A woman who was exposed to the nerve agent novichok in Amesbury, Wiltshire, has died in hospital. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked” by the death of Dawn Sturgess, one of two people who fell ill last weekend in Amesbury, near the town of Salisbury on Sunday
The Novichok poisoning in Salisbury has claimed its first victim as Dawn Sturgess died eight days after coming into contact with the Russian nerve agent. A post-mortem will be scheduled to take place in due course.
Novichok refers to a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s to elude international restrictions on chemical weapons. Russian scientists who developed the agents claim they are the deadliest nerve agents ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX, and others up to ten times more potent than soman. Like other nerve agents, they are organophosphate compounds, but the chemicals used to make them, and their final structures, are considered classified in the UK, the US, and other countries.
Police are treating the death of the 44-year-old mother of three on Sunday night as murder, describing the tragedy as “the day we hoped would never come”. Her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, is still in a critical condition after the couple fell ill last Saturday.
The investigation into the poisonings is being led by detectives from the Counter Terrorism Policing Network, and about 100 detectives are working alongside officers from Wiltshire police. Investigators are still trying to determine how the couple were exposed to the nerve agent after emergency services were called to a residential address in Amesbury eight days ago after Sturgess collapsed. Later the same day, an ambulance was called back to the address after Rowley fell ill.
The second Novichok-related incident has prompted fresh inflammatory rhetoric between the UK and Russia in recent days. Police and security officials are working urgently to establish the facts of this incident, which is now being investigated as a murder.
SIASAT NEWS