Joining Some Dots on the Skripal Case: Part 3 – The Agitated Mr Skripal
Rob Slane
In Part 1 of this series, I stated why I believe the official narrative on the Skripal case does not appear to hold water. Firstly, the nerve agent A-234 (Novichok) can and has been produced outside Russia, in a number of places, thus disproving the claim that it must have come from Russia. Secondly, the fact that the effects experienced by the Skripals — four hours of moving freely around Salisbury, followed by no irreparable damage — do not remotely fit what the scientific literature says about that substance — almost instantaneous death or a short life with irreparable damage to the central nervous system –, makes it highly unlikely that they were indeed poisoned by it. Indeed, the burden of proof is on those making the claims to show how and why the scientific literature was wrong.
Then in Part 2, I mentioned four aspects of the case, which are undoubtedly significant, but which seem to have been ignored or forgotten. I ended that piece by saying that I hoped to discuss what I consider to be an even bigger aspect of the case; something that may well begin to join some dots together.
And this is what I intend to do in this piece. However, before I do, I should start by saying that what I am about to say is speculative. That is not to say that it is not based on facts. It is. It is based on witness testimony that appeared very early on in the case — three days after the poisoning — and which I deem to be credible since it appeared before the case became completely politicised, which is sadly what subsequently happened. I am then using that testimony to construct what I consider to be the best explanation for what the witness described. And so it is very much a theory. One based on facts, but a theory nevertheless. As such it is of course open to challenge.
Let me begin by quoting a significant chunk of the particular witness testimony, which appeared in the Daily Mail on 7th March. I have highlighted what I consider to be the most revealing bits, and then at the end I will explain why I think they are important and what — in my opinion — they most likely imply:
They began with a starter of garlic bread to share followed by two glasses of white wine. They ordered from the menu, choosing the 600 calorie risotto pesce with king prawns, mussels and squid rings in a tomato, chilli and white wine sauce.
But within minutes Mr Skripal had become angry, a witness said. ‘I think he was swearing in Russian,’ said the man, who did not want to be named. ‘She was just sitting there quietly, and didn’t really say anything. They were both smartly dressed, she was in a black coat. They were speaking to each other in Russian.’ He said Mr Skripal appeared annoyed that their main course had taken 20 minutes to arrive – and appeared in a hurry to leave.
‘He was going absolutely crazy, I didn’t understand it and I couldn’t understand him. They had not been seen for a little while by the front of house staff, but I think it was more than that. He just wanted his food and to go. He was just shouting and losing his temper. I would have asked him to leave. He just said “I want my food and my bill”. ‘The waiter took him the bill at the same time as the main course, which was unusual. I don’t think they paid all of the bill. I think they were given a discount because he was so angry and agitated. He had to wait about 20 minutes for his main course. I think it was easier for the staff just to give him money to leave as he was so angry. They were sitting by themselves at the back of the restaurant but I think people were pleased when they left. They were only there for about 45 minutes. It was a quick lunch. He just wanted to get out of there. She was silent, perhaps embarrassed.’
He added: ‘He didn’t seem to have to wait long for his food. I noticed him first because they were sitting by themselves, and because he was an older man with a younger woman, and because he was losing his temper. ‘He didn’t seem ill physically, but perhaps mentally ill with the way he was shouting.’
The witness said other than appearing angry, there was no sign that either of them were ill.
‘They weren’t poisoned at Zizzi. I saw the chef prepare the food,’ he said. ‘No one could have sneaked in and added anything to his food there, the kitchen is open. The drinks are made at the bar which is by the door, but I think it is unlikely. No one could get to him.’”
So why is this all so significant?
There are a number of things:
In good health
In the first place, it shows that at the time they were in the restaurant, neither Mr Skripal or Yulia Skripal were displaying any signs of being physically unwell. On the contrary, the witness testifies to the fact that Mr Skripal did not seem at all physically ill, and he also stated that Yulia sat there calmly and quietly.
No signs of any poisoning
Secondly, it shows that at that time, neither of them appeared to be showing any symptoms whatsoever of having already been poisoned. On the contrary, the fact that they ordered and then ate their food is a very strong indication that they hadn’t. If Mr Skripal’s agitated state could be explained by a prior poisoning — by the deadliest nerve agent known to man remember — how likely would it be that he would have felt well enough to order and consume his dish of risotto pesce with king prawns, mussels and squid rings in a tomato, chilli and white wine sauce. Not the kind of food that someone feeling dodgy is likely to wolf down, as he appears to have done.
The agitation must therefore be explained by something else
Thirdly, the obvious conclusion suggested by the two points above is this: Mr Skripal’s agitation had nothing whatsoever to do with him feeling the effects of having already been poisoned. Rather, it was because of something else entirely.
Of course this leads to the question of what it was that caused his agitation. Here we must take the facts, and begin to make suppositions based on them.
The witness’s testimony of Mr Skripal’s behaviour makes it abundantly clear that he was very much in a hurry to leave. And as stated above, this agitation and hurry can have had nothing whatsoever to do with feeling physically unwell from the effects of poisoning, since he displayed no such signs and because he went ahead and ate his food – very quickly it would seem.
Now tell me: if you saw someone in a restaurant getting in a hissy fit over a relatively short wait for his food, angrily demanding that he be served, asking for the bill to be brought at the same time as the main course, wolfing the food down, and generally looking like he was in a hurry to leave, what would you conclude? My guess is that you would conclude that the person was in a hurry because they needed to get somewhere by a certain time. Seems obvious, doesn’t it?
And so it seems to me from Mr Skripal’s behaviour, plus the witness’s impression, that there is a startlingly simple and obvious explanation for what was going on at Zizzis that afternoon: Mr Skripal was in a hurry to eat and to leave, not because he was unwell, not because he was suffering any physical effects of being poisoned by A-234 some four hours previous, but because he needed to be somewhere to meet with someone at a certain time. And where did he have to get to in such a hurry? Why, the park bench in The Maltings, sometime between 3:45 and 4:00pm.
I hear an objection. When I ran this supposition past a friend, they replied by saying that although it all sounds very plausible, how do we know that Mr Skripal was not just generally mentally ill? After all, the witness says that although Mr Skripal didn’t seem physically ill, he was “perhaps mentally ill with the way he was shouting.”
To this, I would respond as follows: firstly, it is well known that he was a frequent visitor to Zizzis, and had this been his normal sort of behaviour, it is likely that he would have exhibited it before and been prevented from entering. But secondly, and far more crucially, is the behaviour of his daughter. According to the witness, she just sat there and said nothing. She made no attempt to calm him down in front of the staff and other diners. Had he been mentally ill, it is likely that she would have made some attempt to explain his behaviour apologetically to the staff. Yet she does not, which suggests that she was well aware of the reason for his agitation, and – like him – just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
And so I submit that the most plausible explanation for Mr Skripal’s agitation, and his seeming hurry to leave, was that he wanted to eat quickly, in order to get to The Maltings, where he had a pre-arranged rendezvous at the now infamous bench.
In the following part, I hope to join some more dots together, this time asking why he might have had a meeting at the bench.
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If he had to wait for the main course – how come he had enough bread left to feed ducks? And how did he carry the bread?
who were the witnesses at the duck pond? Were there other middle aged men looking after the birds?
It is obvious to me that the official U.K. explanation of the Skripal incident is riddled with lies, inconsistencies, and unsupported speculation. The U.K. story is easily discredited with factual information for anyone who approaches it with an open mind. Witness testimony of the Skripals behaviour in the restaurant is enlightening and relevant for many reasons. It shows that the Skripals did not appear to be physically affected at that time, it shows that Sergei was agitated, and seemed to be anxious to leave the restaurant. It does not show he had a meeting. He may have wanted to leave because he had a meeting, or he was angry at, what he felt, was staff incompetence, or the restaurant was too warm for his liking, or an old paramour had just been seated two tables over. One explanation is as likely as the other. You also assume without citing any supporting facts that Skripal’s agitation could not have been the result of poison8ng because no physical symptoms were manifest. But there are many substances that may cause mental symptoms in advance of physical symptoms, especially physical symptoms 5hat can be observed in a seated couple some distance away. The delay of time between when the Skripals were alleged to have come into contact with the Novichok and the time at which they eventually succumbed to its effects already argues powerfully against the theory that they were poisoned by Novichok on their front door. Whether or not Sergei was mentally ill or typically grumpy, or reacting to some snide comment by his daughter is not discernible however.
I know you announced your intention to freely speculate in these pieces but I don’t think it’s appropriate or convincing to imagine a plot and see if the facts can be made to support it. The facts might well support thousands of scenarios we can dream up. It is not the job of journalists to connect these sorts of dots. The UK has advanced a theory. It is the job of journalists to scrutinize that theory and poke holes in it, if it is thin and flimsy as in this case. We are subjected to this kind of innuendo and unsupported speculation more and more in the corporate media. The UK has irresponsibly made unsupported charges against another sovereign state and asked that nations around the world act on their speculation in advance of the evidence. The press doesn’t need to create an alternative 007 script to counter the government’s. The press should be highlighting all the space between the dots iand the fact that the dots can be connected in various ways. Let’s think critically about the limits of the evidence and demand that charges be supported by facts. Speculation is limitless and it’s value corresponds to its availability.
Joining the dots on Skripal they point back to Ghouta. The Whitehall management thought, if Obombast and Shrillary can accuse evidence then so can St Theresa:
Pacificnorthwest BTL SyrPer
An American investigative journalist and political writer has implicated Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the deadly 2013 chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
A US intelligence report confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were providing al-Nusra Front terrorists with the basic chemicals used for sarin gas, Seymour Hersh told Russia’s RT television network on Saturday.
The sarin gas used in the Ghouta gas attack “was not the same as in the Syrian military,” he added.
“The government knew from this very important intelligence report … that there were two suspects – al-Nusra had the stuff and Syria had the stuff. Forget about having it analyzed – right away they only talked about one,” Hersh said.
Western countries held the Syrian government responsible for the Ghouta assault that killed hundreds of people in August 2013 without any evidence.
https://en.muraselon.com/2018/07/hersh-suggests-saudi-role-in-2013-gas-attack-in-ghouta/
The guinea pigs.
What sort of a man in his sixties keeps guinea pigs? Dogs, cats, birds, sure — but guinea pigs? Just remember what guinea pigs are used for. Just remember that the guinea pigs were exterminated.
Julia.
The poisoning occurred a day after her arrival. So either she had something to do with it or she’s the victim of a considerable coincidence.
All of which proves nothing beyond suggesting that Julia might have imported a nerve agent which was tested on the guinea pigs and was meant to be delivered to someone on a park bench.
In any case, complicity in any form would ensure the cooperation of the Skripals in the cover-up.
And the cat? The death (by starvation? the vet who put them down said they were ‘very distressed’) of the pets suggests panic and a Spooks lockdown that kept plod well away. Apparently he was very fond of the cat and it’s hard to see why he wouldn’t like guinea pigs.
SyrPer Irony Meter going OTP on St.Theresa’s heroic White Helmets saving CW victims in Syria:
“Bundy☭
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6073176/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Good documentary portraying heroic men – please don’t believe all the fake news around here
As a 1-star comment around here suggested, I did my homework on the White Helmets. Fortunately, claims that WH are terrorists seem to be unfounded and highly motivated by political reasons. Sources like Snopes – a fact-checking website, BBC, The Guardian and SBS, all agree that the accusations held against the WH are pure propaganda as there is no evidence whatsoever behind them.
This documentary, although a little “Hollywood”, is a great depiction of those heroic people, risking their lives to save civilians, no matter what side they’re on. It’s a little short and some scenes might be staged, but in my opinion the documentary and the work of these men is truly inspirational and restores a little my hope in humanity. They deserve all the praise!”
How is life on Mars?
vexarb, I’ve learnt through experience that irony has to be carefully employed if it’s not to be misinterpreted! I note that even though you have signposted the irony in ‘Bundy’s’ comments it has clearly been to no avail – unless this site has suddenly been taken over by WH supporters who, naturally, wouldn’t appreciate the irony. Better luck next time!
Thanks, Judy, for noting my Sign Post –> Irony.
But I take those 25 Down votes as a great tribute to the work done by OffG and other hard working Truther sites; because I believe the extra-ordinarily large number of negative votes were an indignant reaction by readers who missed the signpost and believed that Bundy was really praising St Theresa, Boris and their FO (Foreign Office funded) White Helmets.
But They didnt go to The Bench first..They went to feed the ducks, and used the food they took with them. The ducks are ok..so we can rule out poison in food. They watched the bench as they fed the ducks , perhaps for the couple with the red handbag..large one too. Odd for two men to walk together with a red handbag. So the red bag was a signal. It was prob someonone he was not used to. If it was Pablo..he would not be in such a rush. But it was someone Pablo Knew..and had sent..or as Skripals call are monitored 24/7 as routine..If Skripal made a private deal..they would know that also…Whatever was in handbag was important. It would be left there…no conversation necessary..That is why timing was important.
Since no poison was on bag later disposed..what could it be? .just some for of opioid as the doctor iniitally said?..the couple with the handbag had gloves..they even looked at the camera, set in American time..not EU… ..
Cui Bono?
Mi6..it gets to remove Skripal from any questioning..as well as Pablo in connection with the Dossier.
That’s going to happen anyway sooner or later imo. and also l as any further comnnection to GCHQ and
and Robert Hannigan is also eliminated, and the Queens Honor Intact..
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/russia-jeremy-corbyn_uk_5aa46df6e4b07047bec712d4
This is Caroline Lucas’ interpretation of the Skripal affair.
What do you make of it?
Ridiculous
Although I wouldn’t claim to be surprised by this, it is extremely disturbing to see such conviction from a person in a position of responsibility who readily admits she has no more information available to her than the rest of us…and she still concludes that the Government’s narrative is undoubtedly right. It has to seriously bring into question her level of intelligence and her powers of judgement.
Another ‘Green’ rat selling out. Nothing new about that. Any familiarity with the record of the German Greens or the Austfailian type tells you that these are simply middle-class Meanswells, eager to accommodate to power when required. If Lucas believes the Skripal lies, then she’s an imbecile-if not, then she’s much worse, but typical of the type.
Why is the question being asked? If Caroline Lucas has much the same opinion on the Skripal affair as most other UK Tory and Labour politicians do, and her opinion is not based on her own fact-finding and reasoning, but on believing what she is told to believe, her interpretation is no better or worse than the interpretations of her political rivals.
Green Party politicians are not any better than other mainstream party politicians, usually for the reason that they often come from the same upper middle class layer as those other politicians do.
Caroline Lucas is not any better in her opinion regarding the Skripal affair and British foreign policy than George Monbiot is in his knowledge of and opinion on Syrian politics and the war in Syria, especially when he claims to be opposed to an invasion of that country.
Why would our lot have to be so cagey about it all if they didn’t have something to hide?
If the Russians had done it, there’d be no need. We could let everyone know every detail.
And if she hasn’t questioned our behaviour, she’s not very bright.
I am assuming that Skripal is/was the owner of his house. For the governance to buy the house, signatures would be necessary to transfer the deeds to the new owner. ???
Lots of things don’t add up.
Novichock was supposed to be more poisonous than Sarin which can kill in one to ten minutes (Wiki). VX gas is even more potent.
Also “The former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a dose of liquid nerve agent as large as 50-100 grams, according to the director general of the international chemical weapons watchdog.” (www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/04/skripals-poisoned-by-novichok-in-liquid-form-watchdog-says)
100 grams? On a door handle?
Might have to go to the courts again? Or Julia have power of attorney if…that is possible….Father might have to “prove”his sensibility…mental competency????
Meant to be a reply to Estaugh above re sale of house
The main factors that weaken the UK’s case against Russia are as follows:
Proof that the alleged nerve agent was available in other countries.
Proof that the government knowingly lied about this.
Proof that the alleged nerve agent could not have been responsible for the reported symptoms.
Total lack of information from the police inquiry.
Disappearance of the victims.
Disappearance of all witnesses.
Destruction of all evidence.
I think you nailed it!
At a mere £9.5 million for such a service. Makes you proud to be a British tax payer…
I’m wondering how much longer the electorate will consent to the rule of the epistemically closed and cognitively challenged? And let us not play the game of government scapegoating: Labour used the alleged incident to manufacture political capital – pushing for sanctions from the very first announcement. This was a systemic failure: endorsing it with electoral consent (voting) legitimates the whole sorry affair …and the next affair, and the next one. Reality simulation to follow ideologies is already in play …we can stop it, but only if we act concertedly and not endorse it. If we legitimate this act: we legitimate and create precedent for the next one …and the next one. I can only speak from consience: I do not consent to be ruled by any person or entity that can seriously refer to the Skripal provocation as “real.” They can “rule” their consensual karmic projection …only, not in my name.
The whole affair seems to me to have invoked a collective shrug from the UK public. There is widepread scepticism, but in terms of political response- well all the political ‘personalities’ have egg on their faces from Caroline Lucas to Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Perhaps the newly emerging discourse is the beneficiary, i.e. the realisation that there is more to politics than that on the BBC or in The Guardian, combined with the realisation that there is more to spirituality than the Church of England or the Holy See..
Mog:
Re: the newly emerging discourse – I’d love to get the real debate going on what will replace the defunct, in my view, binary party politics and Parliamentary ‘democracy’ …and more crucially: what will replace organisation around industrialised production …the root materialistic worldview that underpins both capitalism and mirror-capitalism (which some people like to call socialism). I see an upcoming, or ongoing (if you look at poverty, inequality, mental health and opioid endemics) jeopardy crisis for consensus reality. As Catte rightly said: it has already outlived its evolutionary usefulness …only, it has yet to dawn by how much? I’m sure you know the etymology of the phrase “driven round the bend”? That is because Bedlem asylum is the next stop for consensual reality: not the promissory return to prosperity that both parties peddle? I remain convinced only a new consensus of what prosperity actually entails in terms of self-discovery – not material gain – can save us …and that is up to us, not them?
BigB
A friend went to a local Buddhist centre to start a free, six week ‘Introduction to Buddhism’ course. There were eighty people attending, and they run the course several times a year.
There clearly is a significant interest in meditation, yoga and related practices that has basically gone mainstream over the past ten years. What fascinates me is how, or if, this growing interest and practice intersects with the political realm (or societal organisation in general). I joined the Corbyn thing for a year with this (perhaps naive) notion that it could and would manifest a new sentiment, on ultimately rooted in genuine spiritual insight. I was dissuaded by several things in the state of the Labour Party, apart from the obvious, there is still the grounding in materialist thinking which I found certainly dominates the mindset of those most active in the Socialist movement.
I ponder questions such as ‘Is a hierarchically structured organisation -even one with highly democratic processes for electing officce holders, fundamentally anti-thetical to a necessarily more enlightened approach?’
‘Is there an (perhaps clandestine?) attempt to meld a spiritual praxis that is essentially divorced from any explicit moral code (e.g. mindfulness training) with identity politics and all its perverse implications?’
I had a thought about how information tech could potentially provide a radical alternative to much that is wrong with the very partial ‘democracy’ that we live under. Someone with some coding skills could build an online platform, a debate space and decision making forum that could replace many of the problems of secrecy and incumbency which underlie the abuse of power.
Small fora of up to seven people discussing within pre-agreed limits a subject of the day, electing delegates to take their views forward to a smaller circles of discussions, and so on up several tiers to a final table of ‘deciders’. No clunky procedures that accompany the attempts to hold office holders to account, as the hierarchy would only last as long as that particular decision. Each decision would call upon the specialism or experience or genuine passion of different people, there being essentially no incumbent office holders, creating more optimal decisions. Taken to the absolute extreme, it would be like a rolling referendum instead of a parliament, except that instead of the discourse controlled and dominated by vested interests (offering two meaningless options in a one person one vote), it would be an organic ‘cellular’ structure more akin to a digitised replication of that developed by indiginous Americans and bastardised by the European founders.
We could re-learn how to discuss in a civil manner, how to agree to disagree and compromise again, how to be concise, thorough and focused in our thoughts, how to actually take some responsibility for the decisions that affect us all without unending commitment or the tedium of bureacratic density pressing all the life out of our decision making…We could draw in people of genuine wisdom for that is what we need more than anything.
P.S. We could move the ‘debate’ off of places like Facebook and Twitter which -through their very design, have toxified the interactions of political discussion.
How are the pre-agreed limits on debate chosen?
I am thinking that open source software could fill at least some of the role of chairperson. (Ditto minute taker etc.).
I would suggest that this would be the first task of such a debate space- to formulate how the system would function.
So many times I have been in a meeting or debate and either the chair has been ineffective at time keeping or has an agenda and abuses their position. If it was a matter of agreement, that ‘5minutes’ means exactly five minutes (for example) then we can avoid fillibustering and people who use political forums as a soap box for all there personal takes on things.
I am pretty much a luddite, but wonder if communication software offers a chance – if we use it smartly, to make mass decisions, encourage good debate skills, promote participatory democracy and replace the incumbancy and secrecy that for the basis of Establishment power.
last para:
‘..that form the basis of Establishment power’
Otherwise, OK? For a clown like Caroline Lucas to swallow this swill, enthusiastically, tells you all you need to know about what to expect from the Greens.
Did the Skripals not also stop in at a pub? It seems they had plenty of time in the afternoon to take care of lunch without creating time pressure. The reported service at Zizzi does not seem overly careless or drawn out – 45 minutes appears a reasonable expectation for time at the restaurant. Skripal’s agitation may well have been triggered by another factor – such as expecting to meet someone there who hadn’t showed – which likewise may be directly linked to what subsequently occurred. (similarly, if Julia was bringing important news from Russia surely this would have already been expressed long before stopping in for lunch).
The complete absence of curiosity or clarification of these odd events on behalf of the government or their media enablers, particularly since this incident produced such attention and provoked an international scandal largely due to the government and media’s focus, that is truly the oddest fact. It can be assumed the government knows exactly what happened and the silence reflects this event as some sort of failed mission.
How many “parts” are you proposing, Mr Slade?
At this rate, there’ll be 1001 . . .
Another witness is the doctor, reported by the BBC (8th May) as having given Julia CPR for 30 mins., yet was not contaminated.
This doctor seems to have vanished down the rabbit-hole even more completely than Sgt. Bailey, yet she should be easy to trace.
If no-one can bear the wait, the rest of Rob Slane’s series is available at his blog The Blogmire.
http://www.theblogmire.com/
How come the air ambulance was airborne at 16.19 four minutes after first 999 call? Why was the log (which I took a screenshot of) removed?
Who was the paramedic who ran to the bench? Where did he spring from?
Why would Bailey a plainclothes detective be on hand?
Why did Yulia speak only in Russian in the Reuters video? She worked as a hotel receptionist in England, she must be fluent. I suspect she thinks she is in Russia. Her reference to help from the embassy could be her thinking the British Embassy in Moscow offered help.
D.S. Bailey has all the answers to this fiasco.
“D.S. Bailey has all the answers to this fiasco.”
Not if Mr Skipal smeared his own knob before setting out for drinkies and lunch, he doesn’t…
There are a few loose strands hanging over from the few hours the media (Daily Mail chiefly) were allowed to report. There was a much vaunted account of how police had traced their movements with the exception of 45 minutes in the afternoon. The Headlines were ‘Where were they? Who did they meet? ‘
There was also press discussion of the ‘fact’ he had complained his daughter hadn’t brought him his favourite buck wheat and she arranged for a friend to bring it the next day. Did that happen? Why didn’t he buy buckwheat in Salisbury or on line if it was a favourite brand? Why was he so annoyed by her domestic.failure? Was buckwheat recovered? Who was the courier? Were they arrested?
On the assumption the police and spooks didn’t kill his beautiful cat deliberately it suggests a degree of chaos and mistakes littered the investigation, presumably a result of official panic?
Can a D Noitce be challenged? What’s the charge? Sentence?
The use of the ‘D notice’ tells you all you need to know about the ‘Free World’ and its true, unchanging, nature.
He was very much a family man and upset about not being able to see his elderly and sick mother. It was known he’d asked Putin if he could return to visit his mother but the British press adamantly said Putin hadn’t replied. So his daughter arrives to sort it out; she has Russian Security Services connection via her boyfriend and his mother. He may have got angry because Putin had demanded he return at least some of the money he stole from the State and/or made it clear he’d be expected to defect from British Intelligence and be de-briefed by his old colleagues. The Brits couldn’t swallow the idea he’d spill various beans and maybe that included a part in the Steele dossier that the Intelligence bosses had authorised be sent to a Democratic Party organ so it could be leaked and used to stop Trump winning the election. It must be a very sore point between MI6 and the White House. Clearly they couldn’t let him go back to Russia. The cunning plan was to stage a nerve agent attack that wasn’t the real thing at all. Either they took it willingly or, more likely perhaps, they were poisoned by Brits. Now it doesn’t look as if he will never see his mother again nor will Julia see her grand mother. Strange indeed from her point of view; presumably she had no idea she wouldn’t be returning to her home and family. Even her ‘official’ statements go out of the way to give her gratitude to the Russian Embassy for their concern. There are no rants about Putin; she’s keeping her powder dry? How many years will they be kept in secret locations? There was talk they would go to a foreign country but America would be as bad as Russia for MI6 as he might be debriefed there by some Trumpian agents and the Steele dossier and the meme ‘Trump is a Russian agent’ blown out of the water which would probably mean a second term for the boy from the Bronx; big stakes!
It was a pretty bad story, perhaps cobbled together in face of the ‘emergency’ of Julia’s arrival?
While I wait to read Part 4 of Rob Slane’s speculative analysis very soon, I am reluctant to draw conclusions based on today’s revelations, from Paul X here also, which effectively leave out Syria from the Skripal conspiracy, as well as casting the scheme more as some sort of response of desperation by the CIA/MI6 whoever.
I just don’t think that the measures taken against Russia, which risked provocation into a direct military conflict quite carelessly (did the UK ever just step back a little, rather than doubling down on the lies as soon as something was a bit shaky?) could have been justified simply because of fears about the anti-Trump charade being exposed; there had to be something far far more serious – and preventing the exposure of the US/UK collaboration with and even creation of Da’esh/Al Nusra/White Helmets and enabling the war on Syria to go on despite Russia’s successes looks like that.
I put forward this theory in an earlier article, and see no reason to change it.
https://ahtribune.com/world/europe/uk/skirpal/2232-skripal-douma-provocation.html
The only question that remains – for me – is whether Sergei Skripal was co-operating with MI6 in staging this provocation – perhaps under extreme duress – or whether he and Yulia were fairly innocent victims of it. This news about Sergei’s impatience – extreme impatience suggesting a very important rendezvous – suggests he at least was aware of what was going to happen and knew it was a ‘life-or-death moment’..
“[Skripal] ate his food – very quickly it would seem.”
I hope this is not suggesting that Theresa and Boris have been parleying a nasty case of indigestion from the bolting down of a late lunch into an anti-Russian incident of international proportions.Perhaps Skripal should have mixed some sodium bicarb with his Novichok before he smeared it on his knob.
While St Theresa and her White Helmets prance around their Grand Guignol Theatre of CW, the real world is busy excising terrorism from the body politic by a steadfast and far sighted combination of human intelligence, military courage and age-old social wisdom . BTL SyrianPerspective:
Bundy☭
“All these Syrian towns have depended on trade for thousands of years to survive. With no trade there is no money. The US can pay off foreign mercenaries to keep the people in line but I doubt any genuine Syrian “rebels” want to fight knowing their families have no income. Only foreigners and criminals would not want the Syrian government to take the area and restart trade and commerce.
+13 10 hours ago
Pacificnorthwest
“What an excellent strategy by the SAA, which seems to be along the lines of:
a) before the show begins, negotiate, reason with the locals, get them to see where their true interests lay. Let them understand how they can avoid the onslaught, and what actions they need to take in order to save their homes farms and families from heavy fighting.
b) execute a well publicised and impressive logistical build up of forces in theater, to hammer home the seriousness of intent and the imminence consequences.
c) commot sense operations; unleash the Tigers and other special force units (based upon all the previous military intelligence and human social knowledge about which towns & villages contain the die hards, and which would not mind being rid of fanatical parasites. Start making little pockets that isolate die hards from simple farmers.
d) build the momentum as the Syrian Arab Army vectors through the south, isolating the hard core mercenaries of Zionism into small and ultimately indefensible pockets
e) patiently wait… holding back ammassed fire power, while civilians escape these imminent infernos.
f) then… utterly smash irreconcilable hard core pockets, one example at a time; so the remaining pockets know what to expect if they do not surrender; until the much vaunted “superior Southern rebels” near the Israel and Jordanian borders beg for life on a green bus to Idlib, with only what they can carry on their backs.
g) eliminate the last pockets along the ceasefire line with Israel and… stare the IDF down in the Golan, giving Israel a tight timetable for negotiating a final & complete withdrawal from this occupied Syrian territorry.
8
anti_republocrat
“Then too, there was the recent announcement from the US Embassy in Amman that US jihadis are now on their own [except for the few who are being airlifted on U$ helicopters, Saigon style]. That has saved countless lives. We’ll never know who was truly responsible for that, and I don’t like much of what Trump is doing, but I must admit the buck stops with him on this sensible US stand down.”
+8 7 hours ago
Making a scene in public like this could be establishing an alibi: “I was here at this time & in loud good health.”
His daughter’s passivity could indicate complicity. It certainly destroys Theresa May’s “Novichocks on the front door knob” four hours earlier, nonsense.
Theresa May has been set up here, to look like the clown & incompetent she actually is, by whoever has written her lines.
John Doran.
I think she was telling him Putin’s conditions for him being allowed to return to Russia to see his Mother before she died. She is too ill to travel herself. Maybe he fancied retiring back to Russia, he was quite the patriot despite his selling out his colleagues. It is said he’d written to Putin asking for permission to return. Possibly Julia was bringing the answer – and the conditions attached? If that involved eg giving up some of his proceeds of crime he might well have got angry. At some point his handlers would have to explain how they intended to keep him in the UK – by staging a fake poisoning. Reports at the time spoke of a 45 minute missing chunk of their afternoon; did they meet with his handler who explained what would happen? Or did they just do it anyway and tell him later when he came round? I wonder if they will be ever seen again?
Not sure about this….rumours of he wanted to ask for forgiveness and return to Russia….the good behaviour of the daughter in restaurant could indicate to me daughter was looking to get married to be given away by Father in Russia could mean she was asking him to return on her conditions plus take care of his mother …re establish relationships of neice….perhaps Skripal did not approve of her plans and wishes…..perhaps money issues as result of his selling a house in Russia and money tied up now in other things((why return when just sold up)….perhaps she had not realised he was still- allegedly? -involved with his handler Paul Miller ( allegedly took the photo who did)the dodgy dossier and perhaps chemical stuff in Syria and had caught out the father….did not want to discuss these issues in a restaurant but outside in the open air…perhaps all this and visitiing wifes grave could have led up to a personal crisis with his daughters visit triggering this off
but no reports of them being arguementative upset on the bench ? …perhaps he could not return to Russia if daughter had wanted due to contacts/ associates etc from earlier career…any other reports that in his working life in Russia and Uk he was temperamenral…on blood pressure medication etc….?
Early entry on wiki (ie not Philip Cross ones) states that Skripal retired from his first job and got a more lenient sentence due to ill health (he was diabetic). If true the diet he appears to have been following hardly looks conducive to health I don’t know much about controlling diabetes via diet v insulin injections and just mention it as a factor that seems to have been ignored?
But thinking further, if the poisoning was carried out by UK imtelligence, then they’d have had all the preparation in place.
Or maybe Skripal realised there was someone in the restaurant from MI5 able to listen in to what they were talking about. Chooaing an isolated table would confirm this. Also, a park bench is an ideal place to discuss things so long as you don’t carry technology.