Prime Minister Boiko Borissov's has said that Bulgaria needed a new law against kidnapping. His comments came in the wake of the October 19 2009 kidnapping of the son of a Pravets businessman and municipal councillor.

Addressing reporters on October 20, Borissov said that the law had to "provide severe sanctions for such a crime," Bulgarian-language Dnevnik said. Borissov will talk to legal experts to check if this was possible.

His words came after Roumen Gouninski, son of Roumen Gouninski, a Bulgarian Socialist Party municipal councillor in the town of Pravets, was kidnapped just before 8pm on October 19 in Sofia.

As Gouninski jnr, a student at the National Sports Academy, was walking his dog just outside the academy, he was attacked and kidnapped by a group of masked men in a white van.

The kidnapping happened in front a number of witnesses. His father, Roumen Gouninski, is in the business of tourism, real estate and fuel trade. He has several petrol stations around Pravets and Blagoevgrad, working a franchise of Lukoil refinery run by Valentin Zlatev.

Speculation that a ransom had been demanded was denied by the authorities. However, Sofia city prosecutor Nikolai Kokinov said that police were working on the theory that the kidnapping was aimed at the father as "the boy is too young".

Speaking on the private Pro.bg channel, Gouninski's father said that no one had made any threats against him and he hadn't been contacted for a ransom.

Some commentators saw a link between Gouninski's father's involvement with municipal issues in Pravets and upcoming special elections there on November 15, but these were denied by Gouninski's friends.

According to Interior Ministry chief secretary Kalin Georgiev, the abductors of Gouninski jnr were probably the same people who had been terrorising the public for several months.