Yulia Skripal to ask for political asylum

Published April 10, 2018 at 2:02 pm

This undated image taken from the Facebook page of Yulia Skripal on March 8, 2018 allegedly shows Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, in an unknown location.British detectives were scrambling on March 8 to uncover who poisoned a Russian former double-agent and his daughter with a nerve agent, as doctors battled to save their lives and that of a policeman who also fell ill after coming to their aid. Sergei Skripal, 66, who moved to Britain in a 2010 spy swap, is in a critical condition in hospital along with his daughter Yulia after they collapsed on a bench outside a shopping centre on Sunday. The brazen poisoning in the southwestern English city of Salisbury is already being linked with Russia by British politicians and the media, sparking an angry response in Moscow.

Photo by AFP

A cousin of Yulia Skripal, Viktoria, said she knows nothing about Yulia’s discharge from the hospital and transfer to a safe house.

“No one has seen her, no one knows anything about her, either here or there. I have been told from the UK that she will soon give a press conference and announce her request for political asylum,” Viktoria Skripal told Interfax on Tuesday.

She said she did not know which country her cousin would ask for asylum.

It was said in London earlier today that Yulia Skripal had been discharged from the Salisbury District Hospital but would continue receiving treatment.