A chemist who helped develop the nerve agent that Britain says was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter was investigated in the late 1990s for selling capsules of the toxin to Chechen mobsters.

Leonid Rink, who worked in a Soviet-era chemical weapons facility near the Russian town of Saratov, admitted to investigators after the killing of a Russian banker in 1995 that he sold capsules of the deadly Novichok toxin to Chechen criminals based in Moscow.

Chechen mobsters with ties to Chechnya’s pro-Moscow leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, have been prosecuted in recent years for a string of high-profile killings of opponents of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, including the 2015 slaying of leading opposition figure Boris Nemtsov.

“Yes, I understood these people planned to use the substance against people,” Rink told investigators after the 1995 poisoning of Russian banker Ivan Kivelidi, according to classified testimony published by Novaya Gazeta, an investigative newspaper.

Rink is credited with being one of the Soviet-era creators of the deadly military-grade nerve agent, and he has appeared on Russian state television commenting on the Skripal poisoning. In one interview he said Novichok was “the basis for my doctoral dissertation.” He has accused the British themselves of having poisoned Skripal, who was a Russian military intelligence officer recruited as a double agent by Britain’s MI6.

The British government blames the Kremlin for the poisoning of Skripal. But when British Prime Minister Theresa May formally leveled the accusation in a statement in the House of Commons on March 12, she offered a way out for the Kremlin, raising the possibility that Putin’s government might have “lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”

May gave Russia 24 hours to explain, but the Kremlin so far has refused to offer one. It has maintained its innocence and denies any involvement in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in the sleepy cathedral city of Salisbury. Kremlin officials have demanded Britain hand over a sample of the nerve agent used and has accused British ministers of insulting accusations.

The Russian Foreign ministry said it “regrets” the EU28 statement issued Saturday blaming Russia for the Salisbury attack. It said the EU was “heading toward an anti-Russia campaign, instigated by London and Washington.”

Another Russian scientist who worked on the Novichok program, Vil Mirzayanov, who fled to the U.S. two decades ago, has raised doubts about the possibility of Russian authorities losing control of any stockpiles of Novichok. He has told reporters that Soviet and later Russian authorities maintained tight control of the toxin, questioning whether any Novichok could have fallen into the hands of anyone the Kremlin did not want to have it.

But the 1995 slaying of Russian banking magnate Ivan Kivelidi and his secretary, who both died from organ failure after being contaminated, suggests otherwise.

In a secret trial, Kivelidi’s business partner was convicted of his killing. Prosecutors said he had obtained the poison via intermediaries, from Rink, then an employee at the state chemical research institute known as GosNIIOKhT. Rink admitted he had supplemented his state salary by selling capsules of the nerve agent — amounting to hundreds of lethal doses to various criminals, including Chechen mobsters — but he maintained he had done so a month after Kivelidi’s poisoning.

He got off lightly and wasn’t seriously punished, though, serving just a year in jail for “misuse of state property.”

Rink’s admission to investigators of having smuggled Novichok out of the Saratov facility adds a fresh quirk to the unfolding Skripal story. But some analysts warn that the re-surfacing of the case now serves the Kremlin, worrying that it is a diversion and designed to muddy the waters.

“Isn’t the point that Novichok needs to be precisely and expertly mixed an hour before its administration to be effective,” says Edward Lucas, author of the book, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West. “I think this is a diversion,” he told VOA.

Vil Mirzayanov suggested in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service that anyone could cook up Novichok because he posted the formula online.

Chechen assassins have been involved in a string of high-profile slayings of political and media critics of Putin in recent years, including leading opposition politician Nemtsov, who was shot dead in February 2015 near the Kremlin. But in all the cases prosecutors have failed to pursue the chain of command for the actions of the assassins, complain rights campaigners.

Five ethnic Chechens were found guilty of Nemtsov’s slaying and the gunman Zaur Dadayev, was a former member of an elite military under the command of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow president Ramzan Kadyrov. Chechens also were convicted for the 2006 shooting of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a thorn in the side of the Kremlin.

The investigation of the sale of toxins lasted several years, and Rink was questioned many times between 1999 to 2006, according to court documents. He detailed how he sold toxins to people connected with crime. He worked as head of the laboratory in a branch of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GOSNIIOHT) in the closed city of Shihany, near Saratov.

“Colleagues consider him to be a professional of the highest qualification in the field of highly toxic compounds, noting that ‘specialists of this level can be counted on the fingers,’” according to Novaya Gazeta. In 1994 chemical weapons scientists warned the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) state security officials that Novichok was “synthesized and sold in an unauthorized manner.”

Rink told FSB interrogators: “When I handed over [an ampule], I naturally instructed a person about the safety measures when handling this substance. I said that the substance acts when applied to the skin of a person and when the substance gets into the body with food. I said that the signs of death would be like a heart disease.”

The Novichok chemist wasn’t alone among Russian scientists and workers in state facilities to sell dangerous substances and military hardware. In the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union scientists and government workers were left unpaid for weeks and months at a time.

Stockpiles were not well secured — fissile material was sold on the black market, there were were thefts of radioactive material, propelled by the deteriorating economic and security conditions in military facilities.

 
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A Spanish Supreme Court judge charged 13 Catalan separatist leaders Friday with rebellion and other crimes for their attempt to declare independence from Spain last year.

Issuing the indictment, Judge Pablo Llarena said he would try the Catalan politicians, including fugitive president Carles Puigdemont. The court did not give a date for the trial.

In total, 25 separatist politicians will be tried for rebellion, embezzlement or disobedience, the judge said in the ruling.

Rebellion charges are punishable with up to 25 years in prison under Spanish laws.

Llarena also requested that 14 members of the previous Catalan regional administration deposit $2.59 million in a bank account to reimburse the money used to hold the October 1 referendum, which courts ruled as illegal, and cover judicial costs.

Among those charged with rebellion are Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras, former Catalan parliament speaker Carme Forcadell, separatist activists Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart and ERC party leader Marta Rovira, who on Friday announced that she was fleeing Spain.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium last autumn after an arrest warrant was issued against him.

On Friday he spoke at an event at the University of Helsinki, criticizing the European Union’s silence on “the violation of the European charter of fundamental rights.”

Puigdemont said the EU said “nothing when the Spanish authorities started violent repression,” in the wake of the Catalan independence referendum.
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U.S. prosecutors have quietly dropped charges against 11 of the 15 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security detail who were criminally indicted in an assault on protesters during a visit by Erdogan to Washington.

Criminal charges related to the incident against four of the bodyguards were dismissed last November while the indictment against the seven others was withdrawn February 14, the day before outgoing Secretary of State Rex TIllerson visited Turkey to meet with Erdogan in a bid to mend ties between the two NATO allies.

The timing has fueled speculation that the decision to dismiss the indictment was made as a goodwill gesture to Erdogan, who saw the charges against his security personnel as an affront and called the indictment “a complete scandal.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the department had no role in the decision.

“That was entirely coming out of the Department of Justice,” Nauert told reporters, dismissing reports that Tillerson had discussed the issue with Erdogan during their meeting in Ankara.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the case.

Problem with evidence

A government official familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to drop the charges was made for “evidentiary reasons.”

It came after the Turkish government raised questions about the identity of some of the 15 security guards named in the indictment, the official said.

“The [Turkish] government claimed that some of the people were not on the scene, and in some cases they were verified,” the official said. “We have to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, and a decision was made to dismiss the charges for evidentiary reasons.”

WATCH: Anti-Erdogan Protesters Say Bodyguards Attacked Them

Another person close to the case said that during the protest, at least three of the indicted security guards were outside Washington. One was at a mall outside the city, a second on a Turkish air force plane at a nearby airport and a third in Istanbul.

“It would be embarrassing if they charged people who were not there,” the person said, requesting anonymity.

March 2017 incident

The fight broke out after a small group of demonstrators gathered near the Turkish ambassador’s house shortly after Erdogan met with President Donald Trump at the White House on May 16, 2017.

Video of the brawl recorded by a VOA journalist showed security guards in dark suits and combat boots pushing, shoving and kicking the protesters, some of whom were carrying Kurdish flags.

According to prosecutors, the attackers included members of the Turkish diplomatic delegation as well as Erdogan’s supporters, who had warned the police that there would be violence if the protest continued.

“You need to take them; if you don’t, I will,” Erdogan security guard Gokhan Yildirim allegedly told a police officer on the scene. 

WATCH: Turkey’s Erdogan Watched Violent Clash Near Embassy

​A grand jury later indicted 19 people, including 15 of Erdogan’s security guards, on charges of conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Most of the security personnel were indicted on additional charges.

Charges against four other security guards are pending. The government official would not say whether prosecutors will seek to dismiss those charges as well.

The security guards were not arrested.

Two Turkish-Americans involved in the melee pleaded guilty to felony assault charges in December and are scheduled to be sentenced April 5. They face one year in prison. Their lawyers did not respond to requests for comments.

Assault charges against two Canadian citizens of Turkish ancestry, who were accused of attacking the protesters, are still pending. They’ve not been arrested, and it remains unclear whether they’ll be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

VOA’S State Department correspondent Nike Ching and researcher Lynn Davis contributed to this report.
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“I brought tea for you — English tea, from Fortnum and Mason, the very best,” chirped the financial adviser in the foyer of a plush Moscow hotel near the Kremlin.  “You have a package for me, I think,” he added before scurrying off with his Russian client.

The adviser, like many of his British colleagues, has been making routine rounds to reassure clients since the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain, an attempted assassination Britain accuses the Kremlin of orchestrating.

British ministers and their Kremlin counterparts have been threatening further reprisals after retaliatory expulsions of diplomats in response to the Skripal attack.

With Anglo-Russian relations plunging to their lowest point since the Cold War, British financial advisers in Moscow had expected to encounter Russian clients anxious about Britain mounting a retaliatory financial crackdown on Russian money invested in London.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to go after the financial assets in Britain of wealthy Russians connected to the Kremlin.

But it is business as usual in Moscow.

Advisers visiting the Russian capital say oligarchs and other super-wealthy businessmen appear unconcerned, having concluded May is all bark and no bite.  

Part of the reason is Britain has been reluctant in the past to use already existing legislation to probe too deeply the origins of Russian money spent in Britain, fearing it might lead to an exodus of Russian cash out of the country.  Moscow investors also believe Brexit-mired Britain is going to need Russian money even more in the future and chasing it out risks also frightening super-wealthy investors from other countries.

“My clients don’t see it as a threat,” said the adviser who exchanged tea for a package of signed documents.  He asked not to be identified.  “Neither do we.  The new measures being drafted are just repeating legislation that’s already available and will rest largely unused.  What few investigations launched will take forever and then get bogged down in the courts,” he said.

Britain’s past unwillingness to investigate Russian money, and the suspicion Britain isn’t serious this time either, is not helping May convince Britain’s European allies to do more than issue statements of solidarity over the Skripal poisoning.

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of Germany’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, has highlighted the need for Britain “to examine its open stance toward Russian capital of dubious origin” before it starts asking for concrete action by Britain’s allies.

In response to doubts about their determination, British officials say they are likely to ban secretive Scottish limited partnerships that have been used to hide the true ownership of some Russian-origin money. The Scottish-based shell companies have long been a target of transparency campaigners.

May was due to brief  EU leaders Thursday in Brussels on the investigation into the March 4 nerve-agent poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.  Both remain in critical condition.

May will warn Russia is a threat to Western democracy, according to British officials.

“The challenge of Russia is one that will endure for years to come,” she will say, according to extracts released in advance by her office.  “As a European democracy, the United Kingdom will stand shoulder to shoulder with the European Union and with NATO to face these threats together.  United we will succeed,” she will add.

EU leaders are expected to strongly condemn the attack, but fearful of push-back the British government isn’t asking EU partners to agree to fresh sanctions on Russia in addition to the Ukraine-related ones already in effect.

Behind-the-scenes, British officials have sought to persuade their European neighbors to expel undeclared spies among Russian diplomats based in their countries, say European officials.

But it is unclear whether Britain will be successful in persuading other EU countries to agree to point the finger at Moscow.

Several states, including Italy and Greece, appear eager to shield their ties with Russia and are resisting a stark statement of blame.  The United States, France and Germany have said they accept Britain’s assessment Russia is the only plausible culprit.  But Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Austria say the accusation remains to be proven.

They are not alone, even some Putin critics in Russia question whether the Kremlin ordered the attack.  

Outspoken Putin opponent Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB counter-intelligence officer, says he believes Russian intelligence has carried out overseas assassinations in recent years, but he says he “can’t find rational explanations for” the attack on Skripal.

“After the so called ‘umbrella assassination’ of Georgi Markov in London in the late 1970s, the KGB decided to stop all special [assassination] operations abroad.  It seems to me that today the concept has changed and some of the special operations related to the elimination of political opponents has been done with the help of the intelligence,” he told VOA.
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