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Russians Surface: Men claiming to be Salisbury suspects say they were only visiting cathedral
[MSN] The two men identified as suspects in the Salisbury nerve agent attack appeared on Russia’s state-funded TV station RT on Thursday, claiming they had visited the "wonderful" English city as tourists to see its cathedral.The pair, who said their names were Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, appeared to resemble men shown in stills from CCTV cameras released by British police investigating the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, a Russian ex-spy who passed information to the British. British police say that the names used by the men are aliases and that there is evidence that they are Russian military intelligence agents. In the interview the men said they had both been in Salisbury and were the people identified in the CCTV stills. "Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," the man identified as Alexander Petrov said. Boshirov added that the two had gone to visit Salisbury Cathedral, noting its high spire. He said: "There’s the famous Salisbury Cathedral, famous not just in Europe, but in the whole world. It’s famous for its 123-metre spire, it’s famous for its clock, the first one [of its kind] ever created in the world, which is still working." An anchor said the station would air more of the interview later during the show, but written highlights of the interview were posted online by RT before the video was released. In the interview, Boshirov said that while they walked around Salisbury, the two men "maybe approached Skripal’s house, but we didn’t know where it was located". The interview appeared to show that Russia was not planning to deny the veracity of video evidence released by Scotland Yard, but just to argue it had been misinterpreted. On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin called for the two men to speak with the media during an economic conference in Vladivostok. He said the two men were innocent and "civilians", apparently contradicting accusations by Scotland Yard that they were agents of Russian military intelligence. Posted by: JohnQC 2018-09-13 |
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