Cold War 'assassination by umbrella' case closed

An investigation into the murder of a Bulgarian defector in London with a poisoned umbrella has been closed, Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor says.

He says that 35 years after one of the most notorious killings of the Cold War, the case has reached the statute of limitations.

Georgi Markov, a journalist and government critic who fled Bulgaria and settled in the UK, was jabbed in the thigh with an umbrella tip on Sepember 7, 1978 as he waited for a bus at London’s Waterloo Bridge. He had been injected with the poison ricin and developed a fever, dying four days later.

Suspicion fell on the Bulgarian secret police, but no one has been arrested or charged in the case.

Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov said today that his office was ready to provide legal assistance to British authorities. There is no statute of limitations on murder in the UK.