site.btaUzbekistan Extradites Double Murder Convict to Bulgaria

Executing a request from the Bulgarian prosecution service, the authorities of Uzbekistan have extradited a man convicted of a double murder in Bulgaria. On Friday, Iliyan Todorov arrived in Sofia by a flight via Munich under escort by a detail of the Justice Ministry's Security Directorate General on Friday, the prosecution service said in a press release.

The man has been sentenced to life for stabbing to death two individuals in front of the Solo Disco Club in Sofia on April 18, 2009. He was arrested, charged and tried by the Sofia City Court which acquitted and released him in December 2011.

In April 2013, the Sofia Appellate Court reversed the decision of the first-instance court and imposed life imprisonment on Todorov. This sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of Cassation in December 2013, when the man had already left Bulgaria. A European Arrest Warrant and an Interpol Red Notice were issued for his detention.

Todorov was detained at Tashkent Airport on March 1, 2023 on suspicion of trying to board a flight to Istanbul on a false passport. A Uzbek court convicted him on charges of using a non-authentic identity document.

During a working visit to Sofia by a delegation of the General Prosecutor's Office of Uzbekistan in October 2023, Bulgaria's acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov raised the issue of Todorov's extradition to Bulgaria, stressing the high profile of the case and the need that the sentenced person serve the enforceable penal sanction imposed on him.