Man to be freed in reporter’s death
Bulgarian TV journalist killed after fraud report
Bulgarian authorities on Tuesday will release and won’t charge a man arrested in connection with the slaying of Bulgarian television reporter Viktoria Marinova, whose body was found after she highlighted possible government corruption.
The man, who wasn’t identified, would be freed “very shortly,” said Teodor Atanassov, chief police officer of the northern town of Ruse.
He declined to provide further details on the ongoing investigation.
Police are investigating the rape and slaying of Marinova, 30, who was strangled. Her remains were found Saturday near the Danube River.
Marinova hosted a show last month featuring two investigative journalists who were detained for their work on sus- pected fraud involving European Union funds.
The Interior Ministry said late Monday that prosecutors had opened an investigation into GP Group, a large private Bulgarian building company alleged to have misused the EU money, and froze $16 million (U.S.) of its assets. Interior Minister Mladen Marinov and Bulgaria’s leading organized crime investigator, Ivaylo Spiridonov, are part of the investigating team.
While Marinova didn’t appear to have been closely involved in the fraud investigation, her show touched on a sensitive subject in Bulgaria, where corruption is endemic.
The Balkan nation joined the EU in 2007 and was ranked 71st on Transparency International’s corruption list last year. Joining the bloc opened an enormous spigot of possible new EU funding for Bulgarian infrastructure projects or other programs designed to bring the nation up to EU standards.
Journalists’ groups and European leaders expressed shock at Marinova’s murder. Margaritis Schinas, spokesperson for European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, said Monday that the commission expected “a swift and thorough investigation … that will bring those responsible to justice and clarify whether this attack was linked to her work.”
The German government also sharply condemned the slaying, with the Foreign Ministry saying it was imperative “that there’s a fast investigation and that this horrible event will be illuminated as comprehensively as possible.” Marinov insisted Monday there was no evidence to suggest the killing was linked to Marinova’s work. Marinova was a director of TVN, a TV station in Ruse, and a TV presenter for two investigative programs.
Her final show on Sept. 30 was a program about Attila Biro, an investigative journalist with the Rise Project Romania, and Dimitar Stoyanov from the Bulgarian investigative site Bivol.bg.