Leader comment: Salisbury poisoning suspects tell their tall tale

So, they were just two innocent tourists desperate to see Salisbury Cathedral. We can all rest easy and dismiss the nonsense spouted by the UK Government about Russian assassins or anything silly like that.

Russian Nationals Ruslan Boshirov (left) and Alexander Petrov have appeared in an interview on the Russian state TV channel RT. Picture: Russia Today

The attempted murders of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia and the fatal poisoning of Dawn Sturgess must have had something to do with the UK’s Porton Down research facility instead, as Russia has suggested.

Speaking for the first time, the two Russian suspects said they would have never taken a bottle of perfume through UK customs – let alone one containing the deadly nerve agent Novichok – because it’s “kind of stupid for two straight men to carry perfume for ladies” and border staff would have immediately been suspicious.

Not that these “sports nutrition salesmen” had any reason to fear suspicious officials. And of course it’s crazy for men to have women’s perfume – they always buy their own.

And if the men were seen on CCTV in suburban Salisbury, a few minutes’ walk from the Skripals’ house, that’s just a coincidence; they weren’t to know where it was.

Aye, right.