Skripal suspects in UK as ‘tourists’

Two Russians accused of trying to murder a former spy and his daughter claim they were visiting Britain for tourism.

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov on Russia Today.

The two Russians suspected of poisoning Sergei and Yulia ­Skripal have denied being intelligence spies and claim they ­visited Salisbury as tourists but spent only an hour there because “there was muddy slush everywhere’’.

In an extraordinary television interview on Russia Today, ­Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov — the two men shown on CCTV walking in the direction of the Skripal house — said it was a “fantastical coincidence’’ they were in the city at the time of the poisoning.

British intelligence has shown that the two men arrived on March 2 at Gatwick and then stayed at a hotel in east London, where traces of the military grade novichok poison were found in their room. CCTV shows the two men staking out Salisbury on March 3 and then returning again on March 4, when it is believed they smeared the poison on Sergei Skripal’s front door before catching a flight that same night back to Moscow. That afternoon, Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found in a catatonic state on a park bench in the Salisbury centre.

Mr Petrov said: “Well, we came there on March 2, then went to a railway station to see the timetable. We arrived in ­Salisbury on March 3 and tried to walk through the town, but we lasted for only half an hour ­because it was covered in snow.

“Of course, we went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum ­(cathedral), but we couldn’t do it because there was muddy slush everywhere. The town was covered by this slush. We got wet, took the nearest train and came back (to London).”

Mr Boshirov explained that they spent no more than an hour in Salisbury because of the time lag between trains.

“Maybe we did (approach) Skripal’s house, but we don’t know where is it located,’’ he said.

The men denied having novichok or any type of poison on them and rejected accusations they had such poison in a ­perfume bottle.

Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were also poisoned after they handled the discarded perfume bottle, with Sturgess dying a week later.

Mr Boshirov was indignant at the claims. “Isn’t it silly for ­decent lads to have women’s perfume? The Customs are checking everything, they would have questions as to why men have women’s perfume in their luggage. We didn’t have it,’’ he said.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the two men had been identified and they were civilians and “not criminals”.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the men were agents of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Their actions, she said, were “almost certainly also ­approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state”.

The men said they had ­decided to speak out because of fears for their families.

“Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town (Salisbury),’’ Mr Boshirov said.

“It has a famous cathedral, ­famous in the whole world … for its 123m spire and its clock, one of the first ever created in the world that’s still working.”

The men said their lives had turned upside down since they were publicly identified as being the chief suspects for the ­assassination attempt and subsequent murder of Sturgess.

“When your life turns upside down, you don’t know what to do and where to go. We’re afraid of going out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones,” Mr Boshirov said.

The men’s claims were treated in Britain as being a staged farce and critics highlighted how the men did not address the presence of novichok in their hotel room, nor that they visited Salisbury the day before the attack to do a reconnaissance mission.