Skripal and Sturgess "Novichok" Official Inquiry

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Moved from Death of Dawn Sturgess

Coordinated Response to Inquiry

See also Poisoning_of_Sergei_Skripal#Police

Priti Patel announced that a public inquiry will be held (commencing Feb 25th 2022) and the inquest will be adjourned thereupon. Documents submitted by Wilts Police to the Inquest show that is under direction from Government Legal Department to avoid inadeverdent disclosure of sensitive material. They will comply with Operation Verbasco, the Counter Terrorism Policing (Metropolitan & Thames Valley Police) response to the Inquest into the death of Dawn Sturgess: The Operation Verbasco team are assisting Wiltshire Police in their disclosure exercise, which will follow the same process, and have dedicated significant resource to setting up the relevant infrastructure to assist Wiltshire Police to provide relevant disclosure to the Coroner in a manner which does not harm national security.[1]

A hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, ahead of a public inquiry, was told that there is so much "sensitive" material to consider that a date for the hearings will not be set until next spring. Andrew O'Connor KC, for the inquiry said that a restriction order would normally be made by the chairman in a "transparent" way, having heard submissions from "core participants". "A restriction notice, by contrast, is essentially an instruction from a government minister made without consultation," he added, addressing the chairman. "In most - some would say all - cases it ought to be you and not the secretary of state who takes the decision as to what evidence can be adduced in open proceedings, and what material must remain in closed." However, he said that the restriction notice covers "only a small set of documents which represent an extremely small proportion of the total number of documents that have been provided, or are being provided, to the inquiry legal team by His Majesty's government." It will not prevent the chairman from considering the material during closed hearings. So far, only 40 documents of the 28,000 disclosed to the inquiry by the government and police have been passed to lawyers for the Sturgess family.

"Public" Inquiry into the Death of Dawn Sturgess

In its OPEN position statement, Op Verbasco explained that it would be necessary to protect certain aspects of police methodology and tactics in respect of the investigation of matters of national security...
Although the preparation for such an application is well under way, there is still a substantial amount of work to be done before the application can be made, including liaison with each of the “equity holders” within policing, so as to ensure that the scope of the application accurately reflects the underlying sensitivities...
The nature and extent of the national security concerns which arise in the context of this Inquiry necessitate extensive and carefully developed security arrangements. These arrangements come at a significant time-cost and expense, and maintaining the security of sensitive material which is required in the environs of the OPEN hearings will not be without its challenges, whether those hearings are held in London or Salisbury...
The family readily accept there are a considerable number of documents and they contain some very sensitive information. But it is impossible to understand why it requires more than 6 years to identify sensitive material in relevant documents. Other national security related inquiries have proceeded to CP disclosure, via RO applications, far more quickly, e.g. see the Manchester Arena Inquiry...
The previous inquest into her death was converted into a public inquiry to allow it to have access to top secret intelligence which will be considered in private. Lawyers acting on behalf of the government have defended the "exceptional" disclosure delays at Friday's hearing, saying sensitive information has been found in more than 1,000 documents.
The veto will cover police records; closed-circuit television (CCTV) films; laboratory reports by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; Salisbury District Hospital patient admission and clinical test results; witness testimony; coroner’s cremation forms...

September 6, 2023 Preliminary Hearing

February 2, 2024

Operation Verbasco request 15 minute delay for the video feed of proceedings in October
The preliminary hearing was told that there had been "enormous amounts of painstaking work" to produce documents for the inquiry, which had to be reviewed "line by line".

June 21, 2024 Coverage: ITV News, BBC News, TASS

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