Explore sourced Bulgarian criminal cases with legal outcomes stated precisely. The archive includes final appellate judgments, complex kidnapping and murder cases, and two unresolved assassinations or shootings, with untried allegations kept separate from convictions.
Conviction or equivalent adjudicated outcome verified from reliable reporting or official records.
Miroslava Nikolova disappeared after sports practice in Pernik in November 2011. Mario Lubenov was convicted of her kidnapping and murder, and Bulgaria's Supreme Court upheld a final 28-year sentence in 2014.
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Fifteen-year-old Georgi Ignatov was killed in Sofia's Borisova Gradina in June 2015. Yoan Matev was convicted on appeal, and Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed a six-year-and-six-month sentence in June 2023.
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Viola Nikolova was killed in Sofia in June 2017. Stefan Stanev was convicted, and Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation left in force a final sentence of 22 years and 6 months in prison in January 2019.
Open case file →Bulgarian law student Andrei Monov was fatally stabbed in central Sofia in December 2007. Australian national Jock Palfreeman was convicted of murder and attempted murder; Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed his 20-year sentence in July 2011.
Open case file →Yana Krasteva was found murdered in Sofia's Borisova Gradina in July 2011. Nikolay Rusinov was ultimately convicted, and Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation made a 20-year prison sentence final in March 2018.
Open case file →Teen sisters Rositsa and Hristina Belneyski were found murdered near Bratsigovo in January 2006. Lazar Kolev was ultimately convicted, and Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation finalized a life-without-parole sentence in May 2014 after an earlier retrial order.
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Television journalist Viktoria Marinova was killed in Ruse in October 2018. Severin Krasimirov pleaded guilty and received a 30-year prison sentence; contemporary Bulgarian reporting said he did not appeal.
Open case file →Cases remain here only when reliable evidence supports that classification.
Businessman and former security adviser Alexey Petrov was shot dead in Sofia's Dragalevtsi area in August 2023. Police opened a major investigation, but reliable public reporting reviewed through September 2025 still identified no suspect or arrest for the murder.
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Bulgarian writer and broadcaster Georgi Markov died after a ricin pellet attack near Waterloo Bridge. Bulgaria closed its investigation in 2013, and no operator or ordering authority has been convicted.
Open case file →Crime by Region separates final court outcomes from investigative theories, disputed forensic claims and unanswered questions. The Georgi Markov dossier distinguishes forensic findings from unadjudicated claims about intelligence services and a suspected operative; other files similarly keep possible accomplices and disputed motives separate from adjudicated facts.