Today marks one year since the murder of businessman Aleksey Petrov. The businessman was killed in the capital's "”Dragalevtsi" neighborhood while he was walking with his trainer Miroslava Mihailova in the lift area, NOVA informs.
To date, there is no suspect or arrest for Petrov's murder. Mihailova was injured, but recovered after hospital treatment. According to unofficial information, he left the country a month after the attempt and has been living abroad ever since.
The killer was hiding in the mountains and waiting for Petrov to appear. He had probably been studying it for months before, as visits to the former Vitosha beret were frequent. He was walking with Mihailova, who is his tennis coach, who helped him move after injuries from previous attacks against him - in 1999 he was shot in the leg.
Although he was stalking Petrov, the killer did not shoot from a hiding place, nor did he have a special shelter in which to wait for him. The shots were from a few meters away. The first one that got into Petrov's head. The bullet wounded his eye. Only after that the shot in the body of the former beret followed, according to the data of the investigation. Such control firing is typical of the Russian military, but it is now possible that it was done to confuse investigators. It is clarified exactly how many times the killer pulled the trigger. Witnesses give conflicting accounts, some say as many as five shots.
The killer who shot Petrov and Mihailova fled on a bicycle. It is still unknown.
There were two assassination attempts against the businessman in the past - one in 2002 and one in 2015.
We remind you that his murder was the occasion for comments in the National Assembly. The co-chairman of “Continuing the Change” Kiril Petkov came out with a position on Facebook: “It is absolutely unacceptable that in 2023 there will be show murders in Bulgaria. All this speaks of the need for urgent reform in the security sector. Services should start working effectively. We will work together with the government to achieve real and quick results.
The leader of “Revival” Kostadin Kostadinov also commented on the attempt on Alexei Petrov, criticizing the government. “One thing is clear - the Mutren government brought back the forgotten Mutren years. We only have one last question to ask ourselves - who will be next? And won't he be a politician?”
The then leader of the BSP Kornelia Ninova came out with a position on Facebook, she criticized the cabinet: “The return of Borisov's Mutren model of governance also brought back the Mutren years. The entire country became hostage to his fear of retribution and to the PP-DB's greed for power and money. Gangster murders in broad daylight. Justice reform? Schengen? Everything they touch is a disaster".
The leader of ITN, Slavi Trifonov, asked a number of questions on his social network, among them: “Is this the beginning of a gangster war and did Alexey Petrov assist in the negotiations between GERB and PP-DB to form a government? And he added: “The murder of Alexei Petrov was foreshadowed. It clearly showed that the state and services are weak. And they are neither in a position to predict nor to prevent such a show-off shooting.
The leader of GERB, Boyko Borisov, commented on the murder as follows: "Let's hope, as in the previous two attacks, that the perpetrators will be arrested.
Alexei Petrov is a businessman, politician and teacher, an expert in corporate security and anti-terrorism, he was the executive director of the Union for Economic Initiative. Born on April 23, 1962 in Babintsi, Tetevensko, Petrov graduated from the militia secondary school in Pazardzhik in 1981. He worked for 8 years in the security forces and in the anti-terrorism forces until the beginning of 1990. On August 15, 2002, he was executed failed assassination attempt on him.
In 2009, Petrov was announced by the then Minister of the Interior, Rumen Petkov, as a long-time secret collaborator of counterintelligence, and then of DANS.
On February 10, 2010, he was detained and accused of being the leader of the "Octopus" criminal group, engaged in racketeering and extortion. In October of the same year, he was placed under house arrest, and the charges were reduced to racketeering and extortion against two individuals from 1998 and 2000. He has been teaching at UNSS since the late 1990s. He is defending a doctoral dissertation on the problems of company security at the Specialized Scientific Council of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Alexei Petrov was a full-time employee in State Security, department VI, direction “T“.
In July 2011, his candidacy for president was nominated by a group of civil associations and by the "Unity and Teamwork" Initiative Committee.