http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=03PVE10QP5BPBQFIQMGSNAGAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/09/19/wras19.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/09/19/ixportal.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=61929Rasputin, the Russian monk who became the confidant of Alexandra, the Tsarina, and her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, was killed by a British agent, according to a documentary to be broadcast next month.
An investigation into his death in 1916 has concluded that he was murdered not as had been supposed by disaffected Russian aristocrats but by Oswald Rayner, a member of the Secret Intelligence Bureau who was working at the Russian court in St Petersburg.
Richard Cullen, a retired Scotland Yard commander who has been studying the case with Andrew Cook, an intelligence historian, says that a new forensic analysis and an examination of official records helped him to reach his conclusion.
According to Timewatch Rayner was known to be in St Petersburg in December 1916 when Rasputin died. A close friend from university was Prince Felix Yusupov, at whose sumptuous palace the murder took place.