Kremlin 'ready to cooperate' over former spy's illness in UK

 British counter-terror specialists offered expertise Tuesday to police in southern England Tuesday as they sought to unravel the mystery of why a former Russian spy fell critically ill following exposure to an "unknown substance."

Authorities maintained a cordon near the spot — a bench near a shopping mall — where former double agent Sergei Skripal and an unidentified woman collapsed Sunday in Salisbury, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London. British media reported that the woman was Skirpal's daughter.

Though authorities are trying to keep an open mind, the incident drew parallels to the death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 11 years ago in London.

"I think we have to remember that Russian exiles are not immortal, they do all die and there can be a tendency for some conspiracy theories," Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told the BBC.

 "But likewise we have to be alive to the fact of state threats as illustrated by the Litvinenko case."

Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. He was freed in 2010 as part of a spy swap, which followed the exposure of a ring of Russian sleeper agents in the United States.

The Kremlin said Russia has not been approached by British authorities to help in the investigation. But Dimitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, said Tuesday at a daily conference call with media in Russia that "Moscow is always ready to cooperate."



Source: abcnews.go

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