The Novichok show trial ended its public hearings last week in London with the revelation that it will not name the chemical constituents of the poison used in the attempted killing of Sergei and Yulia Skripal on March 4, 2018, and in the cause of death of Dawn Sturgess on June 30, 2018.
By doing this, by keeping the chemical formula combination of the poison a state secret, independent British toxicologists say there is no evidence that a Russian-made Novichok was used; and that, instead, a British or US-made Novichok was readily available in 2018, and this was as likely to have been the killer weapon.
Revealed earlier in the hearings by a doctor at Yulia Skripal’s bedside four days after the attack, Skripal believed she and her father had been hit by a poison spray as they ate lunch at a restaurant just before they collapsed outside. Skripal’s evidence pointed to a British operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal before he escaped back to Moscow, and then cover up by planting fabricated Russian clues at the crime scenes, and in the blood test reports of the victims.
Weapon, crime scene, victim pathology, killer identification, motive – all faked.
The toxicology experts point out that in 2018 scientists working on this type of organophosphate poison had revealed synthesis, production, testing and stocking of A232 and A234 Novichok in the US Army’s chemical warfare centre, known by its location as the Edgewood Arsenal; and at its British counterpart and partner, the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), known as Porton Down. The Iranian military establishment had also done the same by 2016. After the Skripal case in 2018, military chemists in South Korea and the Czech Republic revealed how they had produced and tested their own formulas for Novichok.
By openly publishing their Novichok chemistry, the Americans, Iranians, South Koreans, and Czechs have proved that making, detecting and naming Novichok is a transparent process, not difficult to verify forensically in a criminal investigation or court. This, British scientists now say, means that the refusal of government officials and the Sturgess Inquiry judge, Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley, lead image, right), to name the Novichok alleged to have been the Russian murder weapon, is evidence of a scheme of British fabrication and coverup.
Mark Allen (lead image, left) of the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was the last witness to testify before Hughes at the Inquiry’s public hearings. As head of defence and intelligence, he was also the official in charge of coordinating the intelligence and military units involved in the attack on the Skripals; and then in the police and media coverup employed to pin the crime on the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, and on President Vladimir Putin.
Allen’s testimony on November 28 identified as his direct superior Sir Mark Sedwill, the national security advisor reporting to then-Prime Minister Theresa May and then-Foreign Minister Boris Johnson.
“As SRO [Senior Responsible Owner] for Russia,” Allen said, “when we’re dealing with Russia strategy, the Government strategy towards Russia, I bring together all government departments, including representatives of the agencies as well, to ensure that we’re all essentially using all of our levers, all of our information, all of our understanding is pointing in the same direction and we’re being coherent. Then where there are situations where something unexpected arises, what you might call a crisis of some sort, then I will also chair that sort of grouping to work out what our collective response should be.”
“I act, not as the Foreign Office’s DG [director-general], but as the government’s senior official. Page 17 Asked to substantiate public statements at the time by May, Johnson and Sedwill that only Russia could have made and used the Novichok weapon, Allen was unable.
“… it is safe to say that any modern chemical laboratory is capable of synthesising Novichok. In contrast to what you have said about it being a state — really only something that can be done at the state level. Is there anything that you can add to this debate, Mr Allen? A. I don’t think that is a view that is shared in the scientific community, or in the OPCW.” Page 41.
This was a lie; Hughes let it go unchallenged.
“LORD HUGHES: As far as you know, is it something which has been asserted either by Mr Mirzayanov or by the other publications of American, Czech, Italian, et cetera, researchers?
“A [Allen]: I haven’t read those in detail, sir, so I couldn’t say.
“LORD HUGHES: All right, thank you.” Page 41.
“What’s in a name like Novichok? Why the coverup?” responds an independent British chemist and expert on organophosphates. “If the full molecular readout was exposed publicly from the blood sampling of the Skripals and Sturgess — also later of [Alexei] Navalny — then it would be obvious that some constituents are missing. And because they are missing from the name or the reported chemical formula, then identification of Novichok cannot be made. All we are left with is an assumption covered up and concealed in secret. The scientific name for that is a lie.”
Allen had presented a written statement ahead of last week’s appearance. The government, he said, “places particular weight on the fact that the weapon used in the attack on Mr Skripal was a fourth generation liquid nerve agent of the class known as Novichoks. This class of nerve agent is known to have been developed by the Soviet Union, with the Russian Federation inheriting and developing that programme…The nerve agent used in Salisbury was identified by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), and later independently confirmed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)…Both DSTL and OPCW separately concluded that this same nerve agent caused the death of Ms Sturgess…”
This chain of Allen’s evidence confirms only that out of a class of chemicals tagged Novichok, one chemical tagged Novichok by Porton Down was found in blood testing of the Skripals and of Sturgess, and then matched with an unnamed chemical by the OPCW in The Hague, and by the Swiss laboratory, Labor Spiez, which OPCW contracted to do the testing (Allen concealed this). Allen’s say-so does not prove that the samples were either matching, or Russian in origin, or even the chemical formula chemists know to be Novichok.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/
Allen’s written statement and hearing testimony confirmed that to substantiate his claims, the DSTL Porton Down, OPCW and other evidence is being kept secret. “To the extent issues cannot be articulated fully in public, they will be addressed fully before the inquiry through its CLOSED processes.”
Counsel for Hughes in the inquiry, Andrew O’Connor KC, then told the hearing that Allen and Sedwill had revealed all their evidence, but responsibility for keeping it secret rested on Hughes. “Q. Are you saying there that there is some detail about these matters that cannot be addressed in a public forum? A. Yes, I am. Q. Can you confirm to us that all relevant detail has been provided to the Inquiry, but that as a result of restriction orders made by the Chair, the consequence of those is that some detail will have to be dealt with in closed session rather than open session? A. Yes, I understand that’s the case, yes.” Page 21.
O’Connor told Allen that although the OPCW report had not in fact identified Novichok, the organisation had relied on Porton Down for the match. “We have heard about this being the public report,” O’Connor said, referring to the OPCW. “They don’t actually name the chemical, but we know that the UK had identified Novichok and had told the visitors [OPCW] that that was the chemical they believed was involved. Then also of some significance the analysis of the chemical being of high purity. We have heard the evidence of the significance of that too. So that’s part of the context for the Sedwill letter.”
“A [Allen]. Yes, indeed.” .
This exchange erased the independence of OPCW . British officials had “told the visitors” to find Russian Novichok, and so that’s what the OPCW did.
Sedwill then told the NATO Secretary-General that “the OPCW’s. analysis matches [sic] the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s own, confirming [sic] once again the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity [sic] of the toxic chemical of high purity that was used in Salisbury.”
The two principals in the Skripal attack and coverup operation – Mark Sedwill and Boris Johnson.
In fact, a British expert on organophosphorus chemicals points out, there has been no evidence of a match between the test result reports of Porton Down and the OPCW’s laboratory because there has been no reliable identification of the chemical formulas in the original victim blood samples or in the subsequent manipulation to which they were exposed at Porton Down and then by OPCW.
“This is the A234 formula and name as described in Wikipedia,” the expert source says:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-234_(nerve_agent)
“The IUPAC is the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and it issues strict rules on how molecules should be named in chemical formulas. This is to prevent mistakes or ambiguous identifications, so all scientists follow the same rules. What is interesting is that A234 now has a CAS [Chemical Abstracts Service] name; this means that someone or some organisation has added it to the Chemical Registry.” .
“In 2018 A234 did not have a CAS number because it was a state secret in the UK and US. Technically, no number had been assigned. But A234 is a molecule, and now this has its formal IUPAC name. This diagram shows how the atoms are bonded to each other to form the molecule.”
A234 NOVICHOK MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
KEY= O=oxygen, P=phosphorus, N=nitrogen, F=fluorine. If the fluorine atom is not detected, or something else is in its place, then the compound is not A234 Novichok.
“One key element of the Czech research of 2021 is that for the first time perhaps, a paper has openly described the testing of A234 on mammals. In secret and unpublished, this has been going on for years, especially at Porton Down which has been awarded US Department of Defense for animal experiments which are illegal in the US, especially on primates.”
“The Czechs reported that ‘a broad spectrum of muscarinic (salivation, lacrimation,
and others) and nicotinic (tonic–clonic convulsions) symptoms was observed in all poisoned rats within a few minutes after administering A234, regardless of the antidote.’ Bear in mind, the rats in question were administered potential organophosphate poisoning antidotes before they were exposed to Novichok A234. All succumbed to symptoms within a few minutes. To extrapolate, these data suggest that the British government’s narrative that the Skripals collapsed within seconds of each other would be impossible if they were dosed some 150 minutes earlier.”
“In this branch of chemistry,” the source adds, “not all rats lie — only the British Government.”
The naming issue, and the secrecy imposed by Hughes and his lawyers on key Novichok evidence, remain to be explained, the expert acknowledges. “Why the A234 molecule has not been named as the nerve agent, the Novichok — that is a question I have been asking ever since 2018. Not to identify by name the chemical formula and molecule structure is sloppy science, poor toxicology, and it undermines the foundation of the British Government’s case. It’s up to them to explain publicly, but they refuse.”
“I believe the reason is that DSTL claims to have found the parent Novichok in its unreactive, free state before it has reacted at the molecular level with the environment, human tissues, blood. When testing is done of environmental surfaces – the Skripal front door-handle, for example – or of human skin, hair and blood samples, chemical reactions have already taken place. The nerve agent loses part of its structure in binding to the protein peptide. An atom has fallen off the molecule of the original nerve agent in forming the compound of nonapeptide and nerve agent found in the sampling and testing. So a chemist using the mass spectral data to elucidate the structure of the original, unbound nerve agent, could not do so. This is why DSTL are claiming that the unbound, free, unreacted nerve agent was also detected and measured in the samples but keeping secret the formulas, so no expert can verify what they have done.”
“You can’t guess at or assume what the specific chemical structure was in the unbound, unreacted, free Novichok. The laboratory will have samples of that because it has made the agent itself. But it cannot find that in blood samples. It’s a political conclusion, not an organic chemical one, to assume what cannot be identified. This is why there is no naming of the chemical formula in the samples taken from the Skripals and from Sturgess.”
“Explaining to the layman what happens when part of the A234 molecule is lost in the process of binding on to proteins is difficult. It’s enough to say that when this process happens – as it must when Novichok is allegedly sprayed on a target – we can guess which part of the molecule, which atom has been lost. Probably the fluorine atom is lost, maybe not.”
“Guessing is not what the OPCW can report. This is why the OPCW labs are not confirming the specific structure. It’s a Catch 22 situation for the OPCW. If they knew fluorine was there in the first place, they would have had to have reference samples of A234 in order to know that fluorine was there. But in 2018 they could not admit to having such reference samples because the British Government’s line was that only Russia could make Novichok. To keep up the pretence, this is why the generic, unspecific description is still being used six years later. This is so generic and non-specific it has no place in science, and certainly not in a murder investigation.”
EXCERPTS OF OPCW REPORT ON SKRIPAL INCIDENT SAMPLE TESTING
Source: https://www.opcw.org
Press leaks of the Austrian copy of this OPCW report indicated that the classified data of chemical name and structure did not confirm Russian origin.
Allen testified that, two years later, a parallel process of misidentification was used by the German Government, OPCW and a Swedish state laboratory to identify Novichok in blood samples taken from Alexei Navalny when he was in a Berlin hospital in September 2020. Navalny and his supporters, including the UK and other NATO governments, claimed in unison that he had been poisoned on Putin’s orders with Novichok. “In further support of the conclusion that Russia was responsible for the use of Novichok on British soil in an attempt to murder Mr Skripal,” Allen declared, “HMG [His Majesty’s Government] notes that the Russian state was also responsible for the attempted murder of Alexei Navalny…Again, the use of Novichok to poison Mr Navalny was confirmed by independent testing conducted by the OPCW and other states [Sweden].” Paragraph 38.
This was politics, not chemical science nor clinical pathology.
The Berlin hospital test records identified a potentially lethal combination of other drugs which Navalny had consumed before his collapse, but there was no Novichok. Testing by a German military laboratory in Munich was kept secret, its Novichok result announced by a government press spokesman in Berlin. To create the appearance of independent confirmation, the OPCW and the Swedish military organisation, the Defence Research Agency (FOI), were given Navalny blood samples and told what to look for, what to find. Both the OPCW and FOI did so, but kept secret the chemical names and molecular structures which their testing had identified.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/
For more details of the German Novichok operation, including Swedish documents forced into the open by a Stockholm court order, click on this and this.
When the Russian Government issued detailed denials of the British Novichok narrative, Allen said this was evidence of Russian deception and propaganda. “Is it your opinion,” Allen was asked by a lawyer for the Sturgess family, “that that disinformation campaign further demonstrates the Russian State’s culpability? A. Yes.” Page 102
When Russian intelligence agents attempted to open the OPCW and the Spiez laboratory files to find out how the testing had been done; what chemical formulas had been identified, and what secret evidence was reported, Allen testified this was further evidence of Russian culpability in the Novichok attack in England. “The Dutch, if I may say, caught them red-handed with the equipment in the back of a car. They were able to get information from telephone devices that were in the possession of the individuals. They found documentary evidence as well, including in one case one of the individuals had a taxi receipt from outside GRU headquarters to Moscow airport on the day their group had left to go to the Netherlands, and so putting all that together we were able quite quickly to identify this as a GRU group. I think again the reason it’s significant is that they were seeking to hack into the OPCW, I would say, because at that time the OPCW was testing the blood and testing for Novichok and they clearly wanted to know what people were finding and to find out if there was any information, I would suggest that we had given them.” Page 47-48
Allen did not reveal nor did Hughes and his lawyers query the reason British officials and the OPCW were refusing to disclose to the Russians the chemical data of the Novichok they alleged the Russians had used in the attack on Skripal, and thus already knew for themselves.
The details of the GRU hacking of OPCW and Spiez were not released publicly by the Dutch until October 13, six months after Dutch police had arrested four Russians outside OPCW headquarters at The Hague. Their espionage had been intercepted by the Dutch on April 3 but was kept secret at the time.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov then disclosed in public on April 14 that the hacking operation had been successful before the Dutch caught up. The concentration of the nerve agent reported from the blood test results, Lavrov revealed, had been too high and too pure to be credible in blood samples. He implied the A234 Novichok was added after the original samples had been drawn, He also charged that the testing revealed evidence that the Skripals had been hit with another nerve agent, BZ.
Allen, Hughes and his lawyers agreed that the Dutch incidents proved the Russians were guilty. The evidence for their innocence which the Russians announced at the time was ignored.
