The UK developed and the USA had access to chemical weapons used in Japan, and in North Korea. Does that mean we were guilty of chemical attacks there? The USA controlled stocks of Novichok which poisoned Skripal in Salisbury – did they attack him in a false flag operation? We cannot know, no more than Theresa May’s Government has evidence about Russian guilt.
Having given the Russian Government 36 hours to respond to the unfounded allegations the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard said it would “take weeks” to complete their investigation. Britain has defied its own standards of due process and the international law of chemical weapons control.
If there is anything left of democratic institutions in the West it is perhaps our rule of law which demands prima facie evidence before you can even be arrested never mind convicted. There is no prima facie evidence of Russian State guilt in the Skripal case. The fact that the chemical Novichok has been found is no proof of who used it.
The fact that Novichok was originally produced in Uzbekistan during the Soviet period no more points to Russian guilt than the fact that VX (methylphosphonothioic acid) – used to poison Japanese underground passengers in 1994 and the half brother of North Korea Dictator Kim Jong-un last year – was created by the British company ICI in the 1950s and therefore points to the British use of that weapon in those cases.
We could make a similarly bad case that the Americans poisoned Skripal because it was the Americans who took over the Soviet State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology in Nukus, Uzbekistan after the fall of the Soviet Union and was responsible for treating the chemicals found – including of course Novichok which was developed there.
It is certain that both the British at Porton Down and the Americans from their activities in Nukus possess Novichok – it would be criminally irresponsible of them not to – so that they could prepare antidotes in case of attack.
And don’t think there could not be reasons for British or American Intelligence Services to eliminate Skripal – he had been “turned” once by the British and after his pardon in Russia (and transfer to Britain) he could have been turned again. He did indeed apparently have regular contacts with the Russian Embassy!
Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons
There is also of course an international forum for pursuing these accusations – the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and it was to that organisation that Ambassador Alexander Shulgin rightly addressed the following yesterday:
If London does have serious reasons to suspect Russia of violating the CWC – and the statement read by distinguished Ambassador Peter Wilson indicates directly that this is so – we suggest that Britain immediately avail itself of the procedures provided for by paragraph 2 of Article 9 of the CWC.
We would also like to emphasise that such clarifications under the Convention are provided to the requesting member state as soon as possible, but in any case no later than 10 days following receipt of the request.
But of course May demanded in Parliament that the Russians respond to her “accusations without proof” within 36 hours. So, as well as overriding any British sense of legal process Prime Minister May has not referred the matter to the OPCW and is in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention. So we now we ignore the international rule of law as well.
Shulgin justifiably said that everyone (especially under British law he could have said!) has the right to know the basis on which they are being accused.
……we will require material evidence of the alleged Russian trace in this high-profile case. Britain’s allegations that they have everything, and their world-famous scientists have irrefutable data, but they will not give us anything……
An MI6 whistleblower Annie Machon rightly points to the very real possibility that even if the source was the Russian Intelligence system there is precedent for rogue operatives causing havoc.
The best example being in the United States where after 9/11 a number of letters containing Anthrax spores were sent to politicians and journalists. Eventually it was found that a rogue agent in a US chemical laboratory had committed the crime.
If that can happen in the USA it can happen in the vast tracts of the Russian landmass as they recover from 70 years of the Communist Soviet Union – and the more recent incessant attacks on the country by NATO/EU since the fall of that system.
WAS THERE A NOVICHOK PROGRAMME?
Two British academics (Professor Paul McKeigue and Professor Piers Robinson of Sheffield University) question whether there was in fact a Soviet Novichok programme. If so why did the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (POCW) not add it to its list of prohibited Chemicals after the place of its supposed creation in Uzbekistan was cleaned up by the Americans?
They further assert that “Synthesis at bench scale of organic chemicals such as the purported “Novichoks” is within the capability of a modern chemistry laboratory”
They also note that Dr Robin Black, until recently head of the detection laboratory at Porton Down, said that apart from the information from one Russian defector Vil Mirzayanov “No independent confirmation of the structures of such properties has been published” (Black 2016)
McKiegue and Robinson go on to completely contradict Mrs May’s statement that only Russia could have produced the chemical:
As the structures of these compounds have been described, any organic chemist with a modern lab would be able to synthesize bench scale quantities of such a compound. Indeed, Porton Down must have been able to synthesize these compounds in order to develop tests for them. It is therefore misleading to assert that only Russia could have produced such compounds.
Mrs May is a very low calibre politician and recognised as such by the British electorate. She is swayed by the latest fad of the mainstream media. Normally this danger is confined to British politics. Now in these taxing, dangerous waters of scientific analysis and international warfare she is an extreme danger to Britain and her allies.
