Veliko Turnovo Court of Appeals sentenced Georgi Zhelyazkov and Stoyan Stoichkov to 19 and 17 years in prison, respectively, for the murder of Bulgarian law student Martin Borilski, who was killed in Paris in 2000, Bulgarian news agency Focus said on February 4 2010.

The court ordered both defendants to be moved to prison immediately.

A request by prosecutors for two to be given life sentences was turned down by the court.  Zhelyazkov and Stoichkov, who did not attend the court hearing, were also ordered by the court to pay Borilski’s mother 120 000 leva.

Appeals against the sentences may be lodged in the next 15 days. However, the arrest warrant issued by the court is not subject to appeal.       

Borilski was found dead in his Paris flat on July 20 2000. He had been stabbed more than 90 times and his skull smashed with a dumbbell. It took two years for Bulgarian authorities to put Georgi Zhelyazkov and Stoyan Stoichkov, identified as suspects by French police, on trial.

Both were later acquitted, as almost all evidence gathered by French police was challenged successfully by the defence as failing to comply with the Bulgarian penal procedure code. The case has been closely monitored by the French embassy.

In May 2009, the Supreme Court of Cassation returned the case to the Veliko Turnovo Court of Appeals and overturned the acquittals of Zhelyazkov and Stoichkov.

The Borilski case has been going with highly controversial ups and downs over the years putting at stake the credibility of Bulgaria’s judiciary in the eyes of the foreign community, most notably the French embassy in Bulgaria, which has been carefully monitoring developments.   

On January 22 2010, French ambassador in Sofia Etienne de Poncins said that the outcome of the Borilski case would be one of the criteria by which France would judge whether the situation with Bulgaria’s judiciary had started improving. This case would be decisive for France's position on Bulgaria's judiciary, he said.