Justice Minister Seeks Law Changes after Early Release of Two of "The Impudent"

Bulgaria’s Justice Minister Tsetska Tsacheva will propose changes to the legislation following a court decision for the early release from prison of two of the members of the so called “The Impudent” kidnapping gang.

Four of the eight who were brought to trial as members of “The Impudent” group were found guilty of 12 kidnappings and one unfinished attempt. Tsacheva said on 31^st of May that before the second instance court, the prison administration would maintain the standpoint of the Prosecutor's Office requesting the early release of Lyubomir Dimitrov aka The Rower and Ivaylo Eftimov aka Yozhi to be overturned.

Electronic tracking of early released is one of the proposed changes to the law. The Justice Minister undertook, in the short term, to launch a call for public procurement for the bracelets, which had failed several times so far. The devices are also needed in connection with the changes that introduced electronic control of detainees under house arrest. According to Tsacheva, there should be a change in the procedure for early release - with a personal request to the court.

On 10^th of May, Sofia City Court ruled that two of the members of “The Impudent” gang would be released from prison earlier than scheduled, for good behaviour.

Lubomir Dimitrov aka the Rower and Ivaylo Evtimov aka Yozhi will be released ahead of schedule, only after 7 years behind bars, the court decided. Evtimov was sentenced to 18 year of imprisonment, with remaining 11 years to serve, and Dimitrov was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, of which 3 more remain. The news of the eraly relese greatly disturbed the families of the victims.

The prosecutor's office said they would appeal. Before being disrupted in 2009, the gang managed to kidnap 12 people. They were subject to inhuman torture in order to force their relatives to pay ransoms for their release. Among the victims are the businessman Kiro Kirov; the executive director of Litex, Angel Bonchev and his wife Emilia and the son of former transport minister Vilhelm Kraus -Mihail.

Ivan Kirov, the son of the kidnapped businessman Kiril Kirov said his family was considering hiring a security.

He said the family was worried, He added that those people were criminals and could be even more professional in what they did, they knew how they were caught and know how to do the same even easier now. "Our money is still with them, because no one has found it, no one returned the money to us and no one has seized it,” he said.

Roumyana Arnaudova, spokesperson for the Chief Prosecutor said that the request for conditional early release should not be respected, as there were no law requirements to do so. She added that it was not ethical to release them and there was no evidence that there was a reduction in their criminal behaviour, except prison labour. “We hope that Sofia Court of Appeals will honour our protest and will not allow the early release of the two,” she said.

The Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Mladen Marinov, said that even if Yozhi and the Rower were released they would be under constant police monitoring.

Mladen Marinov refused to comment on whether the police was still looking for the 3 million BGN received by “The Impudent” as ransom, which so far had not been found.

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