

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
The British Government (lead image, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) has decided that in public hearings to confirm that Russian-made, Russian-delivered Novichok killed Dawn Sturgess in mid-2018 – after failing to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal weeks earlier – nothing can be said or revealed without being subject to an immediate veto by the police, the MI6 spy agency, and other UK officials.
The veto will cover police records; closed-circuit television (CCTV) films; laboratory reports by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; Salisbury District Hospital patient admission and clinical test results; witness testimony; coroner’s cremation forms – in fact, everything which may expose, not what really happened to the Skripals and to Sturgess, but what didn’t happen to them which the British Government insists it did.
That evidence is what is called “sensitive information” in the state inquiry into the cause of Sturgess’s death which held a new courtroom session in London on Friday.
Lord Anthony Hughes, the retired judge appointed to run the proceeding, acknowledged this month that “there is a risk that sensitive information might be disclosed, inadvertently or otherwise, during the course of the open preliminary hearings.” Accordingly, he has announced, that “there will be two video links to afford those not present in the hearing room with access to the hearing – a ‘live link’ and a ‘delayed link’, which will be delayed by 5 minutes. The public and media attending the hearing remotely will do so by means of the delayed link.”
In the 5-minute delay, Hughes has decided, “in the event that sensitive information is disclosed in the course of an open hearing whilst these measures are in place or a Core Participant informs the Chair that he considers that sensitive information may have been disclosed, the Chair will consider taking the following steps (if necessary by receiving submissions in closed session): a. an immediate termination of the delayed link; b. making a restriction order to prohibit the publication of the sensitive information; c. ensuring that when the delayed link feed is resumed, the sensitive information (including any submissions concerning any information which a Core Participant considers may be sensitive information) is not broadcast.”
The inquiry has already decided that the “core participants” include the Sturgess family, several branches of the British police, the Home Office representing the intelligence agencies and Porton Down, the Wiltshire Council, and the regional ambulance service which responded to emergency calls for the Skripals on March 4, 2018, and for Sturgess on June 30.
Sergei and Yulia Skripal have been designated core participants, but their lawyer, Adam Chapman, has refused to confirm that the Skripals have appointed him to represent them or that they are still alive. Without explanation Chapman was absent from the latest court hearing last Friday.
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