CHIEF PROSECUTOR: BULGARIA WILL NOT EXTRADITE THE FOUR POLICEMEN ACCUSED OF MURDER BY TURKISH COURT

Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, told BNT on 22nd of March that Bulgaria would not extradite the border police officers wanted by Тurkey on murder charges in relation to the death of a fisherman.

According to the European Convention, to which Turkey is a party, Bulgaria is not obliged to hand over the accused, Tsatsarov said.

For Bulgarian legal system, these people have acted absolutely lawfully, defending the state border and performing their official duties in accordance with the law, he added.

On 21st of March, Turkey raised serious allegations against three border police officers and their former colleague Mihail Tsonkov. In Bourgas District Court, the four were handed the indictments on behalf of a Turkish court. Tsonkov was accused of deliberate murder of a Turkish fisherman and the other three of manslaughter.

The incident happened 9 years ago. In 2008, while guarding the sea border, Tsonkov and the other three received an alert that a vessel had entered the Bulgarian territorial waters off Rezovo. The border police officers were sent to detain the vessel. In the course of the arrests, one of the poachers resisted and was shot, subsequently dying of his injuries.

The investigation found that the shot was produced from the weapon of Mihail Tsonkov.

The court case in Bulgaria ended with acquittals. The Court accepted that Tsonkov acted in self-defense. The family of the Turkish fisherman brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights, which confirmed the ruling of the Bulgarian court. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Bulgarian police officers acted lawfully and the investigation of the Bulgarian authorities was objective.

Speaking to reporters on 21st of March, Tsonkov said that he had confidence in justice, adding that the Bulgarian court had ruled in their favour and he hoped that the outcome would be the same.

Lawyer Rosen Kozhuharov commented that he was not familiar with the Turkish law and did not know whether it was permissible to proceed when the European court had already made a ruling on the basis of identical facts.

The Prosecutor’s Office said that there were no legal grounds for the extradition of the four in the event of a request. No formal extradition request had been received from Turkey, statement of the Prosecutor’s office said.