Russians accused of poisoning ex-spy say they were in Salisbury as tourists

Two Russians appeared on statetelevision on Thursday, saying they had been wrongly accused byBritain of trying to murder a former Russian spy and hisdaughter in England and had been visiting Salisbury in March fortourism.

British prosecutors last week identified two Russians theysaid were operating under aliases Alexander Petrov and RuslanBoshirov whom they accused of trying to poison Sergei andYulia Skripal with a military-grade nerve agent in England.

The two men who appeared on Russia's state-funded RTtelevision station had some physical similarities to the men shown in British police images.

"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that wevisit this wonderful town," one of the men said of the English town of Salisbury in a short clip of the interview played by RT.

They said they may have approached Sergei Skripal's house bychance, but did not know where it was located. They had stayedless than hour in Salisbury, they said, because of bad weather.

Intelligence officers?

Britain has said the two suspects were officers with aRussian militaryintelligence agency known as the GRU, and were almost certainly acting on orders from high up in the Russian state. The Kremlinhas repeatedly denied anyinvolvement in the case.

Skripal a former Russian military intelligence colonel whobetrayed dozens of agents to Britain's MI6 foreign intelligenceservice and his daughter were found slumped unconscious on abench in Salisbury in March. They spentweeks in hospital before being discharged.

The two men said they did not work for GRU, were ordinarybusinessmen, and the victim of what they called "a fantasticalcoincidence."

The duo surfaced a day after President Vladimir Putin saidRussia had located Petrov and Boshirov, but that there was nothing special or criminal about them. He expressed hope theywould come forward and speak publicly.

Petrov said he heard Putin's statement on the radio and decided to contract RT's editor in chief.

'Obfuscation and lies'

Putin's claims were rejected Wednesday by British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesperson, who called the men GRU officers "who used a devastatingly toxic illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country."

"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March and they have replied with obfuscation and lies," James Slack said."I have seen nothing to suggest that has changed."

TheSkripals' poisoningtriggered a tense diplomatic showdown. Britain and more than twodozen other countries expelled a total of 150 Russian diplomats, andRussia kicked out a similar number of those countries' envoys.

The affair returned to the headlines in July when a womannear Salisbury, Dawn Sturgess, died and her partner,Charlie Rowley, fell ill after Rowley found a counterfeit bottle of perfume containing the Novichok nerve agent and brought ithome.

With files from The Associated Press