British police have identified more than 200 witnesses and are looking at more than 240 pieces of evidence in their investigation into a nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter, interior minister Amber Rudd said on Saturday, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, have been in hospital in a critical condition since Sunday, when they were found unconscious on a bench in the southern English cathedral city of Salisbury.
“The two victims remain in hospital and they’re critical but stable,” Rudd told reporters after chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra security committee.
Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence before his arrest in Moscow in 2004. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006, and in 2010 was given refuge in Britain after being exchanged for Russian spies.
Many in British media and politics have speculated that Russia could have played a part in the attack on Skripal, but Rudd reiterated that it was too early to say who was responsible, and police should be given the time and space to determine the facts.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the incident and accused the British media of whipping up anti-Russian hysteria.
In Salisbury, normally a quiet city, military vehicles and troops in protective suits and gas masks were seen working at several of the sites associated with the Skripal investigation.
At an ambulance station a short distance from the city centre, troops in light grey overalls, purple gloves and gas masks covered ambulances with black tarpaulins as they prepared to remove them.
At the hospital where the Skripals were being treated another team used an army truck to remove a police car.
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