MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th September, 2018) Former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned in the UK city of Salisbury with his daughter Yulia in March, collaborated with the Spanish special intelligence in recent years, media reported Friday.
Skripal, just like the former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in the United Kingdom in 2006, advised the Spanish authorities on cases of the so-called "Russian mafia," the New York Times reported, referring to a high-ranking source in the Spanish government.
In the mid-1990s, Skripal served in Madrid as a military attache. But in recent years, after gaining asylum in the United Kingdom, he returned to Spain several times to meet with local counterintelligence officers, a source told the newspaper.
Writer Fernando Rueda, who is close to the Spanish intelligence, explained to the publication that such data as the content, dates and duration of these conversations are classified.
Former employees of Spanish law enforcement agencies told the publications that Skripal could be useful to Madrid to fight the "Russian mafia," criminals from the former Soviet republics, who settled in Spain.
The newspaper recalled that Litvinenko had also collaborated with Spanish authorities in the fight against the "Russian mafia" before he fled to the United Kingdom and died in November 2006. After Litvinenko's death, a significant amount of radioactive polonium-210 isotope was revealed in his body. The fact that Litvinenko cooperated with the Spanish law enforcement agencies was previously confirmed by the prosecutor in the "Russian mafia" case, Jose Grinda Gonzalez.
The UK Foreign Office has accused Moscow of orchestrating the March 4 attack in Salisbury with the use of the A234 military-grade nerve agent. The country's Porton Down lab has said, however, that it could not prove that the nerve agent used in the attack was made in Russia or determine its country of origin.
Moscow has denied any involvement in the incident, saying London has not provided sufficient evidence to substantiate its claims.
The situation has led to an international row, with scores of Russian diplomats being expelled from the United Kingdom and other EU countries. Moscow has expelled UK diplomats from Russia in response to the country's actions.
