District Court Returns Case Against Blagomir Kotsev to Sofia City Prosecutor's Office.

Businessman Ivaylo Marinov and the former head of the mayor’s office, Antoaneta Petrova, are also defendants in the proceedings.

The five are charged with a total of 12 offences. During the hearing, the prosecution stated that there were no substantial procedural violations in the indictment against them and that there were no requests for the collection of new evidence. The prosecution’s position was that the case could proceed on its merits and that an open court hearing could be scheduled.

According to the defence lawyers, the monetary amounts are highly inflated, and there are no facts establishing that, without such a measure of restraint, the defendants would abscond or obstruct the proceedings. According to the prosecution, they demanded that about 6% of the money from public procurement contracts be returned to them, with suspicions that some of the funds went into the party treasury of the formation that nominated Kotsev.

The court panel stated that these violations deprived the defendants of an adequate defence, as the indictment did not specify the exact time, place and role of each of them in the alleged offence.

Blagomir Kotsev described the proceedings against him as a politically motivated case after the court today terminated the trial proceedings and returned the case to the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office to correct substantial procedural violations in the indictment, a Moreto reporter said.

After it was transferred to Varna, the case was halted in early spring because Stefanov and Kateliev were included on the PP-DB candidate list in Varna for the parliamentary elections. In its decision, the court stated that the indictment contained procedural violations.