British spy and Soviet double agent George Blake has died at the age of 98, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) announced.

“We have received bitter news, the legendary George Blake is gone,” SVR spokesman Sergey Ivanov told Russian media on Saturday. 

Blake, a member of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), became a communist while serving as a prisoner of war in Korea. In 1961, he was found to be passing secrets to the Soviet Union’s secret police, the KGB, and was sentenced to 42 years behind bars. He managed to escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison in London in 1966 and flee to the Soviet Union.

DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Source: RT