Vladimir Putin may have ordered the bungled assassination of Sergei Skripal because the former Russian double agent had compromising information about embezzlement at the Kremlin.
Jonathan Allen, the UK Foreign Office’s head of intelligence, said the Russian despot may have been motivated to order the Novichok strike in March 2018 over secret information held by Mr Skripal.
Mr Skripal, his daughter Yulia, and two other people were left seriously ill but survived the poisoning, which brought chaos and panic to the streets of Salisbury.
One person, mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, died when she inadvertently sprayed herself with the deadly nerve agent three months after the original attack on Mr Skripal, believing it to be designer perfume.
An inquiry into what happened is due to conclude its public hearings today, with the findings expected to be published late next year.
Mr Skripal was a former GRU agent who was jailed in Russia in 2004 for espionage before being released in 2010 and moving to the UK as part of a prisoner swap.
The inquiry heard there were suggestions he was supplying evidence to UK intelligence shortly before he was attacked, raising concerns about whether the authorities did enough to protect him.
Mr Skripal said he ‘had access to secret information’ while still working for the GRU, and that he ‘was aware of allegations that Putin had been involved in illegal activity to do with the disposal of rare metals’.
Vladimir Putin may have ordered the assassination due to compromising information Sergei Skripal discovered about embezzlement at the Kremlin
Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia (pictured), left seriously ill but survived the poisoning. Mr Skripal was a former GRU agent who was jailed in Russia in 2004
Jonathan Allen (pictured), the UK Foreign Office’s head of intelligence, said Putin may have been motivated to order the attack
Mr Allen told the inquiry it was possible that Mr Skripal’s apparent knowledge of ‘criminal embezzlement’ may have prompted Putin to poison him.
He said: ‘It makes sense that if he was working as a senior member of the GRU that he would have access to secret information.
‘I don’t know myself what he did and didn’t have access to. On the allegations regarding President Putin, if it’s helpful it’s perhaps worth saying it is very difficult to know exactly what happens in Russia. The civil society is pretty non-existent.
‘The independent media has been shut down. The judicial system operates to protect the government and President Putin.
‘But there have been, you know, numerous open source works which link senior figures in government, including the President, to control of natural resources, control of the sources of Russia’s wealth and suggestions they profited from those.
‘Certainly, President Putin is at the top of a state that … is highly corrupt and which ensures loyalty through both patronage and fear, so to that degree, I would say they could well be motives.’
Scotland Yard previously charged three GRU spies in connection with the poisonings, although Russia has always denied responsibility.