On December 4th, a long-running Inquiry into the mysterious July 2018 death of Dawn Sturgess delivered its final report. To the surprise of surely no one, it concluded Sturgess was contaminated with Novichok as a result of the attempted assassination of GRU defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury by Russian intelligence operatives, directed by Vladimir Putin, four months earlier. While the mainstream media unquestioningly accepted the findings as unchallengeable gospel, evidence heard and produced throughout the Inquiry raised considerably more questions than it provided answers.
Sturgess’ death, many miles away from Salisbury, was a puzzling coda to the already enigmatic poisonings of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March 2018. She is the only person in history known to have died from coming into contact with Novichok, despite the substance being the most lethal nerve agent known to man, and Russian intelligence repeatedly using it to strike targets – purportedly. Her boyfriend Charlie Rowley allegedly gifted her a bottle of Novichok disguised as perfume, which he found – when and where, he seemingly doesn’t know.
Despite apparently spraying the substance on his hands, then wiping it on his jeans, Rowley didn’t die. He was hospitalised unconscious on June 30th 2018, hours after Sturgess collapsed, having unwittingly contaminated herself with Novichok. Or so British authorities would have us believe. Rowley awoke on July 10th, two days after Sturgess’ death. Inexplicably, he was one of many absolutely key witnesses the Inquiry neglected to call to testify. Then again, the process was a flagrant whitewash farce from start to finish.
Under English law, a coroner’s inquest should typically be completed within six to nine months of an individual’s passing. However, as independent journalist John Helmer has extensively documented, British authorities were suspiciously resistant to convening one for Sturgess. It was only after intense legal battles between Sturgess’ family and the government that an Inquiry was instituted. Unlike inquests, which have sweeping legal powers, inquiries are little more than flaccid public relations exercises. Those interviewed and evidence considered was strictly limited, by state decree.
This fudge conveniently prevented British intelligence agencies from scrutiny – an astonishing shortfall, given much of the Inquiry focused on the supposed link between the poisonings of the Skripals and Sturgess’ death. Inquiry chief Anthony Hughes, a former Supreme Court judge, concluded the Skripals’ alleged GRU assassins, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, “brought with them to Salisbury” Novichok secreted in a perfume bottle. He added, “it was probably [emphasis added] this bottle that they used to apply poison to the door handle of Sergei Skripal’s house”.
Hellbound and Down 