After the Burgas District Court and the Specialized Court, it was the turn of the Sofia City Court to deal with Dimitar Zhelyazkov
Judge Petya Kruncheva of the Sofia City Court (SGS) is handling the case against Nessebar boss Dimitar Zhelyazkov, known as Mityo Ochite, accused of being the leader of a racketeering and arson criminal group.
He fell on the principle of the random distribution of cases. Thus, after Dimitar Zhelyazkov has been treated first by the Burgas magistrates, and then by the specialized justice for the past fifteen years, it was the turn of those of the Sofia city court. In 2008, the Burgas court convicted Zhelyazkov of drug dealing after a plea deal.
In July of this year, Judge Kruncheva, president of the 4th chamber of the SGS, sentenced the former head of the “Toplofikatsia” of the capital Valentin Dimitrov – Valo Toploto, to seven years in prison.
He also handled other historical cases, such as the murder of student Stoyan Baltov in Studentski Grad
and the case known as “Batko and Bratko” against former Head of the Road Fund Veselin Georgiev.
The case against Dimitar Zhelyazkov is one of dozen who were in the specialized court, but after its closure on July 29, they went to the Sofia city court. Since a pre-trial hearing has not yet been held on it, it has been assigned to Judge Kranceva. Those for whom the first hearing has already been held continue to be examined by the magistrates, who worked in the specialized court until the end of July.
Sessions on them will continue to be held in the courtroom at “Cherkovna” street 90 and not in the courtroom at “Vitosha” Blvd. One such case is against former environment minister Neno Dimov, who will face Themis on Friday. The case against him continues with the interrogation of witnesses.
However, it is not entirely certain that the trial of Mityo Ochite will be heard in Sofia. At the dispositive hearing, which Judge Kruncheva is about to set, you can decide that you are under the jurisdiction of the Burgas District Court, and send him there. The reason: The crimes for which Mityo Ochite and 12 other people are accused were mainly committed in Nessebar and Sunny Beach.
In August, Dimitar Zhelyazkov, who has been under house arrest with an electronic bracelet since July last year, asked to be released for rehabilitation.
The case was heard by Judge Lilia Georgieva on August 19. However, she refused to let him go. She recalled that as soon as she is under house arrest, the defendant is considered a public danger.
That’s why she had to prove that her rehabilitation exit was linked to a serious threat to her health and life.
Judge Georgieva refused to release Mityo Ochite also because she only submitted a note that was not issued in the correct order. She didn’t even mention the location of the medical center where he wanted to be treated.
However, he found that the case was under the jurisdiction of the Sofia City Court, because the investigation was conducted by the GDBOP, whose headquarters are in the capital, on “Tsarigradsko shose” blvd.
Zhelyazkov is accused of leading an organized criminal extortion group,
coercion through threats, arson and drug distribution. The charge is from 2018.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the gang operated from January 2013 to August 2, 2018 in the territory of Burgas, Yambol, Nessebar and Sunny Beach, according to the prosecution’s indictment.
Ochite was arrested in a luxury hotel in Istanbul on August 4, 2018, after the prosecutor’s office declared him wanted through Interpol.
Together with him, the well-known Burgas grain boss, Bencho Benchev, was arrested, later acquitted of the charge of hiding Zhelyazkov.
A few months later, Mityo Ochite was extradited to our country. Since then he has spent more than 2 years in the Sofia prison. He was last seen at a boxing match behind bars in the summer of 2021. Shortly thereafter he returned home under house arrest.
However, the lawsuit against him cannot essentially start from 2019, because there was a dispute as to which of the 10 charges could be tried due to the extradition procedure from Turkey. Under the law, an extradited person should only be tried for what he was returned to us for.
The court also once referred the case to the prosecutor’s office, but quickly corrected the errors in the indictment.
The reason was the discrepancies in the amounts that the extortion gave to his men.
One of the extorted businessmen, for example, gave BGN 16,000 to Mityo Ochite’s group after the psychological harassment they inflicted on him, and the damage to his company was recorded as BGN 21,460. According to the court, it was not even clear how to point a gun to the head, a shot and a threat to the owner of a funeral home in March 2014 led to 5 more criminal acts until February 2017. As it became clear in the first instance, Turkey extradited Mityo Ocite to be tried on 5 charges, but then another 4 were added to them.
Two years earlier, in 2016, Mityo Ochite experienced one of the most difficult moments in his rich biography. He
he nearly died after being shot in a factory in
Sunny Beach The reason: a scandal has broken out between its people and another gang.
Since then, his health has deteriorated and he is often hospitalized.
Before being placed under house arrest, Zhelyazkov made several attempts to turn the cell into a domestic setting, but the Special Court continued to refuse him. While he was behind bars, he too became a grandfather: his daughter Stanislava gave birth to her first child.
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