67,934 cases were closed by the prosecutor's office due to statute of limitations in 2025. This is according to the data from the latest annual report of the state prosecution. This practically means that the cases in question were "open" for so long that the time allowed by law for investigating the crimes has expired. And now these files are going to the archive, without the criminals being punished and the victims receiving justice, summarized novini.bg.
In 2024 and 2023, 63,399 and 82,644 cases were closed due to statute of limitations, respectively. Therefore, the prosecutor's office now estimates that for 2025 there will be an increase of 7.2% compared to 2024, but a decrease of 17.8% compared to 2023. "Of the cases terminated due to statute of limitations, 99.8% are for crimes with an unknown perpetrator, which is an objective factor for termination", the prosecutor's office reassures every year.
Against a known perpetrator (with a person involved as the accused) the terminated cases are 144 or 0.2%.
Since the data on cases terminated due to statute of limitations are usually present in the annual reports. Thus, it can be traced that from 2008 to 2025 inclusive. about 1,950,000 (one million and 950 thousand) cases were terminated due to statute of limitations. In practice - an unannounced amnesty.
The Ministry of Interior is responsible for detecting crimes. However, the fact that the perpetrator has not been identified does not change the fact that a crime has been committed that has gone unpunished. It is also unknown how many victims there are of these crimes with unknown perpetrators. The level of detection of crimes against property, for example, is low. In 2025, nearly 24 thousand out of a total of 29,044 suspended pre-trial proceedings are on hold due to an unidentified perpetrator. Unlike discontinued cases, suspended cases can be resumed as long as the statute of limitations has not expired. However, some are simply suspended until the absolute statute of limitations expires and are not terminated.
According to the Criminal Code, criminal prosecution is excluded when the so-called absolute statute of limitations has expired. It depends on the crime. The longest is 52 and a half years - for the murder of two or more people. For crimes punishable by life imprisonment without parole, it is 30 years. For acts punishable by more than 10 years, it is 22 and a half years, and for those punishable by more than 3 years - 15 years. For crimes punishable by more than a year of imprisonment, the absolute statute of limitations is 7 and a half years, and for all others - 3 years.
The mass termination of cases due to statute of limitations began in 2006, after Boris Velchev became Chief Prosecutor and ordered a revision of suspended proceedings. It turned out that many prosecutors had been accumulating files that had not been worked on for years.