Georgi Markov

Georgi Ivanov Markov (Bulgarian: Георги Иванов Марков [ɟɛˈɔrɟi ˈmarkov]; 1 March 1929 – 11 September 1978) was a Bulgarian dissident writer. He worked as a novelist, screenwriter and playwright in his native country, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, until his defection in 1969. After relocating to London, he worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, the Radio Free Europe and West Germany's Deutsche Welle. Markov used such forums to conduct a campaign of sarcastic criticism against the incumbent Bulgarian-Soviet regime. Markov was assassinated by being injected with a tiny pellet containing poison, possibly ricin, which was covertly delivered into his leg on a London street by an unknown man who used a umbrella as a weapon. Markov died four days later. Contemporary newspaper accounts indicated the assassin was believed to be associated with the Bulgarian Secret Service. Annabel Markov recalled her husband's view about the umbrella, telling the BBC's Panorama programme, in April 1979, "He felt a jab in his thigh. He looked around and there was a man behind him who'd apologized and dropped an umbrella. I got the impression as he told the story that the jab hadn't been inflicted by the umbrella but that the man had dropped the umbrella as cover to hide his face." It was reported after the fall of the Soviet Union that the Soviet KGB had assisted the Bulgarian Secret Service.