Bulgarian Police Admit Authenticity of Terrorist Photos

The latest available computer-generated portraits of the alleged perpetrator of the terror act in Bulgaria. Photo by Pressa

Stayko Manev, Police Chief in the Black Sea town of Nessebar has confirmed the authenticity of the photos of the head of the alleged suicide bomber and perpetrator of the July 18 terrorist attack in Bulgaria's Burgas.

On Friday, the Bulgarian investigative site Bivol.bg published photos of the reconstructed head of what was believed to have been the suicide bomber. Some media in the country decided not to publish the pictures deeming them shocking, and announced they will wait for the official release of images from the investigation.

The July 18 terrorist attack in Bulgaria's Burgas, also known as the Burgas Bus Bombing, killed 5 Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver at the Sarafovo Airport. The initial lead, purported by Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, was that it has been executed by a suicide bomber, who arrived from abroad.

According to Bivol.bg and other observers and terror experts, this lead is looking less and less reliable and the most viable hypothesis is that the perpetrator has been deluded, used as a mule, and has acted under the influence of illegal drugs.

The Bulgarian Pressa (Press) daily writes that the published pictures have been taken in the Burgas morgue, where two days after the blast the coroners were able to piece together parts of the head that remained somewhat intact and to reconstruct the face of the attacker.

On the pictures, the head is distorted over missing and/or broken bones, but the doctors still managed to come up with a pretty good image of the man. The photos have been sent to the National Investigative Service, where Photoshop has been used to retouch the most horrifying details and scars.

Pressa cite experts explaining that such reconstruction is one of the most complex procedures in medicine, and is usually done by a team of five – a coroner, an anatomist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist and an anthropologist.

Speaking from the central city of Veliko Tarnovo Saturday, Tsvetanov stated that it was a matter of hours for the Interior to release to all media official photos of the assailant.

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