After the brutal murder of Georgi in Plovdiv, the questions surrounding the case now go beyond the specific crime. Published photos, an unusual gesture with a bent thumb, symbolism and the way in which the victim was lured via the Internet raise the question of whether behind the actions of the young people there is a model of behavior adopted by online circles. Are there similarities with practices associated with the Russian neo-Nazi Maxim Marcinkevich - Tesak. Is this just a hypothesis… Lawyer Gancho Ganchev speaks to FACT.
– Adv. Ganchev, young people brutally kill a man in Plovdiv because they consider themselves to be pedophile hunters. What do you think of the photos that appeared after the murder?
– Initially, like probably many people, I perceived the gestures of some of those present as a simple “thumbs up“. However, when we looked at the enlarged images, something different was seen – the thumb of some of them is characteristically bent. And here the question arose whether this was a coincidence. Upon further inspection, it turned out that an extremely similar gesture was associated with Maxim Martsinkevich, known as Tesak. In the Russian Internet space, it is known as his characteristic or “signature“ gesture. This in itself does not prove absolutely anything about the affiliation of the people in the photo. But when we put it next to the other circumstances, we already have reason to at least ask the question.
– What does this gesture actually mean?
– Its story is curious. According to the stories about Marcinkiewicz himself, he could not straighten his thumb normally due to an old tendon injury. Thus, his “thumbs up” acquired the characteristic bent shape. Subsequently, his followers began to consciously imitate him and the gesture gradually became a recognizable reference to Tesak. Here we must be very precise: there is no reliable basis for claiming that the gesture represents an eagle's head, although visually it can indeed resemble a bird's profile. More interesting is whether several people in the same photo make the same unusual shape with their thumb. If this is also established on their older photographs, we can hardly speak of a coincidence.
– Who is Tesak and why is this connection so important?
– Maxim Marcinkiewicz is one of the most famous figures on the Russian neo-Nazi scene. It has been linked to “Format 18“, “Restrukt“ and most of all to the “Occupy-pedophile“ project. And this is where the disturbing parallels begin. In this model, contact is established with a targeted person via the Internet. A profile is used that presents itself as a minor. A meeting is organized. However, a group arrives at the scene. A kind of “interrogation“, humiliation, violence and filming follow, and the recordings are turned into Internet content. I am not claiming that what happened in Plovdiv was organized by a similar structure. There is no evidence of such an organizational connection. But the model deserves a comparison.
– Why?
– Because according to the publicly known data so far, here too we have Internet communication, introducing a girl for less, an arranged meeting, a group that awaits the person, followed by prolonged violence and filming. Then we see group photos and a specific gesture. One coincidence could be a coincidence. Two – too. But when they start to accumulate, the investigation must at least check whether there is a common source for this pattern of behavior.
– The photo also shows a flag with an eagle. Is it related to Tesak?
– At this stage, I would not make such a statement. The flag contains a white stylized eagle on a red field with black elements. Such an aesthetic has historical parallels in various far-right circles, but we do not have sufficient evidence that the specific flag is an official symbol of “Restrukt“, “Occupy-pedophilia“ or an organization related to Tesak.
The gesture is one clue. The flag is another. They should not be mechanically joined.
– And how do you interpret the presence of Georgi himself in these photos?
– This is where we need to be most careful. If in any of the original shots it is indeed found that Georgi is making a similar gesture, this raises a completely different question: was this sign known throughout the company, or in the Internet environment that these people followed? But from one photo we cannot conclude that Georgi belonged to a certain group or shared someone's ideology.
Even more so if the shot was taken after the violence began. A person who is scared, hurt or under pressure can do whatever they are told. That is why the key is not a single photo. The key is the older posts, phones, chat groups, profile history and videos that these young people watched and shared before the murder.
– In your opinion, does the version of “we were hunting a pedophile“ hold up?
– As a lawyer, for me there is a fundamental problem here. No citizen has the right to declare another person a criminal, to organize a trap, to “try“ him and then to carry out his own sentence. Even suspicion of a crime does not give the right to self-defense.
And whether Georgi actually committed something illegal before the meeting must be established through the full original communication, and not through selected screenshots or the statements of one party. Who started the conversation? What age was indicated? What exactly did Georgi write? Are there any deleted messages? Was there a prior intention to attack him regardless of the content of the conversation? These are the questions that the evidence must resolve.
– That is, could the main topic turn out to be bigger than the specific murder?
– That is exactly what worries me. The investigation must naturally establish who committed what and what their individual criminal responsibility is. But there is also a second question: How do children come to the idea that they can be investigators, judges and executioners at the same time? If it is found that they copied the Internet model, gestures, symbolism and practices for “hunting“ of people, then we should also talk about the online radicalization of minors. This is already a problem that does not end with the verdicts in one case.
– What do you think the investigators should check?
– First of all, the digital trail. Not only the communication with Georgi, but the months before the murder: group chats, followed channels, Telegram groups, TikTok and other profiles, searches, shared videos and images. It is especially important whether the characteristic bent thumb appears in their photos from before the meeting with Georgi. If it appears systematically, this would already be a significantly more serious reason to investigate where it was adopted from. The same applies to the flag: whose it is, where it was acquired and what meaning the people themselves who posed with it attached to it.
– Where is the whole incident going as a case study…
– At this stage, the “Tesak trace“ is a hypothesis to be tested, not an established fact. But the similarities are serious enough not to be overlooked. If we have a similar gesture, a similar idea of “hunting“, a similar way of luring via the Internet, group “punishment“, filming and turning violence into content, then we must ask the question where this model comes from.
Because the most terrible question after the murder of Georgi may turn out to be not only who killed him, but: Who taught these children that they have the right to be judges and executioners?
As a conclusion, I would add that my analysis examines publicly available images and information. The indicated similarities with symbolism and practices associated with Maksim Martsinkevich – Tesak do not constitute evidence of the defendants' membership in a specific organization or of sharing a specific ideology. The guilt and factual circumstances of the case are subject to determination by the competent authorities and court.