A
few days I posted the following investigative reporting on Porton
Down - REVEALED: Pentagon’s $70 Million Chemical & BiologicalProgram at Porton Down in UK
Here
is a documentary made a few years ago that, because it was made then,
cannot be accused on ‘fear-mongering” or any other excuse made by
trolls.
Secret files: Porton Down
Secret files: Porton Down
15 March, 2018
It’s
not only the occasional Russian spy. Serving servicemen. Ordinary
people too can be affected. Britain leads the world when it comes
to lethal substances and concoctions.
That
and the creation of debt slavery. The stress people are living under
is rising year on year. If that doesn’t kill them, then there’s
always a bit of selective spraying. Alexandr Litvinenko, Sergei and
Yulia Skripal are not the only victims – not by a long way.
ADD
TO THAT –
The
British government is talking war with Russia over a mysterious
incident that is claimed to have taken place on Sunday March 4, just
a few kilometres from the secrecy shrouded British biological and
chemical warfare research and development facility at Porton Down in
Wiltshire. I say claimed since we have very little information
confirming what exactly took place outside of government statements
and we have seen no photographs of the alleged victims in their
hospital beds to convince us that the alleged victims did fall ill
and are being treated. However, let us assume that the incident as
described did take place.
The
mystery consists in the fact that the victims, former Russian colonel
of military intelligence, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, were not
under any known threat from Russia. Skripal was charged and convicted
in Russia in 2006 of being an asset of the British Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6, and handing over secret information to the
British. He was jailed, but in a spy swap in 2010 was pardoned and
allowed to leave Russia for Vienna, then Britain, where he has been
living ever since. Why he was pardoned is difficult to determine,
unless it was necessary legally to effect the swap with the British.
In any even the Russians had washed their hands of him but it seems
the British had other uses for him, as their expendable man for a
provocation against Russia.
The
facts as the British government states them are that Skripal and his
daughter, visiting from Russia, met for lunch in Salisbury, the town
outside of which Porton Down is located. The purpose of the
daughter’s visit is not known. According to ever changing media
accounts witnesses in a restaurant reported that Skripal appeared to
be agitated and angry and left in that state with his daughter
following. Agitated and angry about what we do not know.
Half
an hour later it is said that the two of them were found slumped over
on a public bench. Some early media accounts state that it was
thought they had taken too much fentanyl and were vomiting and that
their illness may have been self-induced. But very quickly the
British government claimed that they had been poisoned by some
chemical or nerve agent and immediately cast the blame on Russia
though the investigation had just begun. The incident was immediately
taken out of the hands of the local police and handed over to the
Counter-Terrorism Police, formerly known as Special Branch, though
the government refused to call it a terrorist incident. A meeting of
the British government high-level emergency committee, Cobra, was
called. Why this was done for what appears to be an assault or
attempted murder or a self-induced accident is a good question. But
the answer lies in the immediate propaganda campaign mounted in the
British press against Russia.
On
Thursday the 8th of March the British government claimed that they
had identified a “nerve agent” as the substance used. Yet the BBC
quotes on the same day a woman physician who attended at the scene
saying that she found Mrs. Skripal slumped unconscious on a bench
vomiting and fitting. She had lost control of her bodily functions.
The physician, who asked not to be named, told the BBC she moved the
daughter into the recovery position and opened her airways as others
tended to her father. The doctor stated that the she treated her for
almost 30 minutes, saying there was no sign of any chemical agent on
her face or body and that though she had been worried she would be
affected by a nerve agent so far she “feels fine.”
Yet,
the British media published on Thursday a photograph of a police
officer who they say attended the scene and who they claim was made
ill and placed in intensive care but is now stable and recovering.
The two stories do not add up, as it would seem the doctor was in
closer physical contact with the two victims than the police officer
yet the doctor has suffered no symptoms at all.
The
Guardian quoted Andrei Lugovoi, another former Russian agent, accused
of Litvinenko’s murder by the British as stating that Skripal had
been pardoned in Russia so no one from there is after him. ““I
don’t rule out that this is another provocation by British.
Whatever happens on British territory, they start yelling: ‘He was
killed, he was hung, he was poisoned!’ and that Russiais to blame
for everything. This is to their advantage.” Igor Sutyagin, yet
another Russian traitor flown to Russia in 2010 in an exchange of
spies-also said, “I don’t think that Mr. Skripal would be
targeted, because he was pardoned.”
To
add to the mystery the British government refuses to name the alleged
nerve agent. To create more drama the British Home Secretary, Amber
Rudd, stated that it was not Sarin or VX but something “very rare.”
I think we can expect that they will choose the right dramatic moment
to name something and state that only Russian labs can make it. That
is their modus operandi. They certainly do not want to state that VX
was involved since VX was developed in 1952 at Porton Down near the
sight of the incident; for that would lead to necessary
investigations into security at that facility and whether personnel
there were involved. However, despite the fact that Porton Down is in
the business of manufacturing chemical warfare agents including nerve
agents and that logic would dictate that the Porton Down authorities
would be barred from being investigators into a case in which they
could be involved the British government immediately assigned Porton
Down to identify the substance that might have been used.
That
the Russians may be correct that this incident is another NATO
arranged provocation must be seriously considered. Despite the fact
there is no evidence whatsoever that Russia had anything to do with
this incident, the British government was quick to label Russia as
the villain of the piece and the mass media dutifully acted in lock
step and put out the word. Boris Johnson called Russia a “malign
and disruptive force’ and made threats about pulling the UK out of
the World Cup to be held in Russia this year. The attempts by the
NATO alliance to throw Russia out of the Olympics on trumped up
doping charges were largely successful and now we see another attempt
to disrupt a sports event that is important to world football fans
and to Russia. Johnson added that Britain would act “robustly’ of
Moscow is found to be involved.
The
Russian embassy in London stated the allegations of Russian
involvement are untrue and that the “script of yet another
anti-Russian campaign has already been written.” It seems so and
the script has some pages to run yet. One has to wonder what the role
of the British intelligence services is in this for the BBC also
reports that Skripal still kept the company of British intelligence
agents. So one has to ask, for what reason? What was his continuing
role as an asset of MI6? What was their role on that day?
But
that line of inquiry will not be followed. All the British media are
linking this incident to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, another
Russian who was supposedly poisoned with radioactive tea. Evidence
that cronies of his were involved were ignored in favour the line
that Russia was behind it though no evidence has ever been put
forward to support that claim. They are also making the claim that
this “very rare” substance must be from a state military
stockpile, so the statements to come from the British government can
be predicted.
This
incident has echoes of the case of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian
dissident killed in London in 1978 by a ricin pellet injected into
his leg by means of an umbrella it was said, though it was no doubt
done with an air pistol. That murder was quickly blamed on the KGB
and Bulgarian government agents but there is evidence that in fact
the murder was arranged by MI6 as was the murder of media magnate
Robert Maxwell in 1991, who had documents relating to the Markov
murder in his possession, according sources such as Richard Cottrell
in his book Gladio and accounts by former British intelligence agent
Gordon Logan.
The
Skripal incident also brings to mind the death of Dr. David Kelly in
2003 whose mysterious death in woods near his home, was officially
attributed to “suicide.” He is thought by many to have been
assassinated by the British secret services and CIA to keep him from
revealing secrets about the war in Iraq. He worked at Porton Down as
head of microbiology.
He
in turn is connected to other scientists at Porton Down who have died
under questionable circumstances, for instance, Dr. Richard Holmes,
whose body was found in the same woods as Dr. Kelly, in 2012, two
days after going for a walk, and one month after resigning from
Porton Down, and to Vladimir Pasechnik’s death in November 2001,
another Russian defector, who allegedly died of a stroke. His death
was not announced until a month later and by British intelligence.
Dr. Kelly had been involved in his debriefing when he left Russia.
Sir
Edward Leigh, a member of the Parliamentary Defence Committee, in the
British Parliament stated, “the circumstantial evidence against
Russia is very strong. Who else would have the motive and the means?”
The answer to that of course is that the British government has the
motive and the means. What would Russia benefit from harming a
has-been like Skripal and causing all this fuss? None. What benefit
does Britain have and NATO? The answer again is provided by Sir
Richard who went on to state “The only way to preserve peace is
through strength,” carefully echoing Trump’s foreign policy. He
continued, “and if Russia is behind this, this is a brazen act of
war, of humiliating our country and defence is the first duty and
spending 2% of the budget on defence is not enough.” There is the
motive right there. To justify an increase on defence spending and to
hit Russia yet again with propaganda warfare to justify NATO’s
continuing aggression against Russia.
Russia
has volunteered to cooperate in the “investigation” but to what
end? The script is already written, the drama will unfold, the
consequences will flow and they will lead not to peace and
cooperation but to more hostility and war.
*
Christopher
Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is
known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently
published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on
international law, politics and world events, especially for the
online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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