Amesbury poisoning - LIVE: 'Contaminated item' blamed for critical condition of Wiltshire couple still not found
Counterror police investigate after pair poisoned with same chemical weapon used in attempted assassination of Russian ex-spy
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Police are still hunting for an item contaminated with a Soviet-era nerve agent blamed for the collapse of a couple in Amesbury after the UK government accused Russia of using ”barbaric and inhumane” chemical weapons on Britain’s streets.
Home secretary Savid Javid chaired an emergency Cobra meeting after Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell critically ill in Amesbury four months after exposure to the same novichok toxin used in an assassination attempt on Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
The couple are fighting for life in hospital after falling ill on Saturday.
Mr Javid told MPs that results from the government’s Porton Down laboratory confirmed the pair had been poisoned with ”the exact same nerve agent” used in March’s assassination attempt, which the British government alleges was planned by the Kremlin.
Mr Rowley, 45, and Ms Sturgess, 44, are not thought to have been deliberately targeted and have no known links to the Skripals or espionage.
One theory understood to be under investigation is that the pair may have inadvertently found a container used to transport the nerve agent for the initial attack and which may have been discarded in a public place.
Their poisoning has raised serious questions about the multi-million-pound clean-up following the attack in Salisbury, about eight miles from Amesbury.
Police said there is no evidence that either of the latest victims had recently visited any of the sites that were part of the original clean-up.
Securities minister Ben Wallace said the public are at “low risk” but “not zero risk”.
The Russian government has denied involvement in the attack on the Skripals and any role in or knowledge of the incident in Amesbury.
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Tommy Sheppard, the SNP MP for Edinburgh East, asks if the novichok which poisoned the Sturgess and Rowley was from the same batch used in the assassination attempt of the Skripals.
Savid Javid says the chemical was "the exact same nerve agent" used in March, but authorities "cannot attribute it to the same batch at this point". He says scientists are looking into whether it was the same batch but may not ever be able to do so.
Javid criticises MPs who have "supported Putin" by appearing on pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT.
Responding to a question from Labour MP Mike Gapes, he says any members with "an ounce of common sense" will release they must not lend support to the Russian president.
The home secretary says the government has not called the Russian ambassador for talks over the latest poisoning but may do "as the situation develops".
As police investigate how Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley came to be poisoned by novichok, one theory understood to be under investigation is that the pair may have inadvertently found a container - such as a phial or syringe - that used by Sergei Skripal's would-be assassins to carry the nerve agent.
Novichok remains highly toxic for a considerable period of time, so even the tiniest trace remaining in a container picked up by the victims could account for them falling critically ill.
Areas in Salisbury known to have been visited by the Skripals were subject to decontamination, and it is not thought that the current incident has any link to those locations.
Ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were reportedly under surveillance by the Russian authorities months before they were poisoned in Salisbury.
England fans in Russia have said they have no concerns that the Amesbury poisoning could cause possible tensions with locals.
Supporters in the country for the World Cup woke up to the news that a Soviet-style novichok nerve agent had left Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess critically ill in Wiltshire.
The Foreign Office had already warned fans before the football tournament of possible "anti-British sentiment" following the Sergei's Skripal poisoning and there resulting diplomatic row, and the latest incident threatens to plunge Britain's relations with the Kremlin further into the deep freeze.
But Kevin and Fiona Jones, who arrived in Samara on Thursday ahead of England's quarter final with Sweden, said they had enjoyed friendly interactions with locals.
Asked if he was concerned about potential tensions, Mr Jones, 54, from Tunbridge Wells, said. "No, no. I really don't see it. It's another poisoning, who knows what happened on the first one, let alone the second one?
"If they get knocked out it might change. But at the moment they are all on a high and buzzing with the fact their football team is doing so well.
"I don't think anyone gives a monkey's about anything other than football at the moment."
England fans drink at a cafe in Moscow
Mark Heys, 56, from Bridgnorth, Shropshire, agreed the deepening political tensions between the UK government and the Kremlin had not been an issue.
"None of the Russians I've met have any interest whatsoever in politics so they don't care," he said.
"We went to an FA briefing before we came out and they said, 'You won't have any trouble out here. From a political point of view, nobody cares'.
"It is exactly how they said it would be."
His friend Bob Green, 53, from Stamford, Lincolnshire, said he had "no concern at all".
He said: "At the Volgograd game they found it very funny they couldn't kill mosquitoes on the pitch and they were supposed to have killed people all around the world. That was like a national joke."
Residents at the homeless hostel in Salisbury where one of the new novichok victims lives have been evacuated.
Uniformed police officers are guarding John Baker House, where Dawn Sturgess had been staying, and investigators have been seen entering the building today.
This afternoon police widened a cordon around the support living building in Rollestone Street and workmen put up "incident screens" to obscure vision into the entrance.
A bin outside the hostel has been cordoned off and covered with a plastic sheet.
A police officer guards a bin outside John Baker House, where one of the novichok victims had been living
About 10 residents gathered outside said they were told by staff they had to be moved and rehoused elsewhere in the Wiltshire city.
Ben Jordan, 27, said: "We are being told we're being evacuated. Yesterday [police] were taking statements off of everybody."
Residents said officers, not in hazardous material clothing, had been guarding the door to Ms Sturgess's upstairs room but were unsure if they had been inside.
Sanctuary Housing, which runs John Baker House, redirected questions to the Metropolitan Police, which refused to comment.
Ms Sturgess was named locally as the 44-year-old woman taken to hospital on Saturday morning from her partner Charlie Rowley's flat in Muggleton Road, Amesbury.
Mr Rowley, 45, fell ill later that day.
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