Retired Russian frogman claims killing Brit Commander who inspired James Bond

Eduard Koltsov, who was 23 at the time, said that he slit Crabb’s throat in Portsmouth harbour after catching him attempting to plant a mine on the hull of a ship, which had brought Nikita Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders to Britain in April 1956.

He made this claim while talking to a Russian documentary team because he reportedly wanted to tell the truth before his own death.

He said that he was investigating suspicious activity around the ship, the cruiser Ordzhonikidze, when he spotted Commander Crabb fixing a mine to the hull.

Koltsov also showed the documentary team the dagger which he claimed he had used to kill Crabb.

According to the BBC, he also said that he was later awarded the Red Star medal for the job he had done.

“I saw a silhouette of a diver in a light frogman suit who was fiddling with something at the starboard, next to the ship’s ammunition stores. I swam closer and saw that he was fixing a mine,” Times Online quoted Koltsov as telling the film crew.

One of Commander Crabb's relatives, however, dismissed Koltsov’s claim, and insisted that it was unthinkable that a Royal Navy diver would have deliberately endangered a visiting ship. (ANI)