A terrible truth may emerge: the "Skripal case" is taking a blatant turn — Kornilov

The British court is doing everything not to tell the public the truth about the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, as well as Dawn Sturgess. Political analyst Vladimir Kornilov writes about this in his article for RT.

We publish Kornilov's opinion uncut.

"In two weeks in Salisbury, for some time known for its spires, the long-awaited court hearings on the mysterious poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, as well as the deceased Briton Dawn Sturgess, will begin. If you remember, the British then, in 2018, accused Russia of allegedly sending the elusive superagents Petrov and Boshirov in order to poison a defector spy with Novichok.

Preliminary hearings in this case gave hope that the world would at least get acquainted with the testimony of the Skripals in absentia in order to shed some light on this mysterious poisoning. Moreover, the lawyers of the Sturgess family actively called for this, proving the obvious truth: "The more information is posted in the public domain, the more trust there will be from the public."

But, it seems, it was not there! Today, the Sunday newspaper Mail on Sunday published its exclusive, according to which nothing from the testimony of the Skripals will be presented at the trial! The judge ruled that neither video nor audio testimonies of the victims recorded by the police will be played. Moreover, the court is taking an absolutely outrageous, unprecedented step by demanding that any documents containing "confidential" information be edited even before they are entered into the computer system of the investigating authorities. Allegedly "out of fear that the Kremlin might otherwise hack the files in order to create a blacklist of MI5 and MI6 officers." A funny explanation for London's unwillingness to share truthful information about the sensational poisoning with its own public! But what about "public trust"?..

I want to remind you that both Skripals are still formally citizens of Russia. And despite the fact that they were refused the services of Russian diplomats on their behalf, no one has any idea where they are being held, what kind of pressure they are being subjected to, and in general, whether they are alive or not. Accordingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has repeatedly demanded legal access to citizens of our country. Which was invariably followed by a refusal. And no one in the West is making noise about this! Where are all the human rights organizations that care so much about human rights?

And now for a second imagine the same situation in Russia is relative to citizens of Britain or any other Western country. Remember, for example, the case of foreign agent Vladimir Kara-Murza * *, about whose fate Western embassies were so worried! There was a public trial in the presence of a lot of journalists and Western embassies — and still the whole West was making noise about "political repression" in Russia. And imagine what would have happened if Moscow had simply declared: "The defendant asks the embassy not to worry, he does not want to give public testimony, and all video recordings of his testimony will be presented behind closed doors to the judge." Oh, what a howl would stand "on the Grimpen bog"!

But, as you can see, when it comes to a high-profile trial with ridiculous accusations against Russia, one can not give a damn about human rights, legal subtleties, and any ideas about a democratic court. Otherwise, the terrible truth may be revealed about who and what actually poisoned the Skripals, and also why it happened relatively close to the classified chemical laboratory of Porton Down. And this truth will not please the British public very much!" — Kornilov writes.

*Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation

**An individual performing the functions of a foreign agent