US Blacklists Two 2012 Bulgaria Bombing Suspects

The July 2012 bus bombing at the Burgas airport killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the suicide bomber. Photo by BGNES

The United States has put on its terrorism blacklist two men identified as key suspects in the bombing of a bus at Bulgaria’s Burgas in 2012 attributed to Hizbollah organisation.

The State Department said in a statement it has designated Meliad Farah and Hassan el-Hajj Hassan, both believed to be located in Lebanon, as “specially designated global terrorists”.

The consequences of these designations include a prohibition against US persons engaging in transactions with Farah and Hassan; and the freezing of all of their property and interests in the United States, or come within the United States or the possession or control of US persons, according to the statement.

In July 2013, Farah and Hassan were publicly identified as key suspects in the bombing which has been attributed to Hizbollah, the statement said. The US lists Hizbollah as a terrorist organization.

Bulgaria’s former Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said in February 2013 that Bulgarian investigators had made "a well-founded assumption" that the perpetrators of the bombing that killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the suicide bomber, belonged to the military wing of Hizbollah. Thirty-five people were wounded in the bombing.

Lebanese-born Canadian citizen Hassan el-Hajj Hassan is believed to have been in charge of the logistics of the terror attack and the man who remotely detonated the bomb in the backpack of the suicide bomber on July 18, 2012.

 

 

 

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