Murder near Sofia: The perpetrators kidnapped and tortured the victim

Kiril Rusev, a 49-year-old man killed near Sofia, was first kidnapped and tortured, it became clear at a joint briefing by the Prosecutor's office and police on January 8.

On January 6, the man's body was discovered in a morgue with forged documents after relatives reported him missing the previous day.

Enough evidence has been gathered that the suspects - Petar Alexandrov and Alexander Kinov - first kidnapped and then killed the man, deputy prosecutor of Sofia's city Prosecutor’s office said.

The mother of the murdered 49-year-old man had reported him missing on January 5, the director of Sofia Directorate of the Ministry of Interior, Lyubomir Nikolov, said. The police officer who took the signal suspected that a serious crime had been committed. Within 30 minutes of receiving the signal, the first suspect was detained. The second suspect was detained an hour and a half later.

"A number of investigative and operational actions were carried out in a short period of time - review of CCTV cameras, interviews, in the course of which it was established that the day before the tip-off, sometime between 2.30pm - 4.00pm on 4 January, the victim was invited to visit a property owned by one of the perpetrators, where examination revealed that the person had been tortured, tied up and subsequently killed."

The cause of death was two gunshot wounds to the torso and one leg. Immediately afterwards, Aleksandrov and Kinov took the victim's body to a chamber of a private morgue, with which Kinov, who is an undertaker by profession, has a contract.

"Even the same person had tried to cremate the body by means of an inauthentic death certificate presented to the funeral agency," says Lyubomir Nikolov, director of the Sofia Directorate of the Ministry of Interior.

Kinov and Alexnadrov then began to build their alibi. They went to Serbia through the Strezimirovci border crossing. Aleksandrov crossed the border with his own ID documents, but Kinov left Bulgaria with Kiril Rusev's identity card.

“We requested a counter-check from the authorities in Serbia, which promptly provided us with information and the second perpetrator was established, at the entrance to the Republic of Serbia, the document of the murdered victim was hidden and the persons presented themselves with the personal documents of their identity', said Mihail Naumov, head of the Homicide Department at the National Police.

Aleksandrov and Kinov carried the murdered Rusev's phone and sent several text messages from it to his relatives. They then left the phone in Serbia. After about an hour they returned to Bulgaria.

"We managed to locate the victim's phone," said Mihail Naumov, head of the Homicide Unit.

Several weapons were found during the searches of the homes of the two suspects. An expert examination will say which of them was used in the murder. The most likely motive, according to investigators, is a debt of over 300 thousand BGN that the murdered Kiril Rusev owed to Petar Alexandrov.

"The accused Alexandrov was engaged in banking activity, i.e. lending sums of money for interest to persons who were in financial difficulties and accepting funds in exchange for a pledge," says Lyubomir Nikolov.

The victim, Kiril Rusev, owned a restaurant in Sofia and had no criminal record. Petar Alexandrov also has no previous criminal record. Alexander Kinov's criminal record includes illegal possession of weapons and explosives, robbery and theft.