The couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, was hospitalized over the weekend after being exposed to a toxic substance. The UK authorities subsequently said that the couple had been poisoned by the Novichok military-grade nerve agent, which was used in the attack on Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK city of Salisbury, located several miles from Amesbury.
"This complex and fast-moving investigation involves around 100 detectives from the Counter Terrorism Network who are working around the clock alongside colleagues from Wiltshire Police. … Due to the unique challenges involved with this operation, police activity is expected to take weeks and months to complete," the Metropolitan Police said in an updated statement on Amesbury incident probe.
"There is no evidence that the man and woman visited any of the sites that were decontaminated following the attempted murders of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March this year. We are not in a position to say whether the nerve agent was from the same batch that the Skripals were exposed to," the police said.
According to the statement, police officers have interviewed several key witnesses. They are also trawling more than 1,300 hours of CCTV footage, which has been collected so far.
On March 4, Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping center in Salisbury. The United Kingdom and its allies have accused Moscow of having orchestrated the attack with what UK experts claim was the A234 nerve agent, albeit without presenting any proof. Russian authorities have firmly refuted the allegations as groundless.