LONDON: A secretive British army base, which identified the nerve gas usedto poison a Russian ex-spy earlier this month, has for years been fuellingconspiracy theories with its pioneering research into chemical andbiological weapons.
Located near Salisbury, the southwestern English city where Sergei Skripal,66, and his 33-year-old daughter were targeted, Porton Down is Britain’smost controversial military facility.
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory — its official name — employs3,000 scientists across a sprawling rural site and has an annual budget of£500 million (560 million euros, $695 million).
British Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers Monday its “world-leadingexperts” had positively identified the military-grade nerve agent used asbelonging to a group known as “Novichok” and “of a type developed byRussia”.
Porton Down was founded in 1916 to counter German chemical attacks in WorldWar I, which initially involved chlorine and then mustard gas and phosgene.
In the 1950s scientists there developed non-lethal CS gas, better known astear gas, as well as the deadly nerve agent VX.
Given international conventions that prohibit the use of chemical weapons,research conducted at Porton Down is defensive in nature, Britain’s defenceministry (MoD) says.
The state-of-the-art facility aims only to improve equipment and testing toprotect troops and the population, it says.
In recent years, the laboratory has participated in Ebola research, and hasbeen involved in the fight against the epidemic in Sierra Leone since 2013.
It has also analysed the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, inparticular sarin gas, the British government has previously revealed.
The long history of secrecy surrounding the site has fuelled persistentrumours and conspiracies, including accusations of experiments on animalsand humans.
In 1999, police opened a probe into testing that may have endangered thelives of soldiers without their knowledge.
The investigation did not result in criminal prosecutions, but in 2008 theMoD awarded 360 former members of the armed forces compensation of £3million (3.4 million euros, $4.2 million).
They claimed to have served against their will as guinea pigs in ColdWar-era chemical testing, but the ministry did not admit responsibility.
In a June 2016 press release — titled “The truth about Porton Down” — theMoD tried to rebut some of the claims about the site, including that alienshad been taken there and that it had been used to cultivate cannabis.
It outlined the work carried out at the facility, admitting that successfultesting “could not, currently, be achieved without the use of animals”.
The laboratory also elaborated on its volunteer programme, under which some20,000 people have taken part in studies over the decades.
“(It) has always been operated to the highest ethical standards of theday,” the MoD said.