The Sofia City Court acquitted Ioan Matev of the murder of Georgi Ignatov in Borisova Gradina, which took place on June 2, 2015.
The sentence was taken by 3: 2 votes. The chairman of the court Rusi Alexiev and one of the jurors have a special opinion. They demanded that Matev be convicted.
Ioan Matev: I found out about the murder from the media, I did not commit it
The motives – according to the majority of the court panel, there is no evidence that Matev held the knife and committed the murder. Following his acquittal, the court changed his measure of restraint from house arrest to a subscription.
Key witnesses to the murder in Borisova Gradina are being questioned
The Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office will file a protest against the decision in the case of the murder in Borisova Gradina, the press center of the ministry announced. According to the state prosecution, the sentence was incorrect and the evidence gathered in the case indisputably indicates the authorship of the act. Therefore, the only just punishment is the maximum allowed by law, in this case – 12 years in prison, because at the time of the crime the defendant was a minor, according to the prosecutor’s office.
“The conclusion that there is no evidence of the person who inflicted the blow, that this is the knife of the murder, that he was actually found there and stayed there for 2 years is not in the case. Obviously, the court accepted the same, “said Ina Lulcheva, who is Matev’s lawyer.
“I believe that a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence has been collected in the case, which shows that Ioan Matev was the person who held the knife and who struck,” commented Stanislava Karakusheva, a lawyer for Georgi’s relatives.
“The sentence is incorrect, illegal and will be protested by us,” said Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Antoaneta Pancheva.
–
