A false start also in the second attempt to start the case against Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev. The District Court in the seaside capital decided to return the case to the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office due to omissions in the indictment. Kotsev is accused of participating in an organized criminal group, soliciting bribes and coercion, Nova TV reported.
The defense lawyers of all five defendants - Blagomir Kotsev, municipal councilors Nikolay Stefanov and Yordan Kateliyev, businessman Ivaylo Marinov and the head of the mayor's office Antoaneta Petrova - requested that the proceedings be terminated due to numerous procedural violations in the materials provided by the prosecutor's office. We are talking about about 70 volumes of documents.
The lawyers pointed out a number of inaccuracies, including the lack of a specific time and place for some of the alleged crimes. According to the court, these omissions limit the defendants' right to defense.
The prosecutor's office has 7 days to decide whether to appeal the court ruling.
We recall that the case was sent for consideration in Varna after the Supreme Court of Cassation decided to transfer it from Sofia. This happened after Blagomir Kotsev was released from custody, where he spent nearly five months.
The mayor of Varna has been charged with 12 charges, along with the other four. One charge is for soliciting bribes from companies in order to win public contracts.
The representative of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office, Georgi Ivanov, stated that the state prosecution will consider within the legal deadline whether to appeal the court's decision.
Kotsev's defense attorney, lawyer Ina Lulcheva, described the charge as “complete absurdity”. “We have been talking about this absurdity since the detention measures, and now everything is finally coming to light“, she commented.
For his part, Blagomir Kotsev said: “The architects of the state with a capital “D“ are no longer there, so things are gradually falling into place“.
The case against the mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, is being resumed
The case was stopped once because of the candidate-deputy immunities of Kateliyev and Stefanov.