Report: Poison suspects had followed spy to Czech Republic

The Czech public radio has reported that the two suspects in the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in England had already been following their victim when all three were in the Czech Republic in 2014.

Citing unnamed domestic intelligence authorities, the broadcaster says Sergei Skripal visited the country in October 2014 to help the Czechs uncover Russian spies.

The authorities believed that the suspects, who were using their cover names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Borishov, were secretly following Skripal at that time.

British police say the two suspects were agents from Russian military intelligence unit GRU, and that they used a Soviet-made nerve agent to poison Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury on March 4. Russia denies wrongdoing. The Czech counterintelligence agency declined to comment.