The Skripal Poisoning - A Very Deep British Affair

[Peter Lemkin]

STAN senators seek treason charge against Zeman

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ÄŒTK |
18 MAY 2018
Prague, May 17 (CTK) - Czech senators for the Mayors and Independents (STAN) will prepare documents enabling to sue President Milos Zeman for treason over his words about the production of the Novichok nerve agent in the Czech Republic, which endangered people's security, Jiri Sestak said on Thursday.
Sestak, head of the STAN senators' group, was speaking to journalists.
The STAN's plan has been backed by the Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) senators, while the Civic Democrats (ODS), another party critical of Zeman, reacted with reserve.
Zeman's spokesman Jiri Ovcacek called the STAN's plan a threat to democracy.
In early May, Zeman said, referring to the Military Intelligence Service (VZ), that Novichok was produced in the Czech Republic last year. According to the civilian counter-intelligence service (BIS), no Novichok was produced in the country, Zeman continued, but added that he prefers sharing the VZ's opinion.
Moscow used Zeman's statements to challenge London's assertion that the Novichok substance, with which former Russian agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned in Britain in March, came from Russia.
Sestak said as a result of Zeman's statements, a potential enemy or terrorist organisation know now what Czech chemical warfare forces have been preparing for, what scenarios and what substances they are prepared for and what not.
The STAN group has 12 members in the 81-seat Senate, the upper house of parliament. A proposal for a constitutional lawsuit can be submitted by at least one third (27) of senators. The groups of the ODS and the KDU-CSL have 10 and 16 members, respectively.
"That is why we have decided to launch the preparation of documents that would be checked in cooperation with constitutional lawyers and then lead to accusing the president of treason," Sestak said.
KDU-CSL senators' group head Petr Silar said the group will support the STAN's proposal, which it considers correct, meaningful and necessary.
ODS group chairman Jiri Oberfalzer, on his part, said everything Zeman does are political and extremely provocative acts but none of them can be called treason.
"That is why we approach the [STAN] proposal with reserve," he said.
In reaction to Sestak, Ovcacek said the STAN senators' plan is an attack on Zeman.
"By their another attack on the directly elected president, the STAN extremists threaten democracy and freedom in the Czech Republic," Ovcacek tweeted.
STAN is a centre-right movement initiated by town mayors and independent personalities in 2009 and popular mainly on the municipal level. It has also representatives in the Chamber of Deputies.
Zeman is the first Czech president to be elected directly by people in 2013 and again this January.
To be accepted, a proposed lawsuit against the president needs support from at least three fifths of the senators attending the session, which is 49 if all 81 senators are present.
Afterwards, it would need approval from at least three fifths (120) of the lower house's 200 members.
On Wednesday, the Senate committee for foreign affairs, defence and security said in a resolution that Zeman had presented untrue information on the production of Novichok in the Czech Republic. Secret services share the view that Novichok was never produced or stored in the Czech Republic, the committee stated.
It said Zeman threatened the country's security interests by releasing other data that security services provided to him.
Commenting on the STAN's plan, the committee chairman Frantisek Bublan (for the Social Democrats, CSSD) said on Thursday the process of suing the president for treason is difficult and lengthy and that he personally does not support the plan. The case would sharply divide Czech society, Bublan said.



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[David Guyatt]

German media is reporting that a sample of Novichok nerve agent was obtained from a Russian scientist by German intelligence in the 1990's. IT destroys Theresa May's ludicrous statement that Russia could have been the only nation capable of poisoning the Skripals - even assuming they were poisoned by Novichok in the first place.

My guess is that this story was leaked by BND. But why? Why now?

I harbour a suspicion this has to do with the EU's massive disapproval of Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, but worse to punish EU corporations that do business with Iran via US imposed sanctions. I note that Angela Merkel is in Sochi today to meet Putin to discuss the Iran nuclear deal.

From The Independent.

Germany obtained novichok nerve agent sample in 1990s, reports says

[FONT=&amp]The West's knowledge of the novichok nerve agent used to poison a former Russian spy and his daughter came from a sample smuggled to Germany in the 1990s, local media reports.
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[FONT=&amp]Britain blamed Russia for the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed its analysis.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]More than 20 Western countries expelled Russian diplomats over the issue, in the biggest expulsion since the Cold War.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]In a joint report, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the weekly Die Zeit and broadcasters NDR and WDR said Germany's BND spy agency had secured the sample of novichok from a Russian scientist.
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[FONT=&amp]The sample was taken to Sweden for analysis and the chemical formula given to the German government and military, the report said, citing sources.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Western countries used the information to help develop countermeasures.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]The story could help explain how Britain was able to analyse the poison it said was used to attack the Skripals in Salisbury in March.[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Moscow has denied blame for the attack and accused London of not being forthcoming in how it investigated the poisoning.[/FONT][FONT=&amp]
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[FONT=&amp]"The finding about a class of weapons known as novichok developed in the former Soviet Union largely stems from a previously unknown secret operation of the BND," a summary of the German news organisations' joint report said.
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[FONT=&amp]It said it was unclear what had become of the sample, and said the Swedish government had said it could not provide information about the process on short notice. The BND also declined to comment on the report.
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[FONT=&amp]A spokesman for the German defence ministry said the military researched how to protect against chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear weapons materials, in accordance with international law, but could not provide details so as to safeguard members of the military and the German population.
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[FONT=&amp]"This includes the question about which substances are being researched and the availability of these materials," a ministry spokesman said. "As a result, statements and assertions about this are not confirmed, denied or commented on."
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[FONT=&amp]The German media report said the BND had informed the US and British intelligence agencies about the case following the analysis, and small amounts of the poison were later produced in several Nato member states to test Western protective gear, testing equipment and antidotes.
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[FONT=&amp]Mr Skripal remains in hospital in Salisbury, where his condition is said to be improving and he is no longer in a critical condition.
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[FONT=&amp]His daughter was discharged last month and is recovering at an undisclosed location.
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[FONT=&amp]Investigators are yet to identify who carried out the poisoning, the national security adviser told MPs earlier this month.[/FONT]

[Peter Lemkin]

So, by my count, non-secret sources/public sources have stated that the following countries had and or have Novichok agents: UK, Russia, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, USA. I'm sure this is not a complete list, by far. As has also been made clear, whatever the Skripals were exposed to do not fit the description of effects nor timing of effects of Novichok....so perhaps who has or has had Novichok is a moot point....but the UK is going around at the highest levels saying only the Russians had the means and MOTIVE - with little proof/logic, if any. I don't yet know what to make of Skirpal's visit to Prague and Czech intelligence. They indicate that he had a much higher position as a spy in both Russia and the UK than either side has let on. Maybe - we don't know and likely may not know. Both sides might have reasons to get 'rid of 'em....but in such a public and bungled way after such a long stay in the UK is odd..... In fact, everything about the 'affair' seems quite odd - the hallmark of a false-flag operation....but whos?! Maybe Mr. Skripal himself did this - or some non-state actor who had some ax to burn with him. Interestingly, this may cause a call for the impeachment of the Czech President for telling the truth - that is a new one here!....::bowtie:: That will teach him and set an example.......!

[Peter Lemkin]

Mr. Skripal was just released from hospital....he's fine they say....::willynilly::

[Peter Lemkin]

Novichok case deleted from lower house agenda on KSCM's proposal

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ÄŒTK |
23 MAY 2018
Prague, May 22 (CTK) - The Czech Chamber of Deputies will not discuss the case of Novichok's presence in the country at the current plenary session in reaction to President Milos Zeman's words, since the issue has been withdrawn from the session agenda at the initiative of the Communists (KSCM).
In the vote on the programme, KSCM MP Leo Luzar's proposal to delete the issue from the agenda was supported by deputies for the KSCM, except for Jiri Dolejs, and also the deputies for the ANO movement, except for lower house chairman Radek Vondracek, and the deputies for the anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement.
It was also supported by Jaroslav Foldyna, one of the 15 deputies for the Social Democrats (CSSD).
"It is not Czech parliament's task to assess steps taken by a directly elected president," Luzar said, adding that the KSCM is opposed to disgracing the president.
The right-wing opposition has called for an extraordinary session of the Chamber of Deputies to be convoked to discuss the Novichok issue.
TOP 09 deputies' group chairman Miroslav Kalousek said TOP 09 will start collecting signatures in support of a special session. At least 40 deputies' signatures are needed for an extraordinary session to be convoked.
The other rightist opposition parties, the Civic Democrats (ODS) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), backed TOP 09's initiative.
KDU-CSL deputies' group head Jan Bartosek said the KSCM has been implementing the Kremlin's programme. He reproached the lawmakers of ANO, which is the strongest of the nine parties in the lower house, for behaving like a horse trader and failing to defend the country's interests.
The ODS, the KDU-CSL and TOP 09 together have 42 seats in the 200-seat lower house.
Bartosek and ODS deputies' group chairman Zbynek Stanjura warned the CSSD against forming a government coalition with ANO.
"It has turned out that when at a loss, ANO tends to ally with the Communists and the SPD," Bartosek said, adding that ANO would behave in the same way even as the government partner of the CSSD.
According to Stanjura, ANO continues cooperating with the [extremist] KSCM and SPD [despite having pledged loyalty to the CSSD as a partner in the nascent coalition government].
"If you believe that this will change one day, it really will not in the current election term," Stanjura told the CSSD.
"The voting coalition of ANO, the SPD and the KSCM goes on," TOP 09 chairman Jiri Pospisil has tweeted, alluding to previous joint votes of the three parties, which together command 115 votes.
Mayors and Independents (STAN) deputies' group deputy chairman Vit Rakusan told journalists that the KSCM, which is expected to keep a possible ANO-CSSD minority government afloat in parliament, would not be merely a supportive party but a coalition party pursuing its own interests.
Similarly, Fiala said it is turning out that in the "crucial question of our security and foreign policy, the Communists can decide on what the Chamber of Deputies will deal with."
In early May, Zeman said on television, citing the Military Intelligence Service (VZ), that Novichok, a nerve-paralysing substance, was produced in the Czech Republic last year. He said the counter-intelligence service (BIS) said no Novichok had been produced in the country but that he preferred sharing the VZ's view.
Moscow used Zeman's words to challenge London's assertion that Novichok, with which former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in Britain in March, came from Russia.
Zeman's words about the Czech production of Novichok were subsequently dismissed by PM Andrej Babis (ANO), the lower house's foreign committee and the upper house's security and foreign committee. Based on secret services' reports, which, they said, do not differ on the Novichok presence, they stated that Novichok had been neither produced nor stored in the Czech Republic.
The Senate committee stated that Zeman released untrue information about the Czech production of Novichok, by which he jeopardised Czech security interests.
Senators for the Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement announced that they will prepare documents enabling to file a constitutional lawsuit against Zeman on suspicion of treason.



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[David Guyatt]

Yulia Skripal interviewed and filmed HERE:

[Peter Lemkin]

Yulia Skripal interviewed and filmed HERE:

She didn't say much of importance [I thought]...but her physical condition was amazing considering the alleged poison and known effects - including lasting effects on those few who survive it [do not die from it]. I noted a scar from a tracheotomy on her neck. A better format would be questions and answers from Yulia - as so many areas of the matter were not addressed.

[David Guyatt]

Yulia Skripal interviewed and filmed HERE:

She didn't say much of importance [I thought]...but her physical condition was amazing considering the alleged poison and known effects - including lasting effects on those few who survive it [do not die from it]. I noted a scar from a tracheotomy on her neck. A better format would be questions and answers from Yulia - as so many areas of the matter were not addressed.

Q & A verbotten I think, and issues "not addressed" because she can't speak openly and freely.

Craig Murray's latest. He's the only person in the UK who has undertaken serious and objective investigation of this affair. The media is fucked beyond all recognition.

Yulia Skripal and the Salisbury WUT

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24 May, 2018 in Uncategorized by craig

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It was happy to see Yulia alive and looking reasonably well yesterday, if understandably stressed. Notably, and in sharp contrast to Litvinenko, she leveled no accusations at Russia or anybody else for her poisoning. In Russian she spoke quite naturally. Of the Russian Embassy she said very simply "I am not ready, I do not want their help". Strangely this is again translated in the Reuters subtitles by the strangulated officialese of "I do not wish to avail myself of their services", as originally stated in the unnatural Metropolitan Police statement issued on her behalf weeks ago.
"I do not wish to avail myself of their services" is simply not a translation of what she says in Russian and totally misses the "I am not ready" opening phrase of that sentence. My conclusion is that Yulia's statement was written by a British official and then translated to Russian for her to speak, rather than the other way round. Also that rather than translate what she said in Russian themselves for the subtitles, Reuters have subtitled using a British government script they have been given.
It would of course have been much more convincing had Sergei also been present. Duress cannot be ruled out when he is held by the British authorities. I remain extremely suspicious that, at the very first chance she got in hospital, Yulia managed to get hold of a telephone (we don't know how, it was not her own and she has not had access to one since) and phone her cousin Viktoria, yet since then the Skripals have made no attempt to contact their family in Russia. That includes no contact to Sergei's aged mum, Yulia's grandmother, who Viktoria cares for. Sergei normally calles his mother who is 89 regularly. This lack of contact is a worrying sign that the Skripals may be prevented from free communication to the outside world. Yulia's controlled and scripted performance makes that more rather than less likely.
We know a little more about the Salisbury attack now:
Nobody not Porton Down, not the OPCW has been able to state that the nerve agent found was of Russian manufacture, a fact which the MSM continues to disgracefully fudge with "developed in Russia" phrasing. As is now well known and was reported by Iran in scientific literature, Iran synthesised five novichoks recently. More importantly, the German spying agency BND obtained novichok in the 1990s and it was studied and synthesised in several NATO countries, almost certainly including the UK and USA.
In 1998, chemical formulae for novichok were introduced into the United States NIST National Institute of Standards and Technologies Mass Spectrometry Library database by U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical and Biological Defense Command, but the entry was later deleted. In 2009 Hillary Clinton instructed US diplomats to feign ignorance of novichoks, as revealed by the last paragraph of this Wikileaks released diplomatic cable.
Most telling was the Sky News interview with the head of Porton Down. Interviewer Paul Kelso repeatedly pressed Aitkenhead directly on whether the novichok could have come from Porton Down. Aitkenhead replies "There is no way, anything like that could…leave these four walls. We deal with a number of toxic substances in the work that we do, we've got the highest levels of security and controls". Asked again twice, he each times says the security is so tight "the substance" could not have come from Porton Down. What Aitkenhead does NOT say is "of course it could not have come from here, we have never made it". Indeed Aitkenhead's repeated assertion that the security would never have let it out, is tantamount to an admission Porton Down does produce novichok.
If somebody asked you whether the lion that savaged somebody came from your garden, would you reply "Don't be stupid, I don't have a lion in my garden" or would you say, repeatedly, "Of course not, I have a very strong lion cage?". Here you can see Mr Aitkenhead explain repeatedly he has a big lion cage, from 2'25" in.

So the question of where the nerve agent was made remains unresolved. The MSM has continually attempted to lie about this and affirm that all novichok is Russian made. The worst of corporate and state journalism in the UK was exposed when they took the OPCW's report that it confirmed the findings of Porton Down and presented that as confirming the Johnson/May assertion that it was Russia, whereas the findings of Porton Down were actually as the Aitkenhead interview stated categorically that they could not say where it was made.
The other relatively new development is the knowledge that Skripal had not retired but was active for MI6 on gigs briefing overseas intelligence agencies about Russia. This did not increase his threat to Russia, as he told everything he knows a decade ago. But it could provide an element of annoyance that would indeed increase Russian official desire to punish him further.
But the fact he was still very much active has a far greater significance. The government slapped a D(SMA) noticeon the identity of Pablo Miller, Skripal's former MI6 handler who lives close by in Salisbury and who worked for Christopher Steele's Orbis Intelligence at the time that Orbis produced the extremely unreliable dossier on Trump/Russia. The fact that Skripal had not retired but was still briefing on Russia, to me raises to a near certainty the likelihood that Skripal worked with Miller on the Trump dossier.
I have to say that, as a former Ambassador in the former Soviet Union trained in intelligence analysis and familiar with MI6 intelligence out of Moscow, I agree with every word of this professional dissection of the Orbis Trump dossier by Paul Roderick Gregory, irrespective of Gregory's politics. In particular this paragraph, which Gregory wrote more than a year before the Salisbury attack, certainly applies to much of the dossier.

I have picked out just a few excerpts from the Orbis report. It was written, in my opinion, not by an ex British intelligence officer but by a Russian trained in the KGB tradition. It is full of names, dates, meetings, quarrels, and events that are hearsay (one an overheard conversation). It is a collection of "this important person" said this to "another important person." There is no record; no informant is identified by name or by more than a generic title. The report appears to fail the veracity test in the one instance of a purported meeting in which names, dates, and location are provided. Some of the stories are so bizarre (the Rosneft bribe) that they fail the laugh test. Yet, there appears to be a desire on the part of some media and Trump opponents on both sides of the aisle to picture the Orbis report as genuine but unverifiable.

The Russian ex-intelligence officer who we know was in extremely close contact with Orbis at the time the report was written, was Sergei Skripal.
The Orbis report is mince. Skripal knew it was mince and how it was written. Skripal has a history of selling secrets to the highest bidder. The Trump camp has a lot of money. My opinion is that as the Mueller investigation stutters towards ignominious failure, Skripal became a loose end that Orbis/MI6/CIA/Clinton (take your pick) wanted tied off. That seems to me at least as likely as a Russian state assassination. To say Russia is the only possible suspect is nonsense.
The Incompetence Factor
The contradiction between the claim that the nerve agent was so pure it could only be manufactured by a state agent, and yet that it failed because it was administered in an amateur and incompetent fashion, does not bother the mainstream media. Boris Johnson claimed that the UK had evidence that Russia had a ten year programme of stockpiling secret novichok and he had a copy of a Russian assassination manual specifying administration by doorknob. Yet we are asked to believe that the Russians failed to notice that administration by doorknob does not actually work, especially in the rain. How two people both touched the doorknob in closing the door is also unexplained, as is how one policeman became poisoned by the doorknob but numerous others did not.
The explanations by establishment stooges of how this "ten times more powerful than VX" nerve agent only works very slowly, but then very quickly, if it touches the skin, and still does not actually kill you, have struck me as simply desperate. They make May's ringing claims of a weapon of mass destruction being used on British soil appear somewhat unjustified. Weapon of Upset Tummy does not sound quite so exciting.
To paint a doorknob with something that if it touches you can kill you requires great care and much protective gear. That no strangely dressed individual has been identified by the investigation which seems to be getting nowhere in identifying the culprit is the key fact here. None of us know who did this. The finger-pointing at Russia by corporate and state interests seeking to stoke the Cold War is disgusting.

[Paul Rigby]

Yulia Skripal interviewed and filmed HERE:

Not since Sir Herbert Tooth emerged from a Donetsk pig-farm, covered only by a loin-cloth & reciting passages of Das Kapital, has there been such compelling proof of Russian perfidy.

And that Novichuk is amazingly kind to the hair.

[David Guyatt]

Yulia Skripal interviewed and filmed HERE:

Not since Sir Herbert Tooth emerged from a Donetsk pig-farm, covered only by a loin-cloth & reciting passages of Das Kapital, has there been such compelling proof of Russian perfidy.

And that Novichuk is amazingly kind to the hair.

Doctors now recommend using a small dose of "high purity" Novichok as an additive to toothpaste at night as this has proven to be highly beneficial to a long, comfortable nights sleep.

What hair?