Sofia Military Court of Appeals will pass judgement in a month on the appeal of the five police officers from Blagoevgrad, who had been sentenced for the death of Angel Dimitrov. On January 21 the magistrates denied a request from the defence to bring the case to first instance for review, mediapool.bg said.

The defence of the police officers claimed that considerable breaches of procedure had been made during the hearing of the case by the district military court.

In November 2006 the head of the Blagoevgrad regional anti-organised crime unit major Miroslav Pissov, captain Ivo Ivanov, senior lieutenant Boris Mehandzhiiski and sergeants Yanko Grahovski and Georgi Kalinov were sentenced to a total of 91 years in prison for causing the death of Angel Dimitrov, mediapool.bg said.

Pissov was sentenced to 19 years in prison and the remaining 4 police officers to 18 years each. Together with the Blagoevgrad regional police directorate, the five have to pay 180 000 leva in compensation to the relatives of Dimitrov, who died on November 10 2005 after being beaten by the police officers. The incident happened during a specialised police operation, known as the Respect operation.

Initially local police management together with the Interior Ministry management claimed that Dimitrov, also known as Chorata, died of a heart attack, which was said to have been caused by the shock of the detention. After local media publications quoted witnesses of the incident and the intervention of the uncle of the victim, who was said to be a n influential Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) functionary, the coroner carried out a second medical investigation. It proved that Dimitrov died of the beating and not of a heart attack as the Interior Ministry claimed, mediapool.bg said.