site.btaSupreme Court Fully Acquits Defendant on Charges of Masterminding Criminal Group Involved in Drug Dealing

Sofia, March 26 (BTA) - The Supreme Court has fully acquitted Zlatomir Ivanov, aka Zlatko Baretata (the Beret), on charges of masterminding a criminal group involved in drug dealing. The trial was against Ivanov and nine other persons. One more of the defendants, Ivailo Borissov - a close aide of Ivanov, was acquitted too.

The defendants had been charged with involvement in an organized criminal group dealing in drugs along the Southern Black Sea coast, in Sofia and in the Southern town of Kazanluk, since the autumn of 2011.

The Supreme Court found that the prosecuting magistracy did not present convincingly evidence that Ivanov and the other defendants were a criminal group.

Thus, only six of the defendants received prison sentences - some for five years, others, for three. There are also conditional sentences.

Ivanov, who got his alias from his years of service with the anti-terrorist squad, was arrested back on February 6, 2009.