--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Guardian (London) - June 16, 2005
>
> 'Ice-pick that killed Trotsky' found in Mexico
> Jo Tuckman in Mexico City
>
> One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern
> history, the
> ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have
> been found, 65
> years after it was apparently stolen from the
> Mexican police.
>
> The daughter of a former secret service agent claims
> she has the
> steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained
> with the blood of
> the Russian revolutionary.
>
> Exiled by Joseph Stalin, Trotsky lived a relatively
> settled life in a
> leafy suburb of Mexico City until his death in 1940.
>
> Trotsky was always fearful of assassination attempts
> organised by
> Stalin. He was finally caught off guard by Ramon
> Mercader, who on
> August 20 1940 got access to him on the pretext of
> needing help.
>
> Once in the study, Mercader struck the creator of
> the Red Army in the
> head from behind with the shortened pick he had
> hidden under his
> clothes.
>
> Murderer and ice-pick were taken into custody but
> the weapon later disappeared.
> Now Ana Alicia Salas says her father, Commander
> Alfredo Salas, stole
> the pick because he wanted to preserve it for
> posterity.
>
> Trotsky's grandson Seva Volkov, who lived with his
> grandfather at the
> time and still lives in Mexico, is willing to
> provide samples for a
> DNA test against the blood on the handle only if
> Salas donates the
> pick to the museum in the house where the murder
> took place.
>
> But she said: "I am looking for some financial
> benefit. I think
> something as historically important at this should
> be worth
> something, no?"
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