UK detectives hunt for Cold War killer who poisoned dissident with an umbrella tip in 1978 attack.
British detectives are back on the trail of a Cold War-era killer who used a poison-tipped umbrella to slay a communist defector.
British detectives acknowledged Friday that they had questioned suspects in the 1978 death of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The playwright and broadcaster was a stern critic of his country's communist regime in reports for the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe.
Markov was jabbed in the thigh with an umbrella tip as he waited for a bus on London's Waterloo Bridge. He developed a fever and died three days later. British government scientists later discovered the umbrella had been used to inject a pinhead-sized pellet of the poison ricin into Markov's leg.
Though no one has ever been charged with the killing, many suspected the KGB and Bulgarian secret police of involvement. KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky has previously said Russian authorities offered help to Bulgaria for the murder plot.
The case remained one of the most remarkable espionage-related deaths in London until the killing of ex-Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006. Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic, died after he ingested the radioactive element, polonium-210, most likely from a cup of tea laced with the poison.
Police in London said the Markov case has never been closed, and that officers are following up a raft of new leads.
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British detectives acknowledged Friday that they had questioned suspects in the 1978 death of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The playwright and broadcaster was a stern critic of his country's communist regime in reports for the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe.
Markov was jabbed in the thigh with an umbrella tip as he waited for a bus on London's Waterloo Bridge. He developed a fever and died three days later. British government scientists later discovered the umbrella had been used to inject a pinhead-sized pellet of the poison ricin into Markov's leg.
Though no one has ever been charged with the killing, many suspected the KGB and Bulgarian secret police of involvement. KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky has previously said Russian authorities offered help to Bulgaria for the murder plot.
The case remained one of the most remarkable espionage-related deaths in London until the killing of ex-Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006. Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic, died after he ingested the radioactive element, polonium-210, most likely from a cup of tea laced with the poison.
Police in London said the Markov case has never been closed, and that officers are following up a raft of new leads.