Senior figures from the global chemical weapons watchdog have flatly rejected Russian claims that the watchdog’s laboratories had found a western military chemical agent in the poison that incapacitated the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.

In a weekend claim widely picked up on social media, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said that a Swiss laboratory used by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had discovered traces in the sample of the nerve agent BZ and its precursors. The nerve agent is possessed by Nato countries, but not Russia. The Russian embassy in London said it was “highly likely” that BZ had therefore been used in Salisbury, adding that the OPCW and the British had questions to answer.

But at a meeting of the OPCW executive in The Hague, the Russian claim was refuted by OPCW officials, who said explained that BZ had been used in the control sample, not the sample itself. It is also a breach of OPCW procedures to identify a laboratory involved in a test. The UK said Russia had been caught out in an attempt to mislead the international community, adding the OPCW report showed the world was facing “a clear case of a new family of toxic chemicals intended to kill”.(theguardian)…[+]