A Sofia court has ruled that a European arrest warrant can be issued for two Germans charged with setting fire to Starlink antennas at a teleport near the village of Plana, south of Sofia. Prosecutors want the two held in custody.
News of the arson broke on the evening of 12 October, when Yes, Bulgaria co-leader Ivaylo Mirchev described it on Facebook.
See also: Prosecutors ask for European arrest warrant for two men over Starlink arson
The accused are Zeka Islam and Tirpan Beytulla. They were charged in their absence on 14 October. Their German ID documents show both were born in 2007. German authorities do not know where they live now. If found guilty, they face 3 to 12 years in prison.
Prosecutors say the two entered Bulgaria at 5.37pm on 9 October through the Kalotina border checkpoint and told officers they were tourists. At about 10.25pm they set fire to the antennas, wearing gloves and masks. At 11.55pm they left the country in a German-registered car through the border crossing to Serbia. Three of the antennas burned to the ground, two were partly burned and three more were damaged.
The court rejected the defence arguments as unfounded. It found there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the two were involved in the arson.
Zdravko Stoychev, the court-appointed lawyer for Tirpan Beytulla, says the case file has photos and the car has been identified, but the accused have not. He says this casts doubt on the claim that the two carried out the arson.
Zhanet Manasieva, the court-appointed lawyer for Zeka Islam, asked the court to reject the requests for custody and for the warrant. She said all that has been established is that two people set the fire, and whether they are the accused is disputed. "It may turn out in the end that these are not the people who committed the crime," she said.
The ruling can be appealed within three days. Both lawyers told reporters they will appeal.
A few days ago, acting interior ministry chief secretary Chief Commissioner Lyubomir Nikolov told BTA there are suspects in the arson. Interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told a parliament hearing that interior ministry units have taken extra steps to guard such sites in Bulgaria. He said the owners are responsible for them.