According to an official statement of the London Metropolitan Police, officers investigating the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents have released images of a model of a counterfeit perfume bottle that was allegedly used as a nerve agent container.
In particular, the three new pieces of CCTV footage showing the two suspects in the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter walking around the UK city of Salisbury on the day of the incident.
“CCTV footage of the two suspects – known by their aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – shows them as they arrive and travel around Salisbury on Sunday 4 March… The first CCTV clip shows the two suspects as they arrive at Salisbury train station on Sunday 4 March at around 11:48hrs [11:48 GMT],” Scotland Yard said in a statement.
“The third clip shows the two men walking over a bridge on Fisherton Street at approximately 13:00 hours before they eventually return to Salisbury train station and travel back to Heathrow and catch a flight to Moscow later that night,” the statement added.
The police also released the images of a “specially made model of the counterfeit perfume bottle” where the toxic substance had allegedly been kept.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, who is the senior national coordinator for UK Counter Terrorism Policing said that the law enforcement was looking into where the bottle was between the time the police believed it was used on March 4 and when it was found Charlie Rowley, one of the victims in the Amesbury poisoning incident, on June 27.
The police also once against appealed to “anyone who may have seen either of the two men in the UK between 2-4 March, or anyone who may have seen the counterfeit ‘Nina Ricci’ perfume box or bottle that was eventually recovered from Charlie Rowley’s address in Muggleton Road in July.”
On March 4, Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping center in Salisbury. London said they had been subject to poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent. London accused Moscow of staging the attack, saying it suspected Russian nationals Petrov and Boshirov of executing the poisoning and claiming they worked for Russia’s military intelligence.
However, Moscow has repeatedly noted that London has not provided any evidence proving its role in the poisoning. Petrov and Boshirov, in their turn, denied their involvement in the attack in an interview with the RT broadcaster. They said they indeed visited Salisbury on March 4, but arrived there for tourist purposes, noting that they worked for the fitness industry.
Russia has said it has sent over 70 diplomatic notes to the United Kingdom calling for cooperation in the case. London, however, left them unanswered, instead claiming that Moscow has refused to cooperate on the issue.
In Amesbury, which is located several miles from Salisbury, Rowley and his partner, Dawn Sturgess, were hospitalized after being exposed to a toxic chemical. Sturgess subsequently died. The authorities said that the two individuals had become ill after spraying themselves with a substance from a perfume bottle found in a local park. The law enforcement linked the two incidents.