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First picture: The daughter of 'poisoned' Russian spy, fighting for her life in hospital - The Telegraph
First picture: The daughter of 'poisoned' Russian spy, fighting for her life in hospital — The Telegraph
First picture: The daughter of 'poisoned' Russian spy, fighting for her life in hospital
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Yulia Skripal and her father, Sergei Skripal
6 MARCH 2018 • 12:15PM
The first picture of Yulia Skripal, who is fighting for her life in hospital alongside her father Sergei Skripal, can be revealed by The Telegraph.
Friends of Ms Skripal confirmed the identity of the daughter of the Russian spy, who police believe was poisoned while out in Salisbury, and that she is in hospital.
Sergei Skripal, 66, was found unconscious in Salisbury, Wiltshire, along with his daughter, 33, on Sunday at 4pm.
The two
were seen minutes earlier walking through an alley that connects Zizzi restaurant, which is currently closed "as a precaution" pending police investigations, and the bench where they were found unconscious.
It appeared Ms Skripal was in a bad way, and a passer-by told The Telegraph she was particularly worried about the young woman.
Freya Church, 27, who works at Snap Fitness gym opposite The Maltings, said she left work at 4pm on Sunday and saw Mr Skripal and a younger woman on the bench just a few yards away.
Yulia Skripal
“I was particularly worried about her,” she said.
“She was slumped over on the man’s shoulder. To be honest, I thought they might be homeless but they were perhaps better dressed.
“I just thought this is weird, especially as she was clearly quite a bit younger than him.
“She had a red bag at her feet. He was gesturing at the sky, doing some kind of movements with his hands.
“He was looking up and his eyes were glazed.
“There was no one else there near them at this point. No one was helping them.”
Read: Police examine footage that may show couple minutes before collapsing as Kremlin denies involvement
Ms Skripal worked for Nike in Russia until around 2010, when according to her social media she moved to London, and was employed at the Holiday Inn in Southampton over the summer of 2014.
According to her social media pages, she currently works for Pepsico in Moscow.
She appears to frequently spend time with her father in Salisbury, and has a picture of the city's cathedral as one of her display pictures on Facebook.
Reports suggest Col Skripal had recently gone to police claiming he was fearing for his life.
The incident comes a little over a decade after the
murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent who was poisoned by radioactive polonium in a London hotel.
Col Skripal’s condition is currently unknown.
Mr Skripal was convicted in 2006 of passing state secrets to MI6 before being given refuge in the UK as part of a spy swap.
The former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison, was among four convicts who were given pardons and one of two sent to Britain in 2010 in a deal that was said at the time to be the largest exchange since the Cold War