The Silence of the Skripals

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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Jun 26, 2018 2:35 pm

No news any more about the Skripals from official UK sources or the OPCW -- although it is meeting on June 26-27 -- but 10 days ago the NYT did cover the now-widespread skepticism about the official story in Salisbury itself. Tellingly, other than the locals, who are rendered as oh-so colorful, the story turns to only one expert source, Ben Nimmo of the Atlantic Council. (!) He has nothing to say about chemistry or criminal investigations of course, but about the "digital forensics" of that insidious power, exclusive among Russians, to sow division among the well-meaning but dopey citizens of Western democracies, especially if they belong to "aggrieved social groups." Otherwise everyone would believe their honest and "disciplined" governments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/worl ... ganda.html
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Jul 07, 2018 3:11 pm

Really no time to dig up and copy stories here, but you've all heard about the latest amazing turn in this horrorshow, yeah? Yeah?

(I want to see Russia-England in the semi-final!)
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby Elvis » Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:18 pm

Not sure, unless it's the second, nearby couple to be stricken with symptoms of some kind. The story there is the professional Kremlin hitmen (a team of two, we're told!) just tossed the cannister (or was it a syringe) of the "too deadly to use" substance on the ground like it was a candy wrapper.

I did see an earlier NYT headline about "The Nerve Agent Too Deadly to Use"... which so far has not managed to kill four people.
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby conniption » Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:50 am

Image
image stolen from the comment section at this site:
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/07/05/ ... pitalized/
also:
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/07/07/ ... ot-joking/

~~~

I like your new avatar, Elvis, and enjoy the the picture of you and 82 28 in this thread. Thanks for that. You fellas give this website an entirely different air. Almost...friendly-like...
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby conniption » Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:23 am

Gotta love those Russians...

RT

‘Novichok’ brand now a rapidly-growing trademark for Russian products

Published time: 12 May, 2018

Image
© Ruptly

Many Russian companies are now registering products under the ‘Novichok’ trademark – the chemical the UK says poisoned ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. From sunflower oil to detergents, ‘Novichok’ is the new black.

Read more
© Shamil Zhumatov ‘English tourists wanted a cocktail - we gave them one!’: Russian mixologist explains Novichok drink


The Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) has confirmed that it received several applications for the Novichok name. "The applications concern alcohol and non-alcoholic products, pharmaceutical products,” the service told RIA Novosti.

The hype around ‘Novichok’ first appeared on Russian Twitter and Instagram accounts, where users uploaded photos of sunflower oil under the name – with a KGB logo on the bottle. The mayor of Shikhany – a closed town in the Saratov region – has said his administration plans to copyright a ‘Novichok’ brand of household detergents. The town is famous for being the location of the Shikhansky chemical testing ground of the Soviet Army.

Various British media outlets have claimed the chemical, which poisoned the Skripals in Salisbury, England back in March, was developed in Shikhany. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Shikhany Mayor Andrey Tatarinov thanked the British media for promoting the small town. “No-one knew about us before they started this promotion campaign.”

London has accused the Russian state of involvement in the poisoning of Skripals but Moscow categorically denies this.

https://www.rt.com/business/426529-novi ... -business/
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby conniption » Tue Jul 10, 2018 5:58 pm

https://www.rt.com/uk/432563-bristol-di ... hok-vodka/

Mean spirits: Bristol distillery apologizes over tasteless timing of Novichok-brand vodka launch

Published time: 10 Jul, 2018

Image

A Bristol company came under fire for its ‘Novichok’ vodka when its launch coincided with the death of Dawn Sturgess after exposure to the notorious toxin. The limited-edition booze promptly sold out and won’t be distilled again...

continues...

https://www.rt.com/uk/432563-bristol-di ... hok-vodka/


~~~

off-guardian

Published on July 10, 2018
Comments 59

Second Salisbury Alleged Poisoning: Still More Questions than Answers
James O’Neill

It is symptomatic of the level of desperation being felt by the British government that the illness of two known drug addicts (Rowley & Sturgess) in the town of Amersham, Wiltshire, only a few kilometres from Porton Down and the site of the Skripal incident in March of this year, is immediately attributed to Russia by the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid and the Minister of State for Security Ben Wallace.

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 July Javid referred to the “decision taken by the Russian government to deploy [chemical weapons] in Salisbury on March 4 was reckless and callous……. It is now the time for the Russian state to come forward and explain exactly what has gone on.” Wallace for his part suggested that Russia “fill in the gaps” of what happened to allow the United Kingdom authorities to pursue their investigation and keep people safe.

What we most need to be kept safe from are the bizarre and groundless allegations made about the Skripal incident on 4th of March 2018 and the even more bizarre attempts to link that event with what may have happened to Rowley and Sturgess on 30 June 2018.

Making unfounded allegations, blatantly false statements, giving rapidly changing ‘explanations’ as to how the Skripals became affected, and disregarding all the basic rules is to evidence, logic, scientific principles and the fundamental precepts of what used to be called ‘British justice’ were certainly characteristics of the Skripal case.

Equally disregarding these same basic principles has been true of the failing government of Britain’s Theresa May, as well as some of its apologists such as the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter article of 6 July that was so riddled with false assumptions, fake ‘facts’ and unsupported conclusions it may well have been drafted for its author by MI6.

The English poet William Taylor Coleridge described poetry as “the willing suspension of disbelief” and it is clear that the UK government and certain sections of the media in both the UK and Australia see the willing suspension of disbelief is the modus operandi in promoting yet another anti-Russian storyline.

There was a four-day gap between what happened to Rowley and Sturgess and the first reports of this appearing in the UK media. Given the unusual activity where the pair were found, in a local park, and at the respective homes by people in chemical hazard suits, and the absence of reporting strongly suggests that the UK government had issued yet another ‘D’ Notice to prevent reporting of the events.

The police initially lied to neighbours and other witnesses about what was going on. This fact alone makes the ‘Novichok’ story highly implausible. If the highly dangerous ‘Novichok’ class of nerve agents were in fact at random locations in the greater Salisbury area, then public warnings would and should have been given at the earliest opportunity.

The attempts to link what has allegedly happened to Rowley and Sturgess in June 2018 with what allegedly happened to the Skripals and Detective Sergeant Bailey in March 2018 is a sure sign of the desperation attached to the British government.

I say “allegedly” because if what the scientific literature tells us about substance A234 (allegedly used in the Skripal case) is correct, and there has been no scientific rebuttal of that well established evidence, then none of the victims would be alive today.

That is quite separate from the reported findings of the Spietz Laboratory in Switzerland that carried out analyses of samples collected more than three weeks after the Skripal incident that were entirely inconsistent with A234 being the actual cause of their illness (or that of Bailey).

The police on this occasion have been more cautious than some of the journalists or politicians. Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu of the Metropolitan Police stressed the importance of the investigation “being led by the evidence available and the facts alone,” a wholly welcome degree of caution on a topic more marked by political hysteria and manifestly false information than a cool appraisal of the classic means, motive and opportunity approach to crime solving, with a heavy emphasis on actual evidence as opposed to politically inspired rhetoric.

Even with that welcome degree of caution by the police, there are still some very curious elements to this latest case. If the Novichok class of nerve agents are as dangerous as the scientific literature incontestably describes them, why was there a four day delay between Rowley and Sturgess being found and hospitalized and the announcement of the cause of the illness? That delay would surely have exposed others to random phials of nerve agents carelessly left in public spaces.

The second curious element is that the nerve agents in question, the inappropriately labeled ‘Novichok’, have, again according to the scientific literature, a very limited life if exposed to the vagaries of the elements. Yet the Evening Standard in the UK quotes an unnamed and unaffiliated ‘security source’ as saying that “the poison could be kept deadly for decades” if kept dry. That complete contradiction of the known facts is simply ignored by the rest of the media.

The third puzzle is why, if the current explanation for the poisoning of the Skripals was an infected doorknob of Sergei’s home (as highly dubious as that claim is) why would the same nerve agent in an as yet undisclosed container be found in a public park well away from the Skripal House and any likely escape route for would-be assassins, four months later in a public park in a still dangerous state, and not noticed by any member of the public or the park’s maintenance workers?

Some long overdue skepticism about the whole Skripal saga and its alleged links to the latest incident in the mainstream media is to be found in an article by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian on 6 July 2018. Jenkins correctly points out many of the absurdities of the Skripal story and its many still unanswered questions. He points out that where knowledge is non-existent (as in both of these cases) ignorance is bliss. He says that does not apply to government ministers, for whom ignorance is not a sufficient condition for silence.

Apart from the aforesaid Mr Javid, most politicians have been relatively restrained in their public reactions to the latest incident. One might hope they learned something after the frankly hysterical and ill-informed over-reaction to the Skripal incident.

That may be unduly optimistic. The willingness to blame Russia in the absence of even remotely compelling evidence is a political instinct deep within the western political psyche. On the other hand, the Skripal experience and the British refusal to acknowledge the implausibility of the Skripal’s alleged poisoning and its even more implausible aftermath may have led to an awakening realization that it is one’s supposed allies and friends that pose the greatest dangers.

James O’Neill is a Barrister at Law and geopolitical analyst. He may be contacted at joneill@qldbar.asn.au
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby conniption » Sat Aug 18, 2018 6:47 pm

Why You Shouldn't Read The Independent Even If You Want To - #PropagandaWatch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7-rUEMdJ94
corbettreport
Published on Aug 15, 2018
SHOW NOTES:
https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=27696
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Aug 30, 2018 12:33 am

www.craigmurray.org.uk

Skripals - When the BBC Hide the Truth

On 8 July 2018 a lady named Kirsty Eccles asked what, in its enormous ramifications, historians may one day see as the most important Freedom of Information request ever made. The rest of this post requires extremely close and careful reading, and some thought, for you to understand that claim.

Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,

1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that he had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.

2: When did the BBC know this?

3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban on the subject of Sergei Skripal.

Yours faithfully,

Kirsty Eccles

The ramifications of this little request are enormous as they cut right to the heart of the ramping up of the new Cold War, of the BBC’s propaganda collusion with the security services to that end, and of the concoction of fraudulent evidence in the Steele “dirty dossier”. This also of course casts a strong light on more plausible motives for an attack on the Skripals.

Which is why the BBC point blank refused to answer Kirsty’s request, stating that it was subject to the Freedom of Information exemption for “Journalism”.

10th July 2018
Dear Ms Eccles
Freedom of Information request – RFI20181319
Thank you for your request to the BBC of 8th July 2018, seeking the following information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000:
1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that he
had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.
2: When did the BBC know this?
3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban on the
subject of Sergei Skripal.
The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of
‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you. Part VI
of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters
is only covered by the Act if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. The
BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or
information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.

The BBC is of course being entirely tendentious here – “journalism” does not include the deliberate suppression of vital information from the public, particularly in order to facilitate the propagation of fake news on behalf of the security services. That black propaganda is precisely what the BBC is knowingly engaged in, and here trying hard to hide.

I have today attempted to contact Mark Urban at Newsnight by phone, with no success, and sent him this email:

To: mark.urban@bbc.co.uk

Dear Mark,

As you may know, I am a journalist working in alternative media, a member of the NUJ, as well as a former British Ambassador. I am researching the Skripal case.

I wish to ask you the following questions.

1) When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
2) You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal’s MI6 handler, Pablo Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the years and how often do you communicate?
3) When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you meet Miller separately?
4) Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
5) When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your discussions with Skripal?
6) Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
7) Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
8) Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
9) In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal’s telephone may have been bugged. Since January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the matter above.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Craig Murray

I should very much welcome others also sending emails to Mark Urban to emphasise the public demand for an answer from the BBC to these vital questions. If you have time, write your own email, or if not copy and paste from mine.

To quote that great Scot John Paul Jones, “We have not yet begun to fight”.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... the-truth/

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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby MacCruiskeen » Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:08 pm

^^Craig Murray's blog is indispensable.

Here he continues his painstaking forensic examination of this ever-growing pile of shite:

Skripals – The Mystery Deepens

2158 comments

6 Sep, 2018

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... y-deepens/

The time that “Boshirov and Petrov” were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off.

A key hole in the British government’s account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged – the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to have been involved.

But what has not been established is the men’s identity and that they are agents of the Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by “experts” as to why the Novichok dose was not fatal.

This BBC report gives a very useful timeline summary of events.

At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals’ car was seen on CCTV driving through three different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location.

There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am.

But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving.

The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.

So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.

In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast “Petrov and Boshirov” managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.

This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals’ location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.

“Boshirov and Petrov” plainly are of interest in this case. But only Theresa May stated they were Russian agents: the police did not, and stated that they expected those were not their real identities. We do not know who Boshirov and Petrov were. It appears very likely their appearance was to do with the Skripals on that day. But they may have been meeting them, outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid surveillance.

It is also telling the police have pressed no charges against them in the case of Dawn Sturgess, which would be manslaughter at least if the government version is true.

If “Boshirov and Petrov” are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well have poisoned themselves, and left the “murder weapon” lying around to be found. Their timings in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent.

There are other possibilities of who “Boshirov and Petrov” really are, of which Ukrainian is the obvious one. One thing I discovered when British Ambassador to Uzbekistan was that there had been a large Ukrainian ethnic group of scientists working at the Soviet chemical weapon testing facility there at Nukus. There are many other possibilities.

Yesterday’s revelations certainly add to the amount we know about the Skripal event. But they raise as many new questions as they give answers.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... y-deepens/
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Sep 10, 2018 6:07 pm

Right, I was saying over on the wrong one,

.

The part of the new story that is impossible to take seriously is the bit about "Novichok" traces found everywhere these guys stayed. Too much gilding of the lily. What, they couldn't resist taking the occasional whiff from the bottle, to make sure it was still potent?

.

This is probably one of those details that's going to disappear from future iterations. It has served its function.
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby MacCruiskeen » Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:32 pm

Yeah, it is laughable, like every other detail of this shameless fucking farrago. SMERSH's "deadly nerve agent Novichok" appears to be only slightly more effective at killing people than genuine unadulterated Nina Ricci perfume.

They should have tried David Beckham's range instead. (That stuff really pongs.) Or else the dreaded comfy chair.

Image

"No one expects the Russian Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthlessness, eau de toilette, upholstered furniture, and an almost fanatical devotion to Vladimir Putin."
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby MacCruiskeen » Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:54 pm

Five days ago:

Russia asks Britain for help in identifying novichok suspects
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... spects-gru


Of course no help was forthcoming. No fingerprints, no visa details, "no formal request for legal assistance", nothing. Anyone might think the May regime just wanted an excuse to ramp up the war rhetoric before Syria ejects the last jihadist from Idlib.

Today:

Skripal poisoning: Putin says suspects 'civilians, not criminals'

53 minutes ago

The two suspects in the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are civilians, not criminals, Russian President Vladimir Putin says.

The UK government had named them as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, and said they were from Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU.

Mr Putin said he hoped the men would tell their story soon.

[...]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45494627


Looks like May and Trump and Bolton and Macron are going to have to fake that longed-for "chemical weapons attack on Idlib" sooner than expected. Their moderate headchopping "rebel" allies will no doubt be happy to oblige. (What's the point of having an Al Qaeda otherwise?)
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby smiths » Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:05 am

I'e been very skeptical of the British 'narrative' on this Skripal caper,

but i do find it pretty odd that 2 Russian men flew into Gatwick on a Friday, visited a Cathedral and then flew out on the Sunday night that poisoning occurred,

which they admit themselves on Russian TV,

doesn't that story seem pretty fucking ridiculous?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... k-suspects
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu Sep 13, 2018 2:33 pm

Smiths, yes. on the face of it their version of the story doesn't look very much more plausible than the Official Yarn fed to us by Theresa May and MI6. But while thinking about this, I remembered an exhausting two-week job I did in Italy just a few years back, which required me and two colleagues to travel the length and breadth of the country. Our one free day was in a grey and nondescript small town in the north. My colleagues were drained by all the traveling and work, as was I, and they were happy enough to veg out there and just take it easy in and around the hotel. But I went out of my way to visit Trieste, a city I'd always wanted to see, for reasons. It was a round trip of well over 100 miles (by train) and I only had about 16 hours there. Got there in the afternoon, walked all round the place, took photos, had a couple of funny and memorable chance encounters. Stayed the night in the cheapest decent hotel I could find, set the alarm for 5 am and took the first train back to base the next morning.

Was this eccentric behaviour? Maybe. A bit baffling to my colleagues, certainly. Still, it was worth it, to me. And it strikes me today that if a bomb had happened to go off in Trieste that day, I would presumably have been a prime suspect. Interpol alerts and all that. If the cops and Italian intelligence had called me in for interrogation, all I could have said to them was, "Well, y'see, I'm a big James Joyce fan..." And who knows if they'd have been content with that as an explanation for a tiring and expensive flying visit. Who knows if they'd have found that explanation plausible. But it was in fact true.

I could easily cite other examples, at first- and second-hand, but maybe that'll suffice.

- I see the indispensable Craig Murray has just put up another excellent blogpost about this latest development in the Skripal saga. I'll resist the temptation to bold any of his text, and I've included the images because they're an essential part of his argument.

The Strange Russian Alibi

231 comments

13 Sep, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ian-alibi/

Like many, my first thought at the interview of Boshirov and Petrov – which apparently are indeed their names – is that they were very unconvincing. The interview itself seemed to be set up around a cramped table with a poor camera and lighting, and the interviewer seemed pretty hopeless at asking probing questions that would shed any real light.


https://youtu.be/wJ9wCMxYXVY


I had in fact decided that their story was highly improbable, until I started seeing the storm of twitter posting, much of it from mainstream media journalists, which stated that individual things were impossible which were, in fact, not impossible at all.

The first and most obvious regards the weather on 3 and 4 March. It is in fact absolutely true that, if the two had gone down to Salisbury on 3 March with the intention of going to Stonehenge, they would have been unable to get there because of the snow. It is therefore perfectly possible that they went back the next day to try again; and public transport out of Salisbury was still severely disrupted, and many roads closed, on 4 March. Proof of this is not at all difficult to find.

This image is from the Salisbury Journal’s liveblog on 4 March.


Image
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-co ... ot-552.png


Those mocking the idea that the pair were blocked by snow from visiting Stonehenge have pointed to the CCTV footage of central Salisbury not showing snow on the afternoon of 4 March. Well, that is central Salisbury, it had of course been salted and cleared. Outside there were drifts.

So that part of their story in fact turns out not to be implausible as social media is making out; in fact it fits precisely with the actual facts.

The second part of their story that has brought ridicule is the notion that two Russians would fly to the UK for the weekend and try to visit Salisbury. This ridicule has been very strange to me. Weekend breaks – arrive on Friday and return on Sunday – are a standard part of the holiday industry. Why is it apparently unthinkable that Russians fly on weekend breaks as well as British people?

Even more strange is the idea that it is wildly improbable for Russian visitors to wish to visit Salisbury cathedral and Stonehenge. Salisbury Cathedral is one of the most breathtaking achievements of Norman architecture, one of the great cathedrals of Europe. It attracts a great many foreign visitors. Stonehenge is world famous and a world heritage site. I went on holiday this year and visited Wurzburg to see the Bishop’s Palace, and then the winery cooperative at Sommerach. Because somebody does not choose to spend their leisure time on a beach in Benidorm does not make them a killer. Lots of people go to Salisbury Cathedral.

Image
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/wp/wp-co ... ot-553.png


There seems to be a racist motif here – Russians cannot possibly have intellectual or historical interests, or afford weekend breaks.

The final meme which has worried me is “if they went to see the cathedral, why did they visit the Skripal house?” Well, no evidence at all has been presented that they visited the Skripal house. They were captured on CCTV walking past a petrol station 500 yards away – that is the closest they have been placed to the Skripal house.

The greater mystery about these two is, if they did visit the Skripal House and paint Novichok on the doorknob, why did they afterwards walk straight past the railway station again and head into Salisbury city centre, where they were caught window shopping in a coin and souvenir shop with apparently not a care in the world, before eventually returning to the train station? It seems a very strange attitude to a getaway after an attempted murder. In truth their demeanour throughout the photographs is consistent with their tourism story.

The Russians have so far presented this pair in a very unconvincing light. But on investigation, the elements of their story which are claimed to be wildly improbable are not inconsistent with the facts.

There remains the much larger question of the timing.

The Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving.

The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.

So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.

In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast “Petrov and Boshirov” managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.

This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals’ location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.

I shall write a further post on these timing questions shortly.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ian-alibi/
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: The Silence of the Skripals

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu Sep 13, 2018 7:11 pm

good open thread today at OffGuardian:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/09/13/ope ... wed-on-rt/
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC
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