site.btaBulgaria Has No Legal Ground to Extradite Bulgarian Border Police Officers with Nurder Indictment in Turkey

Bulgaria Has No Legal Ground to Extradite Bulgarian Border Police Officers with Nurder Indictment in Turkey

Sofia, March 22 (BTA) - The Bulgarian Prosecution Office said Wednesday that no legal ground exists for the extradition of four Bulgarian border police officers who were indicted for murder by Turkey the previous day. So far no extradition request has been received from Turkey, the statement goes.

On March 21, Bulgarian border police officers Mihail Tsonkov, Zhivko Petkov, Nikolai Petkov and Nikolai Kostov were served an indictment by the High Criminal Court of Kirklareli for the murder of a Turkish fisherman. The four are also charged with inflicting two grievous bodily injuries and damaging property.

The indictment was served on the four at the Bourgas Regional Court by means of a letter rogatory from Turkey.

It concerns an incident in 2008 when Tsonkov and his fellow officers apprehended three Turkish poachers who fished for turbot in Bulgarian territorial waters in the area of Rezovo. One of the offenders resisted arrest, was wounded, and subsequently died. In Bulgaria, the case was dismissed seven years ago. The victim's heirs took the matter to the European Court of Human Rights and in 2014 the court concluded that it was a case of a fatal accident following a chance event and that the Bulgarian border police officer did not use excessive violence and did not break the rules for using firearms.

It has to be taken into consideration, however, that a European arrest warrant is inapplicable in the case of the four border police officers as Turkey is not a EU member.

Should an application for extradition come by the procedure according to the European Convention on Extradition, it is important to point out that by the ratification act for this Convention, Bulgaria declares that it will decline extraditing its citizens.