Bulgarian 'Crocodile' Gangsters Exonerated in Supreme Court

Alleged highway robber, Evgeni Milev, is pictured here after his arrest at December 2009. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassations issued Monday a not-guilty verdict for brothers Emil and Evgeni Milevi, known as the Crocodiles gang.

The two, along with an accomplice, Kaloyan Batsov, were charged with highway robbery, and an attempted murder of a police officer, committed in 2004.

The three were found guilty by the Sofia District Court, but two higher instances overruled the verdict over lack of evidence.

The Supreme Court rule is final and cannot be appealed.

The brothers have a long running record of robberies. In 2003, they were accused of stopping a van on the Bulgarian 'Hemus' highway, pretending to be policemen, and robbing all four people inside it of their mobile phones and personal belongings. In 2007, the Sofia Regional Court acquitted the two brothers.

In December 2008, the District Court found Emil Milev - Croki, Evgeni Milev - Geyzo and an accomplice guilty of a yet another highway robbery, committed in June, 2004. The court sentenced the men to 12 years in prison. However, on October 2009, the Sofia Court of Appeals acquitted the defendants.

The names of the two brothers Milevi came to the forefront again in December 2009, when police thwarted the robbery of a Turkish national on the Trakiya highway near Vakarel. In the subsequent shootout, one man that the police claimed to be an accomplice of the Crocodiles, was killed.

On this count, Geyzo was accused of attempting to cross the border from Serbia into Bulgaria at the Kalotina border point on December 19, 2009, with forged seals in his passport showing that he had not been in Bulgaria at the time of the "Trakiya" highway robbery.

According to the Court ruling, passport seals in themselves are not official documents and there is no conclusive evidence that Milev's passport was forged.

Milev was arrested at Kalotina, claiming he was returning from a trip to Germany where he was during the time of the robbery. The police, however, believe that he forged the seals in his passport and never left the country.

The two brothers are also facing a trial over the 2009 highway robbery. However, Evgeni Milev, was released on bail by the District Court in the town of Slivnitsa on May 17, 2010, as judge Georgi Nikolov decided Geyzo would not hide or commit another crime.

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