The mother of one of the girls who died under the collapsed building on the capital's "Alabin" street. nearly 18 years ago, sentenced the prosecution to pay her compensation of BGN 15,000 for not identifying and punishing the culprits in the 15-year-long case, reported "Lex".
The decision was taken by the Sofia City Court (SHC), where the mother of the deceased, Denitsa Chenisheva, filed a lawsuit against the prosecutor's office for BGN 300,000 in non-property damages. It is under the State and Municipal Liability for Damages Act (ZODOV) because of the violated right to consider and resolve the case within a reasonable time.
The tragedy happened on September 19, 2006, and the case started in the first instance 10 years later. Defendants for causing the death of the two girls were the owner of the building, Georgi Kirchev, who is the manager of the company “Hrisoma”, engineer Petar Petrov, who supervised the repair of the building, Nikolay Simeonov – manager of “A3-Architecture and implementation“ and the builder Mancho Antonov, owner of the repair company ET “Media Mancho”, against whom the case was heard in absentia because he is abroad.
The building on “Alabin“ collapsed around 6 p.m. when 26-year-old Denitsa Chenisheva and 24-year-old Petrina Hristova were crossing the street by car. Their car was painted over, and the two girls died on the spot.
The investigation dragged on for 10 years, and the case was closed twice, but in the end an indictment was filed in court, which was based mainly on the controversial testimony of the witness Nikolay Alexandrov. He worked at the site and claimed that support rails and columns were cut in the building, but repeatedly changed his testimony during the investigation.
In the end he told the court that he only went to this site after it collapsed to put sheet metal and a padlock and the very first instance rejected his testimony about cut columns and rails. In the end, the defendants were acquitted in three instances, and three years ago the Supreme Court of Cassation put an end to the legal saga.
Denitsa Chenisheva's mother wrote in her claim that in the 15 years until the end of the case, she felt only powerlessness, doom and pain, as she suffered from insomnia and was under constant stress. She filed a lawsuit in court after her application for slow justice under Art. 60a of the Law on the Judiciary was examined and accepted as justified by the Inspectorate of the Supreme Judicial Council, but she was offered compensation of only BGN 10,000 (the maximum possible under this order), which she did not accept.