Prosecutors Nikolay Popov and Deyan Slavov, as well as lawyer Nadezhda Kovacheva, proved the guilt in court of Georgi Asenov, Nikola Asenov and Biser Mitrev for the beating of the editor-in-chief of “168 hours” Slavi Angelov.
They will serve five years in prison, the Sofia City Court decided on Friday in the case against the three, which ends exactly four years after it started in January 2021.
The twins Georgi and Nikola, as well as their friend Biser Mitrev, were found guilty of three moderate bodily injuries inflicted with particular cruelty to the victim, but were acquitted on the charge of criminal association.
The trial will continue in the second instance at the Court of Appeal, after Judge Liliya Georgieva prepared the reasons for the verdict. Prosecutors Nikolay Nikola and Georgi Asenovi watch a boxing tournament in prison through the bars of their cell while in custody in 2020.
Popov and Deyan Slavov, as well as Slavi Angelov's client - lawyer Nadezhda Kovacheva, managed to prove through a system of circumstantial evidence that the perpetrators of the brutal beating were precisely the Asenovi brothers and Biser Mitrev.
Slavi Angelov was attacked in front of his home on March 17, 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. On that day, the editor-in-chief of “168 hours“ was returning from work and shortly before 9 p.m. parked his car near the cooperative in which he lives on “Dondukov“ Blvd. in downtown Sofia.
While walking along the sidewalk towards the front door, Angelov noticed a young man wearing the typical face mask of the time. He is dressed in sportswear and appears to be running for his health. When they pass each other, however, the masked man hits Slavi Angelov hard and professionally in the head. He falls, and the attacker continues with his fists, but also with kicks to the body, writes “24 Chasa“.
Then, because of a witness who came to his aid, he retreats towards the center of Sofia. Then, two other masked men come to the unconscious journalist and start hitting him on the body with iron pipes. After the beating, they run away.
Slavi Angelov is saved by the medics at the UMBAL “Tsarina Yoanna“. His leg and nose are broken, he has a lung injury, many injuries to his body and head. Only by a miracle does he not suffocate from the blood flowing into his lungs from the broken nose, the eyebrow arcade and internal tears in his mouth.