been totally vindicated in their assessment to be cautious. They should now sit back and let it unfold.
Certainly a whiff of the Walter Mittys about that lot from CA stitched up like a kipper by a couple of C4 journalists.
Trying to convince customers you’re James Bonds when you’re the Chuckle Brothers isn’t a good look.
Probably got some ex-LCpl working for them who likes to sleep in the woods & tell his mates he’s ‘doing wet work’.
Pish.
Another possibility: “Skripal was likely involved in the production of the Steele dossier. He was therefore in a position to offer potentially very damaging information into the circumstances of the Steele dossier. As noted above, that particular narrative has not only spectacularly collapsed, but the revelations reflect very badly on, among others, the U.S. intelligence community, the FBI,the Democratic National Committee, the Obama White House and the Clinton campaign.” https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/13/the-strange-case-of-the-russian-spy-poisoning/
Sergei was apparently wanting to see his elderly sick mother before it was too late, a very natural wish. He’d apparently written to Putin for permission. Much is made of there being no answer to the request but of course nobody knows for sure; maybe it was on the cards? It might be assumed if he had gone back he would have discussions with his old employer who would might be very interested in what he might have to say about Steele. The two would have known each other as Steele was the MI6 Head of the Russia Desk. I’d guess the CIA did the dirty deed (badly) and left the Brits holding the baby which the Americans would have thought just desserts for taking in somebody like Sergei in the first place, just to get their greedy hands on his proceeds of crime.
If it’s true that he was thinking of visiting Russia SIS would be forced to consider the possibility he’d found something of value to bargain with.
Caution should dictate that one always assume the enemy’s knowledge to be superior.
No way they’d be happy about him visiting Russia out of GCHQ’s reach.
An almost-successful assassination attempt might be just the thing to make him reconsider.
Who knows, there might even be some property of this very strangely non-lethal “nerve agent” that aids interrogation.
Just for fun… what if the ‘Novichok’ were self-administered?
Good points so was it (a) Putin – short-term political gain but massive international payback and a tragic but amateur act & why didn’t they bump him off when they help him in prison for 8 years? (b) enemies, apparently he named Russians who may have suffered so not too pleased? (c) the Russian mafia – it is claimed he stole millions from Russia? (d) another state actor? (e) did he have any enemies in the UK (f) Right Wing forces – links to Camb Anaytica, Briebart trying to silence those who may ‘sing’ against Trump? (g) another reason? Where is Sherlock Homes when we need him!
My hypothesis was (h) Skripal might damage the case *against* Trump. Steele produced the anti-Trump dossier. So it’s Team Liberal we’re talking about. Not that I support neo-fascist Trump.
I remember watching a news item on a completely different case (a murder) and a senior detective said we don’t rule one thing in and everything out, we don’t rule anything out.
Reading the comments above and the suggested reading was very interesting and the killer point; the Russians had Skirpil in jail for 8 years so why allegedly try to do him in such an amateur fashion now?
But perhaps as the Right Wing Barbarians (the rich and powerful) do an ignorant war dance, here’s an original idea from a left wing democratic socialist on behalf of working people in every country..
As the Right Wing Neo-Liberal Barbarians try to create enemies (enemies are good for the Military Industrial Complex profits) perhaps we should argue as working people, for NATO to be extended into a World Alliance For Peace, and Russia and North Korea et al be invited to join!
WOT NO ENEMIES?
WORKING PEOPLE OF NO COUNTRY ARE YOUR ENEMY!
I accept it would mean a trillion dollar plus loss for the Neo-Liberal Capitalist Barbarians but it millions of working people lives come first! WORKING PEOPLE OF EVERY COUNTRY 1 RIGHT WING NEO-LIBERAL CAPITALIST BARBARIANS 0.
It’s time for working people- the Great Masses of History to take democratic and peaceful control as the Rich and Powerful Real Little People of the planet fade into deserved oblivion; history will know that we existed. X
This is the kind of idea I would give support to 👍
Well I don’t know but thanks for drawing my attention to this:
https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/85102/sergei_skripal_russia_malta_embassy_attache_mi6_gru#.Wsfu_jUo-2c
So he was undercover in Malta in 1980s and early 90s and that’s where the MI6 “turned him” to work for Britain.
“Russian spy found unconscious in England was stationed in Malta as embassy attaché • The Colonel in Soviet Military Intelligence was turned by Britain’s MI6 while on business trips in Malta and Spain
The Russian spy, turned British informer, who was found unconscious together with his 33-year-old daughter on a bench in Salisbury, England, on Sunday, got the first break in his career with Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) when he was stationed to Malta in 1985.
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia remain critically ill and in intensive care after exposure to am”unknown substance”.
MaltaToday has learned that the spy was stationed in Malta after reaching the rank of Colonel in Soviet Intellegence and that he adopted the cover of the Cultural and Sports Attache within the Soviet Embassy in Malta.
He served in Malta into the early 1990s.
In 1995, while on business trips to Malta and Spain, he was approached by MI6, Britain’s Secret Service and he became their ‘mole’, passing them information and the names of dozens of Russian intelligence assets.
Skripal was arrested in 2005 by the FSB (formerly known as the KGB), Russia’s secret services and was reported to have been thoroughly debriefed as to what sensitive information he had passed on to his MI6 handlers. “
Knowing the majority of the print media in the United Kingdom,they will never inform their readers of this aspect will they?
Richard Dennis