- At the insistence of his relatives, the autopsy of the person who died after a race with patrol cars in Stara Zagora was moved to Plovdiv
- A team from the National Investigation Service collects evidence of causing death through professional negligence
Was ex-wrestler Plamen Penev from Stara Zagora beaten to death by policemen like Chorata? This question does not give peace to his relatives for the third day.
On Sunday, a day after his nine-car chase, local police said he had died in the crash he caused. On Tuesday, however, prosecutors said Penev died after being forcibly removed from his car by uniformed officers. And according to Penev’s relatives, he was killed intentionally.
“Our father’s body was moved by Forensic Medicine in Stara Zagora to their colleagues in Plovdiv, where the autopsy will be done. This was personally communicated to us by the director of the ODMVR in Stara Zagora, senior commissioner Lazar Hristov. We pray that the people there will be honest so that the real cause of his death is known.” This is what Borislava Peneva, daughter of the 58-year-old man who died on December 30, told “24 Chasa”. Borislava and her sister Ivelina, who returned from the Netherlands after the tragedy, do not believe the police version. They are convinced that he was alive after the crash, but he is
forced out of the car and beaten to death on the spot
In order not to cover up the case in Stara Zagora, they and their lawyer Emanuil Yordanov, a former interior minister, requested that the autopsy be performed in another judicial district.
On duty during the holidays in Stara Zagora was the forensic doctor Dr. Teodor Stamatov, who first examined 18-year-old Deborah after she was injured with a dummy knife in the summer. After his conclusion, the court determined that she suffered minor bodily harm. He was suspended from work. Now Penev’s relatives have officially renounced both his services and the services of all his colleagues in Stara Zagora.
According to the police, on December 30 at 8:45 p.m., a report was received from a minor that a stranger was threatening him and his friends with a knife at a gas station in the “Three Spouts” district – a place where rockers and teenagers gather. A team on duty found the perpetrator and his audio. He lived nearby, knew the staff at the gas station and went there often. You also went out with the dog on December 30. Witnesses say there was no knife involved in the fight. The reason for the altercation has not been released.
It is not clear how the conversation between the man and the police went, but at one point he grabbed his dog, put it in the back seat and drove away. The patrol chased him. The race moved to the streets, 8 more teams came to help. At 9 p.m., the audio was detected on Tsar Simeon the Great Blvd. in the Artillery Park area. At this place, the traffic is one-way, the roadway is separated by a green strip. The fugitive drove to the quarter “Zheleznik”. A police car blocked the road.
Videos later released on social media show how, just as the Audi is level with her in an attempt to pass her, the patrol car moves sharply to the right, intercepts the Audi and pushes it towards the dividing line.
Due to the high speed, the fugitive car almost did not turn around
Then she is surrounded by uniformed men who try to open the doors and break the windows, including with kicks. The goal of the police, at least at first sight, was to get the driver out and handcuff him. Many are then seen crowding around his body, but it is not clear what exactly is happening.
In the first minutes, social networks are full of clips from bystanders.
After that the place is blocked, a
most of the clips disappear
The ODMVR in Stara Zagora did not make an official announcement until the next day. According to him, the man, for whom it became clear already in the evening that he was Plamen Penev, did not obey a police order to stop, tried to run away in his car and was chased by 9 police officers. According to the message, the fugitive “carried out” a traffic accident with a police car, in which he died. The Ministry of Internal Affairs also said that one police officer was injured, but his life is not in danger.
Penev’s daughters categorically do not believe this version. “My father was alive when the accident happened. The clips show them furiously pouncing on the car and him. They found out that he did not pull out a knife, did not point a weapon at them, and no shots were fired. Then why did they act like that, why did 9 patrol cars have to go after him? Why did the police even trust minors, file the report without checking it? Are there even any records of the interrogation of these guys? There was no fire brigade at the scene, the ambulance came later”, Borislava is indignant. Borislava Peneva is convinced that the police beat her father to death. Photo: Vanyo Stoilov
The family will seek their rights through the courts. Penev’s daughters wonder how his first conversation with the uniformed men at the gas station went and whether they scared him to run away.
He is described as a meek and responsible person. At the same time, it is no secret that Plamen Penev has been treating mental problems for several years, was on medication, but it is not known if this has anything to do with the tragedy.
Experts say the police did the right thing because they had a tip-off that the man was armed with a knife. However, whether they exceeded their powers will be determined by two inspections – by the Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Stara Zagora and by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kalin Stoyanov, which will be carried out by the inspectorate.
On Tuesday, the prosecutor’s office announced that the investigation had been assigned to a team from the National Investigation Service. A large volume of evidence was collected for “a possible crime under Art. 123 of the Criminal Code – for causing death due to professional negligence on the part of police officers”.
Again, according to the state prosecution, Penev died after being forcibly removed from the car, and not in the accident itself. The exact causes of death will become clear from a forensic medical examination assigned to three forensic doctors from Plovdiv.
Among the possibilities is mechanical asphyxia (suffocation),
the prosecution admits.
If the truth turns out to be like this, it will mean that the case of Angel Dimitrov-Chorata from Blagoevgrad has been repeated in Stara Zagora. He died on 10 November 2005 in police custody. Chorata should have been arrested for drugs and channeling. The case in this case lasted for 16 years and reached the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In the end, five police officers were finally convicted of causing death by negligence, but after the statute of limitations for the crime had expired.
2024-01-02 21:00:00
#policemen #beat #death #Chorata #wrestler #Plamen #Penev #daughters #waiting #answer #Obzor
