Sergei Skripal’s family demand to know why ex-spy’s beloved pet cats and guinea pigs ‘didn’t die from nerve agent’
The family's demands come after experts have said they "don't know the precise source" of the deadly nerve agent used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter
THE family of poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal is demanding Britain explains what happened to his beloved cats and guinea pigs.
Niece Viktoria Skripal, 45, who aims to travel to Britain soon to see her stricken relatives, says reports that her uncle and his daughter were hit with a lethal nerve agent while at home are “nonsense”.
She believes if this was the case, it would have been reported that the animals died.
According to reports, police believe the novichok was 'wiped on the front door' of the the ex-spy's Salisbury home.
Viktoria said: “Nonsense. First of all, it is not possible to go close [to the house].
“Secondly, if they were poisoned there, what happened to the animals? They had a cat Masyanya from Russia and one more cat, from a shelter, then there were two guinea pigs."
She continued: “The cats might run away but the guinea pigs should have been found dead in their cage. Nothing has been said about this."
She told a Moscow newspaper that she hopes she will "learn more" when she gets to the UK.
One report citing neighbours said the Skripal pets - including Sergei's favourite imported Persian cat - had been taken away “to be assessed”.
But they have not been seen since, nor have police clarified their status, and it is unclear where they are now or whether they suffered nerve agent poisoning.
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Meanwhile Yulia’s “lost dog” called Noir in Russia has been found, still in the kennels where she dropped him off before her visit to England.
Noir had been reported missing but cousin Viktoria paid a visit to the kennels near Podolsk, and said the dog is "well looked after" and being paid for by a mystery donor.
The family's demands to know what happened to Mr Skripal's pets comes after the head of Britain's military research centre said on it was unable to prove the military-grade nerve agent that poisoned the former double agent and his daughter last month had been produced in Russia.
"We were able to identify it as Novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent," Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in England, told Sky News.
"We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to."
Moscow has denied being behind the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury on March 4.
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