"Just walkin' in the rain" -- twirling my brolly

Put this story together with the finding of ricin in the UK associated with extremists of the "peaceful" religion and then with the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader within the year -- election in the offing at the time.

First, a little background:

Ukraine leader poisoned – official December 12, 2004, Askold Krushelnycky, Kiev

THE Kremlin was yesterday accused of poisoning Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, in order to keep the country within Russia’s sphere of influence.

[. . . . ] The election run-off last month was won by Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed prime minister, but after mass protests and evidence of ballot-rigging the result was cancelled by the supreme court.

Search: SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service , chloracne, a condition associated with dioxin poisoning

The poll was rerun on Boxing Day -- the result, President Viktor Yushchenko.


Previously, Who poisoned Yushchenko? on Dec. 12, 04, from Jeremy Page in Kiev

Specialists in Britain, the United States and France had helped to establish that it was a biological agent, a chemical agent or, most likely, a rare poison that struck him down in the run-up to the presidential election

Now, on to the latest:

Dane named as umbrella killer -- Did you think the Communist era KGB was dead? June 05, 2005, Jack Hamilton and Tom Walker via Newsbeat1

ON A SEPTEMBER evening in London in 1978, Georgi Markov, prize-winning Bulgarian author and BBC broadcaster, felt a stinging pain in his thigh as he mingled with rush-hour commuters waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge.

A heavily built man in the queue momentarily dropped an umbrella, mumbled “sorry” and quickly crossed the road to hail a taxi.

An exile from the communist regime of Todor Zhivkov, the Bulgarian dictator, Markov, 49, had been aware of the danger he was in. An anonymous caller had told him he would be poisoned and he ate and drank only in the company of close friends.

But Markov thought little of the seemingly trivial incident and continued his journey home. He was dead in three days.

It remains one of Britain’s most famous unsolved murders — made all the more notorious by the James Bond nature of the killing. The murder weapon was an umbrella, partly developed by the Soviet KGB, which fired a pellet the size of a pinhead, containing the poison ricin.

Last week, in a serialisation containing leaks of secret service files in the Bulgarian daily newspaper, Dnevnik, the identity of Markov’s killer was finally revealed. [. . . . ]

Search: a Bulgarian secret agent , "research by Hristo Hristov, a Sofia-based investigative journalist , Communist-era Durzhavna Sigurnost (DS)", the Bulgarian equivalent of the KGB , a series of political assassinations , smuggling drugs and currency on the Bulgarian border , antiques salesman , instructions to murder Markov came from , Radio Free Europe , the documents uncovered by Hristov are genuine , refused to order the release of the documents , "suing his government — which is anxious to keep its entry into the European Union on track — under its freedom of information legislation" , a stack of the specially adapted umbrellas was found

There is much more.

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