Shot Bulgarian Gangster Undergoes Surgery for Hours

Shot Bulgarian mobster Zlatomir Ivanov minutes before he was taken to the emergency room of the Pirogov Hospital in Sofia. Photo by BGNES

Emblematic Bulgarian mobster Zlatomir Ivanov, aka Zlatko Baretata (The Beret), who has shot in downtown Sofia Tuesday morning, has been in surgery for several hours.

Zlatomir Ivanov was still on the operating table in the Pirogov Hospital in Sofia as of 4 pm EET on Tuesday, Kanal 3 TV reported.

The former member of Bulgaria's counter-terrorism squad, who became one of the best known mobsters in Bulgaria in the late 1990s, got 4 gunshot wounds at about 9:30 EET on Tuesday, as he was about to enter the Central Courthouse in Sofia for a hearing in a trial in which he is appealing an 8-year sentence for leading a drug dealing organized crime group.

One of the bodyguards of Zlatko Baretata was also shot and wounded during the shootout, in which the failed assassin, who was positioned on the roof of the Sofia Bar Association building across the street, managed to escape.

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