Court Issues Life Sentence for Ghastly Murder in Sofia Park

Nikolay Rusinov has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 28-year-old Yana Krasteva in Sofia in 2011. Photo by BGNES

Nikolay Rusinov has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 28-year-old Yana Krasteva in Sofia in 2011.

The sentence was issued by the Sofia City Court on Monday.

The prosecuting authority had demanded a penalty of life imprisonment due to the brutality of the murder, according to reports of the BGNES news agency.

The body of 28-year-old Yana Krasteva was found in the central Borisova Gradina park in downtown Sofia on July 10 2011.

She had been bludgeoned and strangled to death after a rock concert at the Bulgarian Army Stadium on the previous night.

The trial against Rusinov started on January 31, 2013.

He has been in custody since his arrest in end-April 2012.

According to the prosecuting authority, Rusinov killed the woman intentionally with the help of unknown accomplices.