I would like to express my gratitude to the Communitas foundation which supported the writing of this book, its translation into English and the project for the website which will present my documentary investigations into the Georgi Markov case in English.

I would also like to thank the “Access to Information Programme” Foundation for assisting me in my struggle to gain access to the archives of the First Main Directorate and in person to their lawyers, Alexander Kashamov and Kiril Terziiski, with whose expertise and professionalism we managed to win the court case against the National Intelligence Service.

I also express my gratitude to the Commission on Secret Files and personally to its chairman, Evtim Kostadinov and its secretary, Rumen Borisov. The commission played an extremely valuable role as a mediator when obtaining archive documents from the NIS. Although its normal activities were blocked for a long period of time by the government, the commission did everything it could to facilitate my research into the archive documents.

I have particular respect and admiration for investigator, Bogdan Karaiotov and his professionalism and moral stance on this case. He is the one person who discovered the most important evidence in the Secret Security Service archives and on which this book is based. In contrast to other magistrates, he did not yield to the pressure of circumstances and remained loyal to his position to the very end. Therefore, I consider that all of us who have during recent years wanted to learn the truth about Georgi Markov, should treat everything which Mr. Karaiotov has managed to do with the greatest of admiration.

I am also grateful to my friend and translator, David Mossop, for his translation of the book into English, as a result of which the book will stand a much better change of reaching a wider readership outside Bulgaria. I am also grateful to Desislava Valerieva for the expert assistance which she provided.

Last but not least I thank the directors of the newspaper, “Dnevnik” and its publishers and for always supporting me in my journalistic investigations. I would like to thank my colleagues for efforts in assisting in the formatting of the book and its publishing.

Hristo Hristov