German man stabbed with poison umbrella dies a year after attack which has chilling echoes of infamous Markov assassination



Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, pictured, was killed with a poison-tipped umbrella on London's Waterloo Bridge

An assassin armed with a poisoned-tipped umbrella is being hunted by police after killing a man - in a case bearing chilling echoes of the murder of a Bulgarian dissident on London’s Waterloo Bridge.

The 40-year-old German man died of mercury poisoning after being jabbed in the buttocks by a mystery attacker carrying the modified weapon.

The unnamed victim told police he was attacked by a slim stranger who had a sticking plaster on his face before falling into a coma.

He died on Wednesday almost a year after the hit in Hannover, Germany.

A post-mortem and toxicological examination is being carried out soon.

But the results are expected to point to mercury poisoning as the cause of death, Der Spiegel news magazine said on Friday.

Authorities thought the victim had shown signs of improving, a spokeswoman for the state prosecutor said, but suddenly on Wednesday while in a rehabilitation centre.

Prosecutors are now searching for the killer, but admit they have few leads.

The case mirrors the murder of journalist Georgi Markov, who defected to Britain from his native country in 1969, but was killed with a poisoned umbrella.

He reported felling a stinging pain as he waited at a bus stop on Waterloo Bridge in London in September 1978.

Deadly: This is a replica of the umbrella - modified to fire a tiny pellet filled with poison - used by the KGB in 1978 to assassinate dissident Georgi Markov

Lethal: The tiny ricin-filled 'bullet' fired by an umbrella into Bulgarian defector and BBC broadcaster Georgi Markov, as he walked over London's Waterloo Bridge September 1978

He turned to see an unidentified man picking up an umbrella. Within hours, Markov, 49, a strong critic of Bulgaria's communist regime, had developed a high fever. Three days later he died in hospital.

A metal pellet the size of a pinhead and filled with the poison ricin was found in his calf, leading police to believe he had been assassinated by the Bulgarian Secret Service and KGB. Nobody has ever been charged with his murder.

Detectives recently reopened the case and flew to Bulgaria to seek access to documents from police archives and speak to former top-ranking secret police officers.

It is understood that about 40 people have been interviewed.

One key figure is the secret police officer Vladimir Todorov, who allegedly directed the assassination of Markov and was later jailed for allowing secret files on the case to be destroyed.

Devastating: Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium in 2006 after drinking tea at a London hotel meeting with former KGB contacts



The ruthless tactics used by hired hit men was recently thrown back into the spotlight with the shooting of Russian financier German Gorbuntsov outside his London apartment in March this year.

Mr Gorbuntsov was hit by six bullets in a brutal and brazen attempted assassination outside his apartment.

He miraculously survived, and while lying in his hospital bed protected by armed guards, named four former business associates with influence in Russia’s highest echelons.

Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko did not see his assassin coming before he was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium in 2006.

Mr Litvinenko, 43, fell ill after drinking tea at a London hotel meeting with former KGB contacts and died at University College Hospital.

His death and Russia’s subsequent refusal to send the prime suspect – former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi – for trial in the UK has resulted in relations between Moscow and London sinking to a new low.

Still smiling: German Gorbuntsov managed to keep in good spirits while in his London hospital bed