MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2018) A tweet identifying a Russian suspect in the Salisbury poisoning as a colonel was deleted Wednesday from the official account of UK Secretary of State Gavin Williamson.
The story was broken by Bellingcat, a British investigative blogging website, which claimed the man, identified by UK authorities as Ruslan Boshirov, was actually Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a Russian foreign intelligence officer.
The minister retweeted reports about Bellingcat's claims earlier in the day, praising "all the people who are working so tirelessly on this case." It was taken down a little later.
The British government blames Boshirov and his alleged associate Alexander Petrov for poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a nerve agent in the English town of Salisbury last March.
The pair, who are back in Russia, rejected this claim in an interview with the chief editor of the RT broadcaster, saying they had traveled to the town as tourists.
Russia has repeatedly denied its role in the alleged murder attempt on its former spy, saying there was no evidence to support the charges. President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that both men were civilians.
