The Poisoned Spy – It Happened Before

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died overnight. The AP says:

Britain’s Health Protection Agency said Friday the radioactive element polonium-210 had been found in Litvinenko’s urine and police said traces of radiation were found at his home and a ritzy hotel bar and sushi restaurant he visited the day he became ill.

Police said they were treating the case as an “unexplained death” – but not yet as a murder.

It’s so spylike… So James Bondian. And though it seems incredibly strange, I remember something like this happening before.

It was the late ’70s, also in London. Georgy Markov wasn’t a spy, but he was a dissident, speaking out against the then communist government in Bulgaria.

I’ll let the BBC pick up the story.

Mr Markov was killed by a poisoned umbrella-tip while he waited at a bus stop near Bush House, where he worked for the BBC Bulgarian Service.

The recent release of state papers in Bulgaria confirmed that Mr Markov was regarded as a dangerous dissident by the former communist secret service.

But prosecutors say they’re closing their investigation over who killed him, under legislation allowing a case to be dropped if more than twenty-years have elapsed.

If memory serves me, 60 Minutes did a story about this murder, going so far as to show the tiny ball filled with ricin which was jabbed into his leg from the point of an umbrella.

There’s not much I can add to either story, except to say, there are some people it pays not to tick off.