After trial lasting 13 years: Former head of Sofia district heating sentenced to 7 years in prison for money laundering

After trial lasting 13 years, Sofia City Court on August 4 found the former director of Sofia district heating company, Valentin Dimitrov, guilty of money laundering and sentenced him to 7 years in prison, with an initial strict regime.

However, he remains free on a cash bail of 3 thousand BGN. The sentence is not final and is subject to appeal before the Sofia Court of Appeal.

The former head of the capital's district heating company who has already served one sentence for using the company's money to buy a jacuzzi bath for his office, make a luxury renovation of an apartment in a holiday area by the sea and buy a jet, entered the courtroom today, silent and replaced his famous lawyers with a court-appointed public defender.

Dimitrov was found guilty and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, with an initial strict regime, for laundering more than 22, 900,000 BGN, which were allegedly diverted from the capital's district heating company. After the verdict, Dimitrov remained silent.

The court ordered Dimitrov to pay another 20,000 BGN fine and confiscate all funds found in bank accounts or investments subject to the crime.

"In the end, the amount of the punishment is within the average amount provided for by law. The law provides for 3 to 12 years, and here he is sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment, but let us not think that this is the final judicial act. We are only at the first instance, Valentin Dimitrov is still presumed innocent," explained Ivaylo Zanev, prosecutor at Sofia City Prosecutor's Office.

The indictment against Dimitrov on this case was filed in court exactly 13 years ago, in the autumn of 2009. More than 130 witnesses and nearly 30 experts were questioned in the courtroom. Through a series of court orders to Austria, the court found it proven that some of the money was sent through transfers to Austrian bank accounts and others through hundreds of capital market transactions, including the purchase of US Treasury securities.

"But regardless of the factual and legal complexity of the case, I believe that 13 years of prosecuting a case in the first instance court is quite long and I would say that the case has gone beyond a reasonable time," prosecutor Zanev said.

In this case Dimitrov was also accused of tax evasion of nearly 3 million BGN.

"The tax crimes, all of them were terminated. In this part, the criminal proceedings were terminated because the statute of limitations had expired on all 12 counts of tax crimes. Their statute of limitations expired in the course of hearing the case before the first instance court ," Zanev specified.

Along with Valentin Dimitrov, his mother Tsetsa Dimitrova was also a defendant in the case. However, she died in 2011 and did not wait for the end of the judicial saga.

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