Sofia City Court sentenced Bulgarian businessman Mario Nikolov to 10 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of embezzling 7.5 million euro from the European Union's Sapard programme.

Nikolov was also found guilty of organising a criminal group and was also fined 30 000 leva. His wife, Mariana Nikolova, who was on trial with Nikolov, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Nikolov's business partner, Lyudmil Stoikov, was acquitted on all charges, while the other four defendants in the case were sentenced to six years each. They will also have to pay a fine of 30 000 leva each.

All of those found guilty, including Nikolov's wife, will collectively have to repay 12 million leva to the Sapard programme and to cover court costs of 10 000 leva.

The case, popularly known as the Nikolov-Stoikov case, was based on an investigation that the European Anti-fraud Office (Olaf) started in 2006.

In July 2008, a report on Bulgaria's deficient handling of European Union funds, conducted by Olaf, said that it suspected that millions of euro were embezzled by "a criminal network made up of more than 50 Bulgarian, European and offshore companies, controlled and/or financed by Mario Nikolov and Lyudmil Stoikov, suspected of having close ties to the current Government".

On October 20 2008, the court gave the green light to a case filed by the State Fund Agriculture against Nikolov and eight other defendants, including his wife, while Stoikov was cleared due to insufficient evidence They were accused of tax fraud aimed at embezzling EU funds under the EU Sapard programme managed by the fund.

In the alleged criminal scheme, the Nikolov-Stoykov group exported old meat processing equipment from Bulgaria to Germany, where the equipment was dismantled and then imported back to Bulgaria via Switzerland and Ireland, declared as brand new equipment.

For the "purchase" of this "brand-new" equipment, the Nikolov group had received Sapard funding. The Fund lodged court action against Nikolov and his co-defendants for a total of 17.8 million leva. In response to the fund's claim, Nikolov's lawyers filed a counter-claim for 26 million leva.

People whom Olaf had identified as accomplices in Germany were put on trial and convicted while the case in Bulgaria dragged on for years without any major progress, which made Olaf say in a report that the two businessmen were not being prosecuted because they had political protection.

It also became part of the political battles in Bulgaria after Bulgarian media established that two companies controlled by one of the defendants Luydmil Stoikov, had donated a total of 50 000 leva to the 2006 election campaign of current President Georgi Purvanov.

Nikolov, on the other hand, had donated funds to the former ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party, the party that Purvanov led before winning the 2001 presidential elections.