Assistance Requested by the United Kingdom Regarding Toxic Chemical Incident in Amesbury
THE HAGUE, Netherlands—4 September 2018— The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) transmitted today to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) the report of the OPCW’s mission to provide requested technical assistance in regard to an incident in Amesbury on 30 June 2018.
The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirm the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that intoxicated two individuals in Amesbury and resulted in one fatality.
The toxic chemical compound displays the same toxic properties of a nerve agent. It is also the same toxic chemical that was found in the biomedical and environmental samples relating to the poisoning of Mr. Sergei Skripal, Ms. Yulia Skripal, and Mr. Nicholas Bailey on 4 March 2018 in Salisbury.
The UK’s delegation to the OPCW requested that the Technical Secretariat share the report with all States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and to make the summary of the report publicly available.
The Director-General, H.E. Ambassador Fernando Arias, thanked all of the OPCW designated laboratories that supported the technical assistance request for their swift and thorough analysis.
