Instrument of an Exile's Murder •• C By.Bernard D. Nossiter Markov told friends he was sure over the U.S.-run Radio Free Europe Weshington Poet Foreign aerie he had been poisoned. in Munich. LONDON — A Bulgarian defec- The tiny pellet that presumably Scotland Yard does not know tor who, Said on •his , deathbed that was used to poison him was found who killed Markov. Assistant Com- -he had been stabbed with a poi- under his skin.' missioner Gilbert Kelland told re- ' soned UrnbrelIa was in fact mur- Officials said they had never be- porters: dered, Scotland Yard disclosed fore seen anything like this exotic "The world is the field in this yesterday probably by a plati- instrument of death. ease. Your guess is as good as mine." mint -pellet smaller than a pinhead. "It is diabolical that this sort of The intelligence community here The ;exile, Georgi Markov, 49, a thing could happen in a London is convinced that the killer was an writer and dramatist who had steet," said Assistant Commissioner agent from the Soviet bloc, per- broadcast antigovernment political David Powis, operational chief of haps from the KGB, the Soviet commentaries to his homeland; died Scotland Yard's detectiveS. secret police. in a London hospital Sept. 11, Four Markov fled from Bulgaria In At first, intelligence sources here days before that, he said, a man 1970. In recent years he had been were puzzled by the long gap In had jabbed him •in 'the` thigh -with broadcasting attacks on the Com- time between Markov's defection an umbrella near Waterloo Bridge. munist government to his homeland See BULGARIAN, AR, Col. 2 •‘-•. cotland Yard Says Bulgarian Was Murdered • BULGARIAN, From Al quired precision work of a high order. Why the - pel- fpw, • let that worked in London failed in Paris- is a mys- and his death: Emigies marked for assassination, tery. they said, are typically liquidated within six months. Markov, who was sentenced in absence to 61/2 But now the intelligence community knows. Mar- years in prison in -Bulgaria, was married to an Eng- kov's fate was not an isolated incident. Last month,: lishwoman. His main job was broadcasting cultural another Bulgarian defector and journalist,' Vladimir news over the foreign service of the BBC, an essen- Rostov, was hit in the back as be was mounting an tially nonpolitical task. escalator in the Paris Metro. But when Sofia refused to permit him to return to Unlike . Markov, lio-stnv did, not become ill at once., Bulgaria to see his dying father, Markov turned to "On 'Tuesday in Paris; while two Scotland Yard de: - the attack. _ tectives watched, a French surgeonienioved from Over Radio .Free Europe, once supported by the Rostov's back a pellet. identical to the one found in CIA, and the West German Deutsche Welle, he 1Markov's right thigh. broadcast extracts from his unpublished memoirs. The presumed fatainstrument is an Ingenious de- -Among other things, he accused Bulgarian leader vice that leaves almost no trace. The pellet is an.. Todor Zhivkov and other high officials of corruption. ,.alloy: of rare metals, 90 percent platinum and 10 pen: Markov and Zhilikov had been friends- before Markov's cent iridium. It is one-fifteenth of an ineh'in- diarre- • defection. ter. Two minute hates, each 16 one-thousandths of On Sept. 7, Markov suddenly fell' ill with a high , an inch deep, had been drilled into this pinhead; at fever. He told his wife and others that he had been right angles 'to each other. 1 - jabbed with an umbrella earlier -that day by a man Detectives here have found an unidentified sub-. • who said in a foreign accent, sorry? The man, stance in the holes of the pellet that was embedded with the umbrella then jumped- into a cab and dig- - in Markov's skin. This substance may turn out to be appeared. Four days later, Markov died. He was 49. a poison, but the Yard said that it could take Scotland Yard's experts were being congratulated months to complete tests. last night for finding so tiny an object under the • Commissioner Powis said that the pellets are a re- dead man's skin. Whether or not they ever discover. - markable piece of microengineering, possibly per, • precisely who killed Markov.- and---,With what sub- Pellet, much magnified, taken from Bulgarian's leg. formed by '.a skilled watchmaker. Preparing an um- stance, they have added a new chaptertotlae annals' • brella tip to fire such a device must also have re- • of assassination. • I .