LONDON — Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned in a nerve agent attack alongside her father, a former Russian double agent, was discharged late Monday from a hospital and taken to a secure location, her doctors said Tuesday.
Skripal, 33, recovered more quickly than did her father, Sergei Skripal, 66, who is awake and responding well, said Christine Blanshard, medical director of the district hospital in Salisbury, in southwest England, where the attack took place.
A Salisbury police officer who was a first responder at the park bench where the two Skripals were found was also treated at a hospital and released last month.
“All three had been exposed to a nerve agent. In the past weeks, both Sergei and Yulia have received round-the-clock care,” Blanshard said. “I won’t go into great detail about the treatment, but nerve agents attach themselves to certain enzymes in the body. This results in hallucinations and sickness.”
Sergei Skripal remains in the hospital, but his doctors say his condition is “improving rapidly.”
An undated photograph shows Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, taken from her Facebook page. (Handout/Reuters)
“Although he is recovering more slowly than Yulia, we hope that he, too, will be able to leave hospital in due course,” Blanshard added.
As for Yulia Skripal’s prognosis, Blanshard said, “This is not the end of her treatment, but marks a significant milestone.”
The Russian Embassy in London tweeted: “We congratulate Yulia on her recovery. Yet we need urgent proof that what is being done to her is done on her own free will.”
Yulia Skripal is thought to be under the protection of British security forces.
The Russian Embassy said it would consider any “secret resettlement” of Sergei and Yulia Skripal “an abduction of the two Russian nationals” or a forced “isolation.”
British investigators and Prime Minister Theresa May say the Skripals were attacked by a Novichok-class military-grade nerve agent of the type developed by the Soviet Union and Russia.
May said Tuesday that she wishes the younger Skripal “the best for her continuing recovery.”
Russian officials have denied any wrongdoing in the case. Top Russian diplomats have charged that the attack could have been carried out by British agents, in an attempt to smear Russia, increase military budgets or distract their own people from difficult Brexit negotiations.
After the attacks, 28 countries, including the United States, booted more than 150 Russian diplomats — many suspected of being intelligence agents — from their embassies. Russia responded with a similar number of expulsions.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham returned to her show Monday night following a week vacation in the middle of a mass exodus of the program’s advertisers over controversial remarks she made about a Parkland shooting survivor. Ingraham focused on freedom of speech in her first show back, and attacked the left’s alleged stifling of conservative voices.
Ingraham was returning to her show after announcing on March 30 she would be out the following week for an Easter break to spend time with her children. The announcement came at the end of a week in which more than a dozen sponsors of her show pulled advertising over her criticism of Parkland shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg.
The Fox News host had taken to Twitter in late March to mock the 17-year-old for getting turned down for admission by multiple colleges. Hogg responded on Twitter by urging his followers to petition advertisers to pull ads from her show.
Ingraham did not mention Hogg by name in Monday’s show. She apologized to Hogg on March 29, saying it was “in the spirit of Holy Week,” but the student said he did not accept her apology.
The Associated Press In this combination photo, Fox News personality Laura Ingraham speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 20, 2016, left, and David Hogg, a student survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., speaks at
Instead, Ingraham focused on the left as a whole on Monday and announced a new segment called “Defending the First,” a recurring feature which she said will “expose the enemies of the First Amendment, of free expression, and every thought, while showcasing those brave voices making a difference.”
“If you have been subjected to threats or intimidation because of your speech, I want to know about it,” Ingraham said. “Tweet me, because without free speech and a free conscience, we are not truly a free people.”
Ingraham opened the show by discussing the book “Illiberal Education,” published in 1991 by Dinesh D’Souza, the former boyfriend of Ingraham according to a Vanity Fair profile, and how it described liberal colleges going from “championing free speech to stifling it.”
J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Conservative political commentator Laura Ingraham walks on stage during the third day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 20, 2016.
“I have been the victim of a boycott,” Ingraham said. “It is wrong. You shouldn’t do this by team. It is the modern way of cutting off free speech.
“And the goal posts by the way are forever moving. Every day more issues are taken off the table all together and may no longer be debated at all,” she continued. “So, in other words, if you are against affirmative action. You are a racist. And if you wear a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat to a gun control rally and get beaten up, well, don’t expect a lot of sympathy from the attendees. And if you praise the military skill of Robert E. Lee, you are liable to be branded a defender of slavery in The New York Times.”
Hogg did not respond on social media to Ingraham’s return.
Ingraham, 54, has hosted “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News since October 2017. She’s written six books and hosted a radio talk show for over a decade.
