Published time: 4 May, 2018 03:02
Edited time: 4 May, 2018 08:36

The UK's intelligence services seem to have lost all remaining credibility, after the Czech President's admission that his country had previously produced a nerve agent similar to the one Britain claims was used against Skripals.

"I think there are problems in and around the English spy agencies, who seem to be quite ready to manufacture evidence, in the case of the Steele dossier, maybe manufacture evidence in the case of the Skripal poisoning. And they are damaging their credibility. It takes a long time to regain credibility if you damage it this severely," political analyst Charles Ortel told RT.

On Thursday, the Czech Republic's president Milos Zeman revealed that his county had previously developed and tested an A-230 chemical agent of the Novichok group, similar to the one which, according to London, was Russia's exclusively and was "highly likely" used by Moscow to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on March 4.

The accusations were followed by sanctions against Russia and the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the UK and other countries that backed Britain's stance. Ortel blamed the media for dangerously exacerbating the crisis without vetting the information coming out of London with due diligence.

"I think it is irresponsible the way supposed main street journalists leap on these stories without really vetting it and then get us into a place where tensions are escalated around the world, including two nuclear-armed powers Russia and the United States, and the third in the UK. This is a dangerous business," Ortel said.

The claims of Russian involvement have not been backed up by either Britain's own scientists at the Porton Down laboratories or by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), both of which say it's not their job to apportion blame or to identify the toxin's origin, but only the type of substance involved. Russia has also repeatedly denied the allegations and accused the UK of excluding it from the investigation, and of destroying evidence.

"I think it is a very dangerous business to start making accusations as serious as have been made in the case of Skripal, in the case of Steele...that are not actually backed up by hard facts," the political analyst noted.

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A tramp business.

IZAKOIC