The Sofia District Court decided late on July 26 2010 that the five men who were charged with plotting and executing the murder of controversial Bulgarian figure Yuri Galev must be kept under arrest in spite of them claiming to have "serious health issues", demanding that they are released from arrest, Bulgarian media said.

Media reports linked the group to the murder of Yuri Galev, a Samokov town councillor and football club boss who was involved in various controversial business enterprises and scandals.
 
Among those arrested was Petar Stoyanov, a senior figure in the world of sumo wrestling in Bulgaria.
 
The murder-for-hire group arrested in Bulgaria on July 23 2010 was also allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa said on July 25.
 
The newspaper claimed that about six or seven months ago, United States services warned their Bulgarian counterparts of a plot against Borissov, which according to the daily involved "disgruntled businessman".
 
Borissov’s administration, in power since July 2009, has initiated a series of high-profile arrests of groups allegedly involved in organised crime, actions acknowledged in a recent European Commission report on the state of Bulgaria’s fight against organised crime and corruption.

In the aftermath of operation Killers, the police arrested Petar 'the Chieftain' Stoyanov, Yanko Popov nicknamed Tutsi, Georgi Petkov, nicknamed Damchi, Vasil Kostov and Metodi Ivanov.

On July 26, all five of them were handed formal charges by the Sofia Prosecutor's Office.

Apart from Petkov, the man who is actually charged with pulling the trigger on Galev, the remaining four claimed to have "serious medical problems and should be let out of arrest".

However, the Sofia Court decided that the "medical evidence" presented by the defence is insufficient in order to have them released.

The allegations against the five are based in part on the evidence of records from mobile phone operators which revealed that they were in the area between Samokov and Borovets, near the village of Beli Iskar, and the time and place where Yuri Galev was shot with an AK assault rifle.