UK police find bottle with nerve agent

Dawn Sturgess passed away after being exposed to the deadly nerve agent. / FACEBOOK

LONDON, United Kingdom — British police said Friday they have found a “small bottle” containing the Soviet-made nerve agent Novichok in the home of one of two Britons who fell ill from the substance last month.

“On Wednesday, 11 July, a small bottle was recovered during searches of Charlie Rowley’s house in Amesbury,” police said in a statement, four months after a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with the same substance.

“Scientists have now confirmed to us that the substance contained within the bottle is Novichok,” the statement said, adding that the tests were carried out at the Porton Down defense laboratory which first identified the substance.

Rowley, 45, and his partner Dawn Sturgess, 44, collapsed at his house within hours of each other on June 30.

Sturgess died on Sunday, while Rowley has regained consciousness and is no longer in a critical condition.

Police said they had been able to speak to him “briefly”.

The incident came after former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who have both since recovered, collapsed on a bench on March 4 in the nearby city of Salisbury, southwest England, sparking an international diplomatic crisis after Britain blamed Russia for the attack.

Moscow has strongly denied any involvement in the poisoning.

The police said further testing was trying to establish whether the substance that affected Rowley and Sturgess was from the same batch as was used against the Skripals.