In twenty years the Ministry of Interior has uncovered three contract killings. The prosecution has never heard of these crimes

Bulgarian gangs, organized crime groups, gang wars, contract killings and nearly daily street shootings were a normal part of life in the first decades of the Bulgarian democratic transition period. So much so that they became its emblem.

The mere fact that so many contract killings, as well as their mass non-solving, is a diagnosis not just of the weakness of the investigations themselves and the entire judicial branch but also of the state of the country as a whole.

Today a large part of these crimes has sunk deep into police and prosecutors’ archives, likely never to emerge again.

One of the crimes (likely even the only one) that the Ministry of Interior was very proud of solving, was the murder of ex-Prime Minister Andrey Lukanov. He was shot dead in 1996. In a final ruling in 2007 the court produced not guilty verdicts for all five defendants. This means that even if this killing is categorized as solved in the Ministry of Interior’s statistical data as solved, according to the court, it is not.

These days the subject of contract killings is so outworn and outdated that institutions such as the Prosecutor’s Office don’t even bother at all reporting progress on these cases. Some years ago, these issues seemed to still matter. In the regular reports by the European Commission for example, the fact that the country has not showed any progress in uncovering contract killings, was always pointed out, and the reports insisted that measures need to be taken to overcome these shortcomings.

Only three contract killings have been solved in the last 20 years. This is what the official police statistics show, according to an answer to Mediapool by the the Mnistry of Interior. At the same time the Prosecutor’s Office have never even heard of such crimes. In their database contract killings are not even recorded, which is why they did not return any information for such cases following an inquiry by Mediapool.

Laws exist but not exactly

Since the mid-90’s up until now tens, or even hundreds of demonstrative shootings and bombings were carried out. Most often the victims were members of the gang underground but sometimes they were also business owners of companies worth millions that had enormous influence – for example the owner of the Multigroup empire Iliya Pavlov.

From the point of view of common sense, one would assume these assassinations were contracted. They are described as such in many annual monitoring reports by the European Commission dedicated to the fight with corruption and organized crime. In all of these reports Bulgaria’s failure to uncover crimes connected to large, organized crime and contract killings is mentioned.

But as it turns out the Bulgarian authorities do not count them as such. The reason is this: until 2002 the Bulgarian Penal Code does not contain the concept of "contract killing", although they occurred in reality. Amendments to the legal framework are introduced only in 2002. With them, a new paragraph was added. However, it describes not the contract killing in general but only in case the the assassination is ordered buy an organized criminal group. That is, the scope in the definition is extremely narrow, since in order to be able to prove a case of a contract killing, there first needs to be evidence of an organized crime group.

Led by this logic, the MoI declared that they can provided data only from 2002 onwards. In its answer to an inquiry done through the Access to Information Act the ministry stated that the law gives them right to answer only about those cases, for which a person has been indicted and taken to court for a crime committed. In other words, all case files and investigations where such a crime is suspected or there is suspicion or evidence pointing to a contract killer and instigator, do not fall under this category. What is more the MoI cited the presumption of innocence as well for not being able to share such information: that is, if a contract killing is not proved to be such in the court of law via a conviction, it cannot be considered solved.

"All previous procedural and investigative actions including indicting the suspect, taking the indictment to court and so on – are merely an accumulation of assumptions based on evidence collected during the investigation phase, which are to be proved in the court of law," the police said.

This way the number of solved crimes that fall into the category was reduced to three. These crimes happened in 2004, 2005 and 2017. The names of the victims were not mentioned, neither are those of the convicted, even though if the court decision has been enforced, this should not be a problem.

What is this contract killing?

Mediapool forwarded its MoI inquiry to the Prosecutor’s Office as well, as it contained questions about discontinued or closed investigations for which there are no convictions. The state attorney’s office did not take these questions seriously at all. In a page-and-a-half, signed by the recently appointed deputy prosecutor general Maria Pavlova, the answer states that such data does not exist.

"because of the absence of legal and other specially adopted definition for the concept of "contract killing" in the official reporting documents of the Prosecutor’s Office, the corresponding statistical indicators are not developed, and such data about the killings that the MoI deems "contract" is not collected," the prosecutor wrote.

"In light of the above, information that fulfills these criteria are not available, not collected or analyzed, which is why it is impossible to be provided."

The answer is bizarre, to put it mildly. The main legislation that the Prosecutor’s Office works with is the Penal Code, because only the Prosecutor’s Office can produce indictments under it. Which is why to demonstrate that you are unfamiliar with that very law, or at least with the articles related to homicide, is absurd.

What is the reality?

Contract killings and street wars in Bulgaria begun as early as the mid 90’s. One of the first assassinations was against the VIS-2 boss Vassil Iliev in Sofia, 1995. The crime is still unsolved. From the answers by the MoI’s and the Prosecutor’s Office it cannot be said id the work on this case has been stopped or the case has been closed, or maybe it is still ongoing.

In the years that followed the police kept registering assassinations on a regular basis. Among the "richest" years in assassinations was the period between 2002 and 2005. During this time a number of assassinations were carried out, among them against the alleged smuggler Ivan "The Doctor" Todorov, Multigroup founder Iliya Pavlov, banker Emil Kyulev, Konstantin "The Samokovnian" Dimitrov, Vassil Iliev’s brother Georgi Iliev. The list can be continued with the SIC affiliate Stoil Slavov, one of the alleged cofounder of VIS Simitar "Maymuniaka" Dimitrov, Philip "Fatikh" Naydenov, Milcho "bay Mile" Bonev, Dmitriy "Dimata" Minew, Evgeni "Zhenyata" Stefanov and many others.

In all these cases investigations have been opened, theories discussed (usually gang wars) and evidence was collected. To date, however, the institutions refuse to share how far these investigations have gone.

The Prosecutor’s Office pretend to not know anything. While the MoI claim they cannot share data from ongoing investigations.

"As for the unsolved homicides, the qualifying signifier "contract killing" can only be attained through operative data – motive, who the victim is, financial relations and illicit connections, mechanisms, means, and conditions, under which the crime was committed, and so on. All these sources are enough to form working theories for the existence of a qualifying signifier "contract" in terms of a given first degree murder but are not enough to prove the crime and so it cannot be treated as solved," the MoI wrote.

It turns out it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to find out through official channels the number of solved contract killings through the years. Likely most of these murders are qualified only according to the Penal Code’s provisions for "murder" not contract killing. In these cases, information needs to be collected regarding the instigator, but this makes finding information even more difficult because not every instigation means only contract killing.

The Bulgarian version of this text can be found here.