The confrontation in central Sofia
Shortly after midnight on December 28, 2007, a confrontation in central Sofia ended with Andrei Monov fatally stabbed and Monov's friend Antoan Zahariev injured. Australian citizen Jock Palfreeman was arrested and later prosecuted for murder and attempted murder.
Palfreeman maintained that he had intervened after seeing Roma men being attacked and that he used the knife while defending himself after members of the larger group turned on him. That account became a central and enduring dispute around the case.
The court's finding
In December 2009, Sofia City Court convicted Palfreeman and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for Monov's murder. He was also convicted of attempted murder for the stabbing of Zahariev.
The conviction did not end the dispute outside court. Palfreeman and his supporters continued to argue that the confrontation had been mischaracterized and that he had acted defensively. Bulgarian courts, however, did not accept self-defense as a basis for acquittal.
Appeals and final judgment
In February 2011, the Sofia Court of Appeal upheld the 20-year sentence. On July 27, 2011, Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction and sentence, making the murder judgment final at the country's last-instance criminal court.
Official Bulgarian reporting on the final ruling stated that the courts had rejected the claim that Monov's death was caused in lawful self-defense. The court also left in place the attempted-murder conviction connected to Zahariev.
Parole and later controversy
In September 2019, after Palfreeman had served roughly 11 years, the Sofia Court of Appeal granted him conditional early release. The parole decision triggered intense public and political controversy in Bulgaria, including an effort by the prosecutor general to challenge the release.
Parole changed how much of the custodial sentence Palfreeman served; it did not erase or replace the final 2011 murder conviction. For that reason, this archive classifies the case as solved and adjudicated while still recording that Palfreeman disputes the factual interpretation accepted by the courts.
Timeline
December 28, 2007: Andrei Monov is fatally stabbed in central Sofia; Antoan Zahariev is injured.
December 2009: Sofia City Court convicts Jock Palfreeman of murder and attempted murder and imposes a 20-year sentence.
February 21, 2011: Sofia Court of Appeal confirms the sentence.
July 27, 2011: the Supreme Court of Cassation confirms the murder conviction and 20-year sentence.
September 19, 2019: Sofia Court of Appeal grants conditional early release after Palfreeman has served about 11 years.
Current classification
The murder of Andrei Monov is classified Solved / Adjudicated. Jock Palfreeman's conviction remained legally intact after the appellate process. His self-defense account and the controversy surrounding parole are part of the case history, but they are not presented here as if they had overturned the judgment.