Today, the Central Criminal Court in London is expected to announce the sentences of the three Bulgarians accused of spying for Russia Bulgarians - Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova and Tihomir Ivanchev.
This was summarized by dariknews.bg.
All three deny being spies. A 12-member jury must decide whether the three are truly guilty after listening to the presentation of evidence and cross-examinations for months, Nova TV recalls. All three of our compatriots claim that they were drawn into this story by Biser Dzhambazov, who has already pleaded guilty to espionage charges against him, as well as the alleged leader of the group, Orlin Rusev.
Dzhambazov convinced them that he was an Interpol employee and was pursuing people who were linked to corruption. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, however, such a version is untenable, as there are hundreds of messages between them showing how they received tasks and carried them out.
The prosecutor in the case, Alison Morgan, described the Bulgarians as a well-organized network that had the most modern surveillance equipment, including cameras hidden in glasses and drones. In one of the operations, the Bulgarians were supposed to intercept the mobile phones of Ukrainian soldiers who were training at an American base in Stuttgart, so that when they returned to the front in their homeland - they could be tracked.
In all likelihood, they received tasks from Jan Marsalek, who is behind one of the largest financial frauds in Germany and is famous for his good connections with the Russian secret services. However, he is not a defendant in the case.
In another operation, they monitored the home of journalist Hristo Grozev in Vienna and followed him during his trips to Europe. The reason - to establish his sources of information for the investigations he is conducting on the regime of Vladimir Putin.