Bulgaria Police Brutality Trial Stalls

The Supreme Court of Cassations (VKS) revoked at the beginning of the year the jail sentence of 82 years total for the five defendants. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Military Appellate Court has referred back for more evidence the case against five anti-mafia policemen, accused of killing Angel Dimitrov aka Chorata more than four years ago.

The Supreme Court of Cassations (VKS) revoked at the beginning of the year the jail sentence of 82 years total for the five defendants.

The VKS sent the case back to the Military Appellate Court with the motive that there were a number of irregularities committed by the magistrates during the trial, mainly failing to consider the real cause of death.

VKS decided that Chorata had died from positional asphyxiation not from a head trauma and a rupture of the artery. In their decision the Military Court had reached the conclusion that all defendants have exerted continues and intense violence on Chorata without making a thorough analysis of the presented evidence and have omitted and misinterpreted witness accounts, VKS notes.

According to the latest medical expertise, Chorata’s death was caused by asphyxiation and was further facilitated by his health condition and drug abuse.

Another violation, according to VKS, is that the Appellate Court failed to probe if the policemen had violated the Interior rules of making arrests and the force they used.

Angel Dimitrov AKA Chorata, was allegedly killed in November of 2005 by the Blagoevgrad police during a law enforcement operation entitled "Respect."

Dimitrov's death was first declared the result of a heart attack but the first expertise showed that he had passed away due to blows to the head. Chorata was a close associate of the alleged mobster Vasil Gorchev, who was publicly executed in January of 2005.

Major Miroslav Pisov was sentenced by the Military Appellate Court to 18 years behind bars, while the other four - captain Ivo Ivanov, chief-lieutenant Boris Mehandzhijski, and sergeants Georgi Kalinkov and Yanko Grahovski - to 16 years in jail.

The sentences triggered mass protest rallies of policemen and citizens in the summer of 2009 in the capital Sofia and in Blagoevgrad. Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, has also voiced support for the accused police officers.

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