Spy drama mirrors umbrella poison case

The alleged poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko recalls the case of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was assassinated nearly 30 years ago.

Markov is believed to have been killed by the toxin ricin on the tip of an umbrella.

Markov, a communist defector working for the BBC World Service, left his office at Bush House on September 11, 1978, and walked across Waterloo Bridge to take the train home to Clapham, south London.

Moments into his journey home, as he waited at a bus stop, he felt a sharp jab in his thigh and saw a man picking up an umbrella. He developed a high temperature and died three days later.

A post mortem examination, conducted with the help of scientists from the British government’s germ warfare centre at Porton Down, established he had been killed by a tiny pellet containing a 0.2 milligram dose of ricin.

His assassin has never been caught despite close co-operation between British and Bulgarian authorities and Interpol.

Markov, a playwright and satirist who had broadcast scathing accounts of communist high life to Bulgaria, was the subject of two failed assassination attempts before he was finally killed.

In the years following his death, efforts were made to reveal the chain of command which led to the order for his assassination.

It is believed that the operation was supported by the technical staff of the Soviet KGB and seems to have involved many senior members of the Bulgarian secret police.

In June 1992 General Vladimir Todorov, a former intelligence chief, was jailed for 16 months for destroying ten volumes of material.

A second suspect, General Stoyan Savov, the deputy interior minister, committed suicide rather than face trial for destroying the files.

Another Bulgarian spy, Vasil Kotsev, who was widely believed to have been the operational commander of the Markov assassination plot, died in an unexplained car accident.

Scotland Yard said today the case remained open and any new evidence would be considered.