Georgi Markov Statue

Georgi Ivanov Markov was a dissident writer from Bulgaria. Until his defection in 1978, he worked as a novelist, screenwriter, and dramatist in his own country, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. He worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, the US-funded Radio Free Europe, and West Germany’s Deutsche Welle after moving to London. Markov utilized such venues to launch a mocking campaign against Bulgaria’s current administration, which, according to his wife at the time of his death, finally turned “vitriolic” and involved “truly slinging dirt on the individuals in the inner circles.”

Markov was slain on a London street with a micro-engineered pellet laced with ricin. According to contemporary media stories, he was shot in the leg with a pellet fired from an umbrella handled by someone connected with the Bulgarian Secret Service. In April 1979, Annabel Markov told the BBC’s Panorama show about her husband’s opinion on the umbrella “He felt a sharp pain in his thigh. When he glanced around, he saw a guy behind him who had apologized and dropped an umbrella. As he related the tale, I got the idea that the jab wasn’t caused by the umbrella, but that the guy had dropped it as a cover to disguise his face.” Subsequent examinations have ruled out the possibility of a pellet being fired from an umbrella. It has been suggested that the Bulgarian Secret Service sought assistance from the KGB.