Pathologists identify umbrella-attack toxin

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 9

Pathologists identify umbrella-attack toxin

NZPA-Reuter London British Government pathologists have determined that the poison used by the assassin of the Bulgarian defector, Georgi Markov, was a rare and highly toxic vegetable substance once studied by chemical warfare experts, according to informed sources in London.

The sources say Markov, a broadcaster and outspoken critic of the Bulgarian Administration, was injected with the poison, ricin, four days before his death in London, on September 11.

A tiny alloy ball of platinum and iridium smaller than a pinhead was removed from Mr Markov’s body after his death. An identical ball was removed from another Bulgarian emigre, a Parisbased journalist, Vladimir Kostov, who survived a mystery illness after being hit in the back by a pellet as he rode on the Paris Metro.

Before he died, Markov, who was 49, a broadcaster for the Bulgarian service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, said he had been stabbed with a poisoned umbrella in a London street.

The sources say scientists at the Biological and Chemical Warfare Establishment at Porton Down studied ricin for some time, but it was considered so dangerous that stocks of it were destroyed several years ago. Pathologists who worked on the Markov case for two months before identifying ricin, believe it was held in two grooves in the sides of the alloy ball protected by wax.

The ball, they believe, was then injected into the victim by a device hidden in the, umbrella, and its poison killed Markov by preventing his body cells from metabolising protein.