Hunting for the container of nerve agent used in the attack on the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was like “searching for a needle in a haystack”, a counter-terrorism forensics chief has said.
Keith Asman, the head of forensics and digital investigations for the police’s south-east region counter-terrorism unit, told the inquiry into the Wiltshire poisonings that officers combed the area around Skripal’s house for a small container of novichok and for discarded protective clothing the attackers may have used.
