The Sofia Court of Appeal remanded the former Deputy Mayor of Sofia Municipality, Nikola Barbutov, into custody and placed him in custody. The decision of the court is final, and the argument of the magistrates is that there is a danger that he will commit a crime.
According to the judicial panel, the reasonable assumption of sympathy for the corrupt the crime for which Barbutov is accused.
There is no danger of concealment, but the court argued that he could commit a new crime after receiving evidence of “exchanging messages with a person with a foreign number”.
Prosecutor Julian Lefterov commented to journalists that the court concluded that the danger of committing a crime was real and not hypothetical from communication between the defendants Barbutov and Petar Rafailov, citing messages between them.
The court referred to a technical examination made on the seized phones, in which there is communication between the accused and between the accused and witnesses. According to the prosecutor, the two talked about public procurement and amounts.
A week ago Sofia City Court changed Barbutov’s remand from “remand in custody” to “house arrest”. After that, an appeal was filed by the defense requesting that the measure be changed to a lighter one, and the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office filed a protest demanding that Barbutov remain permanently in custody.
Nikola Barbutov is accused of participating in an organized criminal group for official crimes and bribery.
Before the court, in his last words, Barbutov asked for a lighter measure of remand to be with his family. He said that he did not know Sonia Klisurska, also accused in the case, and that he had not heard of some of the companies mentioned in the investigation.
According to lawyer Daniela Dokovska, the “house arrest” measure is also a form of imprisonment and in this case is excessive. She noted that the Anti-Corruption Commission was inactive and did not follow the instructions of the prosecutor’s office for questioning witnesses.
Nikola Barbutov is accused of corruption and participation in a criminal group together with several other people – businessman Petar Rafailov and Rositsa Pandova, former deputy mayor of Lyulin district, as well as Sonia Klisurska, an employee of the regional municipality in Mladost.
The accusation is based mainly on the testimony of the mayors of Mladost and Lyulin, Ivaylo Kukurin and Georgi Todorov.
The prosecutor’s office claims that Barbutov organized a scheme to “return” money to the party coffers of “We continue the change” from companies that had previously won public contracts.
Barbutov has been in custody since June 24, while businessman Petar Rafailov has been released on bail of BGN 10,000.
Because of this investigation, the co-chairman of the party Kiril Petkov resigned from the parliament and from the leadership of the formation.
When Barbutov was arrested, a recording was sent to the media in which he spoke to the mayor of “Lyulin” and told him about consultants who would help prepare the documentation for public procurement.
The mayor of Lyulin denied that he made the recording, but in an interrogation before the prosecutor’s office, he confirmed that such a conversation took place.
However, the witness Sonia Klisurska announced in a complaint to the court on her remand that she was pressured to “speak” against Nikola Barbutov and Petar Rafailov, and after her refusal she was brought in as a defendant.
“From the conversations with the investigators, it became clear that they needed a ‘witness’. When I flatly refused, they used me as a third person – well, as a filler to frame the accusation of a criminal group, although the participants do not even know each other”she states.
PP-DB referred the prosecution to verify the claims of witnesses that they were threatened to testify in the cases against Nikola Barbutov and Blagomir Kotsev.
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