British prosecutors announced on Wednesday they had collected sufficient evidence to charge two Russians with the attempted murder of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
Authorities issued a European arrest warrant for two men named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, both aged around 40. Photographs of the two men were also released.
However, Sue Hemming, director of Legal Services at the Crown Prosecution Service, said prosecutors would not be applying to Russia for extradition since “the Russian constitution does not permit extradition of its own nationals.” The two men can still be arrested in the unlikely event that they travel to a European country.
Assistant police commissioner Neil Basu said the two suspects had traveled from Moscow to London under aliases on March 2, 2018, two days before the Skripals were poisoned in the English seaside town of Salisbury. They returned to Russia from Heathrow Airport just hours after the poisoning.
Investigators had also found traces of Novichok in the London hotel room where the two men stayed, according to Basu.
While UK officials have blamed the Russian government for the poisoning, Basu refused to disclose whether police believed the suspects worked for Russia’s intelligence services, saying that “this was a sophisticated attack across borders.” The Kremlin has denied it played any role in the poisoning. On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the names of the men and their photos “say nothing to us.”