The court in Stara Zagora is deciding at this hour whether the four accused of the theft of over 7 tons of diesel directly from the pipeline of the Burgas refinery will remain in custody permanently. The court has not yet ruled on the prosecutor's request for the permanent detention of the four.
The accused are Yanko Mihaylov, 31 years old, Ivan Yovchev and Plamen Peychev – 36 years old, and Zheko Gospodinov, 42 years old, bTV reported.
The four have been charged with participating in an organized criminal group and committing theft on a particularly large scale.
If found guilty, the Criminal Code provides for a prison sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison.
In the middle of the week, two of the accused were detained on the spot in the land of the village of Zagore, near Stara Zagora, at a time when they were pumping fuel from the pipeline.
A crane was built in this pipeline, from which the fuel was drained and stored in an underground container near the pipeline.
From there, in two cars, each with containers with a capacity of about a ton, the fuel was transported to a warehouse on the outskirts of Stara Zagora, where it was stored in 10-ton tanks. This became clear today in the courtroom.
According to the prosecution, the group was discovered after the use of special intelligence tools.
However, the lawyers of the detainees are categorical that at this point there is not enough evidence for the authorship of their clients in the serious act of which they are accused.
“At the present time, I believe that there is a reasonable assumption that they committed the crime, as well as that there is evidence that they may hide or commit another crime“, commented Neyka Teneva, supervising prosecutor at the District Prosecutor's Office in Stara Zagora.