The lawyers of Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev asked the Sofia Court of Appeal to cancel his permanent arrest. They attacked both the hearing of the case in Sofia and the actions of the investigative bodies.
The court hearing on the measures to prevent Kotsev and the other three defendants for corruption crimes has been going on for a quarter of an hour, BNR recalls.
Kotsev's three lawyers attacked the indictment on three counts - that an unknown MP was included in the organized criminal group for corruption crimes so that the case could be heard in Sofia; that the investigative actions were carried out under conditions of urgency, even though the investigation dates back to last November; due to the refusal of the testimony against the Varna mayor by his former deputy Dian Ivanov, who yesterday announced that he gave it under pressure from an inspector from the Anti-Corruption Commission.
According to lawyer Ina Lulcheva, the other main witness - businesswoman Plamenka Dimitrova, who filed a report last year alleging that she was asked for a bribe from a public procurement contract, acted economically motivated because she lost a public procurement contract. This loss was confirmed by the CPC and the court, which happened for the first time after the businesswoman won public procurement contracts for a total of over 52 million leva over 15 years.
According to the defense, there is no evidence of Kotsev's involvement in the charges against him. It is not possible to demand his detention because he holds a high public position, as was heard during the consideration of the detention measure in the Sofia City Court.
Despite the calls of the chairman of the court, Judge Alexander Zhelyazkov, who is the deputy chairman of the Sofia Court of Appeal, for there to be no political messages in the courtroom, Kotsev's defense has repeatedly described the case as political and biased because Kotsev was elected by "We Continue the Change".
The lawyers of the other three detainees are currently speaking, after which the prosecutor, who is challenging the lighter detention measures for the detainees, will also speak, after which the decision of the Sofia Court of Appeal is awaited.
Earlier in the day, many deputies from the PP-DB, relatives of the detainees, and representatives of diplomatic missions in Bulgaria followed the court hearing.