Two employees accused following the 2009 Sofia-Kardan train fire disaster case, which resulted in nine deaths inside a train couchette on February 28 2008, have received a total of 20 years in jail, Darik Radio said.

On May 4 2010, the Regional Court in Pleven found two of the three accused employees of the state-owned Bulgarian Railway Company (BDZ) - Georgi Georgiev, the person in charge of the couchette carriage, and train-commander Ivanka Kostadinova - guilty of failing to comply with their duties and breaching safety rules for passengers.

Georgiev was given 12 years in jail while Kostadinova got eight years. Both Georgiev and Kostadinova were on the train when the carriage caught fire in the middle of the night.

Georgiev was also found guilty of drinking alcohol on duty. Together with Kostadinova, he had failed to secure the evacuation of sleeping passengers from the burning carriage. They had also failed to ensure that fire extinguishers were properly maintained and in their correct positions, the court ruled.

The third defendant, Georgi Ivanov, deputy director of BDZ's Passenger Transport company, was found not guilty.

Georgiev, Kostadinova and BDZ were also sentenced to pay 100 000 leva to relatives of each of the nine victims.

The sentences can be appealed in the next 15 days.

One of the main points of public dissatisfaction during the case was that the carriage doors were locked. According to the prosecution, this was one of the reasons for the failed evacuation. According to the defendants, the order was issued to ensure the safety of passengers' belongings.

Defendants also claimed that the fire started so quickly that it was impossible to arrange a proper evacuation procedure.

The disaster was caused by a fire that erupted at about midnight on the train from Sofia to Kardam on the Romanian border, in the Dobrich region. As the train entered Cherven Bryag, the fire started in a couchette carriage, which contained 35 passengers at the time, and then spread to a sleeping compartment with 27 people.

Nine people died in one of the carriages, sparking widespread public discussion about the condition of BDZ. The committee was tasked with probing the causes of the fire and actions undertaken by railway employees to prevent the accident, but also to examine the regulatory framework concerning railway transport safety.