Bulgaria charges three Russians over 2015 poisoning

SOFIA: Three Russians have been charged with attempted murder over the poisoning of an arms manufacturer in 2015 in Bulgaria´s capital Sofia, prosecutors said on Thursday.

The Russians are accused of trying to kill Emilyan Gebrev, his son and a company executive between April 28 and May 4, 2015, "using means that endangered many lives, notably by using an unidentified organophosphate substance", the prosecutors said in a statement. They did not name the suspects in the statement.

The case has been linked to the March 2018 Salisbury chemical attack in the UK, which targeted former double agent Sergei Skripal. In February last year the investigative website Bellingcat identified a possible third suspect in the Salisbury case, a high-ranking Russian military intelligence officer named Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev.

Bellingcat said Sergeev had used a false Russian passport to enter Britain two days before Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned. The site said Sergeev also visited Bulgaria in February and April 2015, with his second visit ending the same day that Gebrev collapsed at a reception he was hosting in Sofia and fell into a coma. Gebrev´s son and one of his company executives were also treated for poisoning symptoms, although all three recovered.