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Spy's war games
Poisoned former Russian double-agent spent much of his time alone, tending to his pets and playing old computer games
RUSSIAN double agent Sergei Skripal spent hours playing old computer war games in his “man cave” surrounded by his pet guinea pigs, friends revealed last night.
But the spook, still fighting for his life after being poisoned, was so useless with technology he did not even have a password for his PC.
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And the lonely widower’s only other companion was a pedigree Persian cat which cost him thousands of pounds to bring to Britain.
The glimpse into the ex-spy’s life emerged a week after he and daughter Yulia were targeted in a suspected Kremlin-backed hit.
Investigators continued to examine the graves of Skripal’s wife Liudmila and son Alexandr in a cemetery yesterday. There are no plans to exhume their bodies.
Two ambulances were also taken away for testing and decontamination. Military personnel in decontamination suits and masks were seen covering one vehicle with a tarpaulin before they moved it.
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Poisoned Russian spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia seen on CCTV moments before being found unconscious with mystery woman beside them
Police are working on the theory that Skripal was poisoned with nerve agent at his home in Salisbury, Wilts. He was found with his daughter, 33, slumped in a shopping centre in the city.
Det Sgt Nick Bailey, 38 and also still in hospital after being contaminated, is thought to have visited the house after attending the scene where the pair collapsed.
Friends said they had not seen Skripal’s pets for days and had not been asked to care for them.
They fear the animals might have come into contact with the nerve agent used in the attack.
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If traces are found, it would confirm the belief Skripal, 66, was poisoned at his home.
Pictures on Yulia’s Facebook page show her with the black Persian cat in Skripal’s back garden
One pal said: “He imported the cat a couple of years ago from Russia, he got it especially. It was really expensive. Everyone on Sergei’s street is really worried about it.
“If they used nerve agent in the house he was always petting his guinea pigs, so it will have got on them.” The friend said Skripal struggled with English but would become chatty when asked about his pets.
The pal added: “He had this huge hutch in the corner of his computer room at the front of his house where he kept the two guinea pigs.
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“He would take them out and pet them, or he would go into his kitchen next door and prepare his cat’s meal while I was there.”
Skripal, who came to Britain after a spy swap, had lived in the four-bed semi in a quiet cul-de-sac in Salisbury since 2011. Apart from the occasional outing to pubs or social clubs, he is thought to have spent hours on his own in the unremarkable property.
In his den at the front of the house he kept a hutch on the floor for his two guinea pigs, next to a desk with an ageing PC, stacked with old Russian war games.
Another smaller desk was used by Alexandr, who died suddenly of liver failure in St Petersburg last year. Skripal’s wife died of cancer in 2012.
Amber Rudd: 240 witnesses in Skripal poisoning
By David Wooding
COPS have identified more than 240 witnesses and 200 pieces of evidence, the Home Secretary revealed last night.
Amber Rudd said officers from eight of the country’s 11 counter-terrorism units are working on the case.
She added: “This is a serious, substantial investigation. We need to give the police and the investigators the space to get on with that.”
After a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee, she praised the 250 police working through a mountain of evidence and CCTV.
But she said it is too soon to discuss what action will be taken if Russia is found to be responsible.
She said: “There will come a time for a response, but at the moment we are focused on the investigation itself.
“They are proceeding with speed and professionalism. We are putting in enormous resources to ensure they have all the support they need.”
But another of Skripal’s pals rubbished claims he angered his former Russian bosses by working again in cyber security. The friend told The Sun: “For a Russian spy, he wasn’t very good with tech. He would ask us to fix very basic things. He struggled to connect to his wi-fi and didn’t even know how to turn his router off and on.
“He didn’t even have a password. I guess because he just lived with his son they trusted each other.
“If you take the sort of average person’s knowledge of a computer, Sergei’s was probably considerably worse than that.”
Instead, the source revealed he would spend hours sitting in a black wheeled office chair playing old Russian tank games. His friend added: “His PC was a few years old, but it was OK but the games were much older.
Friends knew about his past but never spoke to him about it.
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Archive video of Russian spy Sergei Skripal unloading Louis Vuitton bag at airport and his 2004 arrest
The pal said: “I saw him more as Sergei the retired bloke, rather than Sergei the spy.”
His demeanour changed after the death of 43-year-old Alexandr. The friend said: “They were incredibly close. It was just those two.
“He was always such a cheery guy, always smiling. But after his son died he was different. You could see it in his eyes.”
Stricken Cop: 'I'm no hero'
THE cop contaminated by a deadly nerve agent after rushing to the aid of stricken ex-spook Sergei Skripal insisted yesterday: “I’m not a hero.”
Det Sgt Nick Bailey, 38, was in intensive care but is now conscious and spoke out for the first time since falling ill last Sunday.
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From his hospital bed, he issued a message thanking the public and fellow officers for their support.
Wiltshire Police said: “Nick would like us to say on his behalf that he and his family are hugely grateful for all the messages of support from the public, and colleagues from the police family.
“People have been so kind and he has expressed that he will never forget that kindness.
“He also wishes to say that he was part of a group of officers and other emergency service colleagues who dealt with the initial incident.
“He wants to say that he does not consider himself a ‘hero’, he states he was merely doing his job — a job he loves and is immensely proud of — just like all of his other dedicated colleagues do, day in, day out, in order to protect the public.”
Det Sgt Bailey is understood to have visited the scene in Salisbury where Skripal, 66, and daughter Yulia, 33, were found slumped unconscious.
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But he is also thought to have gone to Skripal’s home soon after and it is feared he could have been contaminated there.
Yesterday, police and soldiers wearing protective clothing wrapped Det Sgt Bailey’s car in a tarpaulin before towing it away.
His vehicle had been left at the entrance to Salisbury District Hospital’s A&E.
ANDREW FOXALL: Putin has torn up the rule book of spycraft with his below the belt assassination
In the world of spycraft, “wet work” -- a euphemism for assassination -- of the kind that appears to have been attempted in Salisbury is considered below the belt.
In the world of spycraft, “wet work” -- a euphemism for assassination -- of the kind that appears to have been attempted in Salisbury is considered below the belt.
Sergei Skripal was arrested in 2004 by the FSB, Russia’s feared domestic security service and successor to the KGB. He reportedly admitted to having been recruited as an informer for Mi6 in 1995 and was found guilty of state treason in 2006. He was sentenced to 13 years in jail.
Skripal was swapped, in 2010, along with 3 other Russians for 10 Russian spies uncovered in the United States by the FBI. With the swap, Skripal was pardoned.
Until now, an unwritten rule of spycraft held that people like Skripal would not be targeted. He the swap he became ‘one of us’ and, with it, out of the spying game. Even during the Cold War, this had stood.
Skripal did not defect to the West — which is considered a much more serious offence in Moscow. He was not Oleg Gordievsky, the high-level KGB officer who was smuggled out of Moscow in the summer of 1985 -- at the height of the Cold War -- in the back of a car. Nor was he Stanislav Lunev, a high-ranking foreign intelligence officer who defected to the US in 1992 and revealed the locations of Russian weapons caches in the West.
But Vladimir Putin has torn up the existing rule book of spycraft -- just as his annexation of Crimea in 2014 tore up the post-Cold War European security order.
In 2006, he forced a law through Russia’s parliament which authorised the extrajudicial elimination of “terrorists” abroad. In Russia, this includes just about anybody who Putin believes threatens his grip on power.
If Russia is proven to be involved in Skripal’s poisoning, then this is a game changer. It doesn’t only break the existing rules, it is a new game entirely -- not only for spycraft but also for the West’s relations with Russia.
Dr Andrew Foxall is Director of the Russia and Euriasa Studies Centre at The Henry Jackson Society.
Double-agent Anna Chapman brands Skripal 'traitor' on Instagram
By Tom Wells
SEXY spy Anna Chapman has branded poisoned Sergei Skripal a traitor.
The flame-haired double agent, who was returned to Russia in a swap deal involving Skripal in 2010, hit out on Instagram.
She wrote: “As always Russia is guilty by default — despite the fact that traitor Skripal was pardoned by the President, and released.”
Chapman, 36, said Russia had nothing to gain by poisoning him. She added: “In any case, Russia is definitely not interested in such scandal.”
It also emerged that Skripal’s elderly mother has still not been told he is fighting for life.
Her family said she was in her 90s and too frail to cope. A relative said: “We are watching like hawks for every update. We pray for them day and night.”