Scotland Yard has asked Bulgarian authorities for access to Bulgarian archives in relation to the investigation into the death of Bulgarian novelist and playwright Georgi Markov, allegedly killed by the KGB in London in 1978, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily reported, quoting anonymous sources on June 18 2008.

Scotland Yard has also asked to question employees of the Bulgarian communist-era secret police State Security concerning its probe into the circumstances of Markov's death, Dnevnik said.

According to the daily, there were two reasons why Scotland Yard has re-opened the Markov case. One was the fact that on September 11 2008, the 30-year statute of limitation on the case will expire, according to Bulgarian laws.

The other reason was that the Markov case could help Scotland Yard in its investigation into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who died in 2006 after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London.

Andrei Tsvetanov from Bulgaria's National Investigation Service told Dnevnik that indeed Scotland Yard has asked questions about the Markov case. "We are fully cooperating with our colleagues and I can say that we have a 100 per cent exchange of information from both sides," he said.

In May, Scotland Yard detectives have visited Bulgaria asking for access to the archives and for the questioning of about 40 people, among them Lyuben Gotsev and Vladimir Todorov, both of whom used to be top-ranking State Security officers.

Todorov allegedly directed the operation for Markov's assassination, while Gotsev allegedly served as the liaising officer with the British ambassador in Bulgaria. After the fall of communism Gotsev was deputy foreign minister in 1990.

Georgi Markov was a playwright for popular TV series in Bulgaria in the 1960s, such as Na Vseki Kilometer (Ат every milestone), the first action TV series in Bulgaria, which praised тхе Bulgarian Communist Party's fight against Nazi troops in the early 1940s. 

In 1969, he defected from Bulgaria to London, where he worked for the BBC World Service and other Western media. As a radio journalist, Markov made name for himself as Bulgaria's main dissident at the time by criticising Bulgaria's communist regime and communist leader Todor Zhivkov.

On September 7 1978, he died in mysterious circumstances. Allegedly, while Markov was waiting at a bus station, a man stung him with an umbrella. Hours later he developed a fever and died three days later, aged 49.

A spherical metal pellet the size of a pin-head was found in Markov's calf during the autopsy, which gave reason for Scotland Yard to think that Markov was a victim of assassination. His death became known as the "umbrella murder".

Speculation over the years claimed that Bulgaria's State Security had asked the KGB to help them develop a technology to kill Markov. It had to come as a birthday gift to Zhivkov, whose birthday was on the exact day when Markov felt the sting. Zhivkov, who died in 1998, never admitted any link to Markov's death.