4 Bulgarian Policemen Charged over Brutal Home Invasion

The Mustafovi family contines legal battles to prove that it has fallen victim to police brutality, Photo by BGNES.

Four policemen have been charged with violent home invasion in connection with a July 23, 2010 operation of the Ministry of Interior in a home in the Southern Bulgarian city of Kardzhali.

According to the conclusion of the second inspection of the case, which was ordered at the end of March by the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office, one of the police officers is being investigated for inflicting light bodily harm.

The special operation in Kardzhali has become notorious, with opposition parties and human rights organizations citing it as a prominent example of the growing police brutality in Bulgaria under the GERB party government.

On July 23, 2010, plainclothes police officers stormed the home of Aysel and Sabahtin Mustafovi in Kardzhali, hitting their daughter with the door and smashing her head. The family complained that it had fallen victim to unprovoked police brutality.

Interior Minister Tsvetanov countered the accusations by saying that their son, Kadir Mustafov, had assisted a taxi driver with recruiting prostitutes, which was why the home search had been carried out.

After that, the family filed two complaints with the Prosecutor's Office, insisting that they would refer the matter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In September 2010, Tsvetanov declared that the policemen, who had taken part in the operation, had been penalized over administrative irregularities because the investigation had failed to find traces of police brutality.

Despite that, the matter was checked once again by the Inspectorate with the Ministry of Interior, but the results of the check were kept secret.

The Regional Prosecutor's Office in Kardzhali refused to disclose the names of the policemen under investigation, although this is a standard practice in such cases, especially ones of public interest.

During the first inspection, the accused denied having overstepped their rights and two prosecutor's offices consecutively refused to open a case.

Eventually, the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office found serious omissions and ambiguities in the rulings of the previous instances and declared them invalid.

If the investigation turns into a lawsuit and the police officers are proven guilty, the three of them face up to three years in prison or six months of probation. In this case, the policeman charged with inflicting light bodily harm will spend up to two years in prison, or get a probation sentence.

The lawyer of the Mustafovi family, Elisaveta Pencheva, confirmed that her clients had already been notified of the conclusions of the check and they expected to be called to testify. In her words, the names of the policemen were a secret to them too.