Third Russian Suspect Charged By UK Police In 2018 Poisoning Of Former Spy

A third Russian suspect, Denis Sergeev, was charged by the UK police Tuesday in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England.

According to prosecutors, there is sufficient evidence to charge Sergeev, who went by the alias Sergey Fedotov, with causing grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possessing and using a chemical weapon.

Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were attacked in March 2018, and British authorities said that the poisoning had almost certainly been approved “at a senior level of the Russian state" even though Moscow denied the allegations, reported Associated Press.

The father-daughter duo survived, but the attack later left a British woman dead and a cop and a man ended up being seriously ill.

Two other Russian military intelligence agents, known by the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, were previously charged in connection with the case. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the two men were not agents but civilians, and they appeared on Russian TV claiming they had gone on a trip to Salisbury, UK as tourists.

Sergeev was also a member of the Russian military intelligence service called the GRU, UK cops said Tuesday.

In connection with the case, arrest warrants have been issued for the three suspects. According to cops, they will apply for Interpol notices for the third Russian man, but approaching Russia for his extradition is not an option for them as that country's constitution does not allow extradition of its citizens.

Home Secretary Priti Patel told Parliament members Tuesday, “Should any of these individuals ever travel outside Russia, we will work with our international partners and take every possible step to detain and extradite them to face justice."

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, a senior counter-terrorism officer who has been leading the investigation, said that the three suspects are dangerous and have tried to kill people in the UK.

Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights Tuesday ruled that Russia was behind the murder of former Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London, reported Al Jazeera. According to a British inquiry, Putin probably gave the green signal to a Russian intelligence operation to kill the former KGB officer.