Thu, Feb 09 2012
On December 3, Sofia City Court put the case against the brothers Nikolay and Krasimir Marinov, nicknamed the Big and the Small Margins, and five other defendants on hold for an unknown period of time.
The five co-defendants were the brothers Ivo and Svetlin Karageorgiev, Biser Iliev, Stefan Rangelov and Veselin Toshev.
The deteriorating health of Ivo Karageorgiev was given as the motivation behind the dismissal of the case. Karageorgiev had heart-problems and urgently needed an operation, medical examination showed. Specialists however said the condition had existed for years, and they could not understand why the operation hadn't happened earlier, Dnevnik daily said.
After the operation, recovery should be fairly quick, doctors told the court. The judge decided to call the next hearing in April 2008, in which the condition of Karageorgiev would have to be established and whether the court process could continue. Before that, in late March, an expert analysis would have to decide if he could fully take part in the case, Dnevnik daily said.
The court let the Margin brothers go on bail, Dnevnik said.
If the case would not be appealed within a week, two years after their initial arrest and after month of hospitals and home-arrest, one of the last bosses of the former controversial SIK group to be alive, would be free on a bail of 20 000 leva, Dnevnik commented.
On October 31 2005, Prosecution accused the Margins brothers and the five others of plotting the murders of three people: retired general Lyuben Gotsev, financial expert Nikola Damyanov and Ivan Todorov, nicknamed The Doctor, of participation in an organised crime group and illegal possession of arms.
On November 5, Krassimir Marinov appeared in court in a wheelchair, and supported by friends to prove that his condition was deteriorating. The court scheduled its next hearing for December 3, at which it now dismissed the case.
Meanwhile, two of the three people whose murders the brothers were alleged to have plotted are dead. In September 2006, Todorov was shot dead in his Porsche Cayenne in broad daylight in Sofia's central Lozenets neighbourhood. Damyanov, linked to the Varna-based industrial group TIM, died of a heart attack this October.
The Margin brothers case has been dragging on for four years, and there is little prospect of it ending anytime soon
The discovery was made after some of the land in a complex near Bourgas was washed away by rough seas.
No trains could cross the Danube Bridge and passengers from international trains were being taken to the city of Rousse by road transport.
Hazardous weather warnings across the country on February 9, new record-low temperatures, and three people reported frozen to death in Pernik.
Opposition parties and environmental protection NGOs argued that this and other provisions were the result of lobbyist pressure from ski resort operators.
Ferry-boat service between the Bulgarian and Romanian banks of the river may continue if the ferry captains decide that the weather conditions allow the safe passage of the boats.