Pair taken ill in UK town linked with Russian spy poisoning

Roads around an Italian restaurant in Salisbury have been cordoned off by police after a pair of diners were taken ill Sunday. The town in south-west England where former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had suffered a Novichok nerve agent poisoning earlier this year, is on alert amid ongoing investigations by Wiltshire Police.

'Police were called by the ambulance service to Prezzo, High Street, Salisbury at 6.45 pm (local time) today following a medical incident involving two people,' a Wiltshire Police statement said. 'As a precautionary measure, the restaurant and surrounding roads have been cordoned off while officers attend the scene and establish the circumstances surrounding what has led them to fall ill,' it added.

The restaurant on the High Street in Salisbury is a short walk from Queen Elizabeth Gardens, which was closed off for investigation after 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess was fatally poisoned by Novichok, the same deadly nerve agent used against the Skripals. They ate at a Zizzi Italian restaurant about 0.2 miles from the Prezzo eatery.

Zizzi has since been permanently closed. It is unclear if the incidents are related but a witness claimed the pair affected, possibly Russian, were showing the same symptoms as the Skripals. South Western Ambulance Service said it dispatched four ambulances, including a hazardous area response team, after being called to the site.

The patients were conscious at the last update and were being treated at the scene, a spokesperson said. The Russian government has repeatedly denied the UK government's allegations that the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury or Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley in nearby Amesbury was anything to do with the Kremlin.

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