On January 29, 1990, the former head of state of Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov was arrested on charges of forcibly changing the names of Bulgarian Turks and forcing them to emigrate.
The case for the “Revival Process” began in 1991. Initially, Todor Zhivkov (Chairman of the State Council and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party), Dimitar Stoyanov (Minister of Interior) and Georgi Atanasov (Prime Minister), Petar Mladenov (Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Pencho Kubadinski were brought as defendants under Art. 162, para. 1 of the Criminal Code (for incitement to racial hatred) and under art. 387, para. 2 (for abuse of power).
In 1994, the charges against Petar Mladenov and Pencho Kubadinski were dropped, and against Todor Zhivkov, Dimitar Stoyanov and Georgi Atanasov, the liability remained only under art. 387, para. 2. In 1993, the case was brought to court. It was returned for the first time in 1994.
In 1999, the charges against Georgi Atanasov were dismissed by the Sofia Military District Prosecutor's Office due to lack of evidence and were resumed on January 3, 2001. On January 5, 2001 The military appellate prosecutor refuses to confirm the termination of the indictment against Georgi Atanasov and sends the case back for completion of the work on it. The remaining defendants Todor Zhivkov and Dimitar Stoyanov have died.
In May 2022, the prosecution discontinued the case after the last defendant, Georgi Atanasov, died.
For three decades, the prosecution has failed to conduct interrogations to collect testimony from nearly 450 victims who were interned without trial or sentence by the regime in the “Belene“ concentration camp on the island of Persin on the Danube.
In the early 1990s. The prosecutor's office once brought the case to court, but it was returned from there with instructions to conduct witness interviews of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin who passed through “Belene“, recalls the website desebg.com.
It is clear from the prosecutor's decree that the state prosecution has failed to find about 100 former camp inmates who have permanently settled in Turkey. Several court orders have also been made to Turkey, but they have not yielded results. Thus, the prosecutor's office conveniently waited for the death of Georgi Atanasov to discontinue the case.
The Civil Association of Former Camp Inmates from the “Revival Process“ in the “Belene“ Camp and Their Relatives, however, protested the discontinuation of the case.
In December 2022 The Sofia Court of Appeal (SCA) reversed the decision of the Military District Prosecutor's Office - Sofia, by which it terminated the investigation into the “revival process“,
The SCA returned the case to the prosecutor's office for continuation of the procedural and investigative actions. The court's ruling is not subject to appeal.