The Sofia Court of Appeal left the mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, in custody.
One of the judges - Andrey Angelov, expressed a dissenting opinion. According to him, the investigation has been ongoing for 11 months, and people have been detained for 3 months, which is why it is unacceptable for there to still be an unidentified person with immunity in the case. The court should have established an abuse of law, with which to give a clear signal to the prosecutor's office to specify the accusation, Angelov believes. Judge Angelov also considered that the prerequisites for taking the most severe measure against Kotsev were not present, and the principle of immediacy and adversarial proceedings in collecting evidence was violated. It cannot be ignored that Plamenka Dimitrova is an interested witness, the judge believes.
Dimitrova's testimony requires careful verification, which the prosecution has not carried out, and this undermines their credibility, Angelov also said. And Judge Angelov considers Dian Ivanov's testimony to be "given under pressure" and seriously undermines his previous testimony. According to Judge Angelov, the accusation should be upgraded, and in this case it has been weakened, therefore there is no need to continue the detention.
In conclusion, Judge Angelov said that he did not agree that Kotsev would commit a crime if his measure was changed and he was released from custody.
The court criticized the prosecution for insufficiently collecting evidence that would exonerate Kotsev, and ordered the prosecution that if it did not collect evidence and request removal from office within a foreseeable period, in the future it would assume that there was a basis for changing the measure.
The court also accepted that Dimitrova's testimony was not isolated and biased. The majority of the panel accepted that the evidence was sufficient to substantiate a reasonable assumption.
Kotsev's lawyer - Ina Lulcheva, questioned the impartiality of the chairman of the court panel and one of the prosecutors in the case. Lulcheva requested the disqualification of judge Krasimira Kostova - the judge rapporteur in the case, and chairman of the court panel - arguing that as a former judge in the Specialized Court, closed at the time and at the initiative of “We continue the change”, she is biased, as well as that this is a political case, since Blagomir Kotsev is a representative of the formation and, according to her, this is a case in which a representative of the opposition is being prosecuted.
The Varna mayor made the sixth attempt to escape from custody. So far, 5 different panels of the City Court and the Court of Appeal have ruled that Kotsev, in his capacity as mayor, could influence witnesses, and therefore left him in custody.