A bottle of Russian poison that killed a mum-of-three was powerful enough to murder thousands, an inquiry heard.
Dawn Sturgess, 44, was ‘caught in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt’ when she died after being exposed to Novichok in 2018. The homeless hostel resident sprayed it on her hands thinking it was Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume found by her boyfriend Charlie Rowley.
But instead the bottle contained ‘military-grade’ nerve agent which suspected Russian hitmen had smeared on the doorknob of spy Sergei Skripal’s home in Salisbury, Wilts.
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Sergei, who survived the attack with daughter Yulia, told investigators he believed Russian president Vladimir Putin masterminded the assassination bid. Nearly four months later, Charlie found the dumped poison bottle and gave it to Dawn thinking it was scent.
She died an ‘unnatural and wholly unexpected death poisoned by a military-grade chemical weapon’, inquiry counsel Andrew O’Connor FC said at the hearing in Salisbury on Monday.
(Image: PA)
“The circumstances of Dawn Sturgess’s death were extraordinary,” he said.
“Dawn lived a life wholly removed from politics and international relations. The poison, you will hear, was known as Novichok, a nerve agent said to have been developed by Russian government agencies in the final years of the Cold War.
“A particularly shocking feature of Dawn’s death is that she unwittingly applied the poison to her own skin. She was entirely unaware of the mortal danger she faced because the highly toxic liquid had been concealed – carefully and deliberately concealed – inside a perfume bottle.
“The evidence will suggest that this bottle, which we shall hear contained enough poison to kill thousands of people, must earlier have been left somewhere in a public place.
“Those who discarded the bottle acted with a grotesque disregard for human life.”
The poison caused Dawn’s heart to fail within minutes, starving her brain of oxygen. She was revived by paramedics but died eight days later in hospital from an unsurvivable brain injury.
Doctors and police initially thought she had overdosed on drugs. Charlie, 51, who was also exposed, fell critically ill but later recovered and will give evidence at the inquiry.
Police officer Nick Bailey also recovered after he was poisoned as he probed the attack on the Skripals. The inquiry will examine if the government failed to protect the public from the nerve agent and if the bottle should have been found sooner to protect folk from the ‘collateral damage’ of the attack.
(Image: METROPOLITAN POLICE/AFP via Gett)
Mr O’Connor asked: “Is it possible that mistakes were made in protecting Sergei Skripal that might indirectly have contributed to Dawn Sturgess’s death?”
Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, Alexander Mishkin, and Denis Sergeiyev – all members of Russia ’s GRU military intelligence unit – have been charged with carrying out the attacks.
The trio had entered Britain using fake names and bogus documents beforehand and fled afterwards. Russia does not extradite citizens and they will likely never stand trial.
Neither Sergei, 72, nor his 39-year-old daughter will give live evidence. But asked by police in an interview two months after the attack if believed Putin was responsible Sergei replied: “It’s my private opinion.”
“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,” he added.
The UK Government also believes Putin ‘authorised the operation’, the inquiry heard. Dawn’s family has asked Putin to be invited to give evidence but officials said they had no power to grant the request.
The inquiry continues.
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