British Hostage Video Of Yulia Skripal Released
moon of alabama
Yesterday the British news agency Reuters published a hostage video and a statement of Yulia Skripal:
[Miss] Skripal was speaking from a secret location in London as she is under the protection of the British state. She was discharged from Salisbury District Hospital about five weeks after the poisoning and has not been seen by the media until now.
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We had earlier noted the Silence of the Skripals, the D(SMA)-notices issued by the British government to prevent deeper British media reporting on the case and the obvious disinformation peddled by British government sources. (All previous Moon of Alabamareports on the Skripal case are linked at the bottom of this piece.)
The British government claims that the 'former' British spy Sergej Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a deadly nerve agent of the Novichok group. According to British government leaks to the media the nerve agent was applied either through a suitcase, a box, flowers, spiked drinks or food, car vents, mini drones, a front door, cereal or a door handle in the form of a spray, gel or liquid. The British government loudly accused "Russia" of being responsible for poisoning of the Skripals but has not identified any individual who might have carried out such an attack.
In the new Reuters video Yulia Skripal gives a memorized and pressed monologue which declares that she does not want to be contacted by her cousin, grandmother, the Russian government or anyone else. The statement was pre-written in stilted, bureaucratic English language. On camera Yulia Skripal used a Russian version of the English text which she likely had not translated herself.
If this would have been a video and statement of a British citizen in 'protective custody' of the Russia state the British media and government would surely claim that these were made under duress.
Yulia Skripal looked well but for a scar on her throat which might be from an earlier trachea cut.
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Reuters published an additional report and video which also shows her signing a handwritten statement (pdf) with the same text she read on camera.
The statement is quite similar to the earlier one issued by the Metropolitan Police on April 11 "on behalf of Yulia Skripal". Both statements include a bureaucratic expression directed at the Russian embassy which no freely speaking person would ever use:
At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services.
The English version of the handwritten statement is without mistakes, the Russian version has several corrections.
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The Russian embassy in Britain expressed its concerns:
We are glad to have seen Yulia Skripal alive and well. The statement she read out contains new information. However, the video shown only strengthens our concerns as to the conditions in which she is being held. Obviously, Yulia was reading a pre-written text. More than that, judging by quite a few elements, the text was a translation from English and had been initially written by a native English-speaker. The handwritten letters signed by Yulia in Russian and English confirm this impression.With all respect for Yulia’s privacy and security, this video does not discharge the UK authorities from their obligations under Consular Conventions. The UK is obliged to give us the opportunity to speak to Yulia directly in order to make sure that she is not held against her own will and is not speaking under pressure. So far, we have every reason to suspect the opposite.
On May 18 Yulia's dad was reported to have been released from the district hospital in Salisbury:
Mr Skripal is being protected by 24-hour armed guard at an MI5 safe house after leaving hospital earlier this week, sources have revealed.
No pictures or statements of Sergej Skripal were published.
While still in hopsital Yulia Skripal had once called her cousin in Russia. Until yesterday Yulia Skripal's grandmother and her cousin in Russia had heard nothing else from their relatives:
Meanwhile, Skripal's mother has demanded she be allowed to speak to her son. Yelena, who has not heard from the former spy since he was poisoned, has told a relative today that she wants to speak to him.Yelena's carer Viktoria Skripal, who has been twice refused a British visa to see him and her cousin Yulia said: 'We have just told the news to his elderly mother who has been waiting for more than two months for any word from him or Yulia,' said Viktoria. 'She is begging the hospital, or whoever now decides Sergey's freedom of movement and speech, to please allow him to call her.'
Some of Yulia Skripal's "handwritten letters" (plural) the Russian embassy mentioned above might address her relatives.
The British government blamed the Russian state for the presumed attack on the Skripals. Its sole argument is that the alleged nerve agent used was from a group of chemical agents which were originally developed in the Soviet Union. That argument was always nonsense.
The Novichok groups of chemicals was well known, a book had been published about them, Iranian scientist had synthesized them and added their data to the international chemical weapon database. The Czech republic had admitted that it produced some of them.
In the early 1990s German spies acquired some Novichok substance from a contact in the former Soviet Union. It was analyzed in Sweden and the results were shared with some NATO allies:
The Germans were privy to the poison’s chemical formula in the 1990s thanks to a sample from a Russian scientist who defected, German media reported. The compound was first analyzed in a laboratory in Sweden. Afterwards, the formula was sent to Germany’s Ministry of Defense and the BND.It was under orders from former German chancellor Helmut Kohl that the BND informed the CIA and MI6, the respective intelligence agencies of the United States and Britain. Since then, small quantities of the poison have been produced to test antidotes, gauges and protective gear. The Czech republic had also produced some Novichok.
The British government accusations against Russia have no sound basis. Its chemical weapon laboratory in Porton Down, a few miles from Salisbury, surely has made Novichok agents. These are simple compounds anyone with knowledge of organic chemistry and access to a decent laboratory can create. Dave Collum is professor for organic chemistry at Cornell University. He had criticized the British claim that only Russia could have produced the agent that allegedly hurt the Skripals. He put his thesis to a test. Only one of his 15 students did not manage the task:
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The claims the British government made about the Skripal case are nonsensical. It is entirely possible that the Skipal's were victims of simple food poisoning or suffered from an overdose of Fenatnyl. The British government used the case to increase hostility towards Russia while diverting the public from its failures in the Brexit negotiations. There is historic precedence for such false accusations against the Russian state.
The Skripal case is also related to the "Dirty Dossier" the "former" British spy Christopher Steele created to defame U.S. President Donald Trump. Sergej Skripal may well have written parts of it. A fact which the British government is trying to hide.
The Skripal's were probably hurt. The British accusations against Russia caused huge damage in international relations. But the biggest casualty of the case might be the trustworthiness of the British media.
Where are the deep investigations, the intriguing questions, the door stepping of witnesses in this case? Why are no serious questions asked about the dubious claims made about the case? How did the Skripals survive a nerve agent "ten times as deadly as VX"? Why is there no further digging into the Steele dossier relation?
More questions need to be asked. Who is the media servicing with its obsequious behavior? Why?
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Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:
Previous Moon of Alabama posts on the Skripal case:
Posted by b on May 24, 2018 at 06:35 AM | Permalink
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/05/hostage-video-of-yulia-skripal-released.html#more
posted by Satish Sharma at
19:16
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