Ioan Matev Sentenced to 6.5 Years for Murder in the Boris Garden

Ioan Matev was finally sentenced for the murder of Georgi Ignatov in the Boris Garden in 2015, bTV reported. He was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. In reality, however, Matev will lie much less, probably less than two years. The reason is that he spent three years in pre-trial detention, and then spent a long time under house arrest. By law, this time is deducted from the final sentence.

Eight years have passed since Ignatov’s murder. Matev was arrested only in 2017, as the Ministry of Internal Affairs could not find a suspect for a long time. He was tried as a juvenile because he was 17 years old at the time of the crime.

In these cases, the law provides for a maximum of 12 years in prison. That’s exactly what the prosecutor’s office requested in the first instance. Then Matev was acquitted, but at the will of the jury. The judge in the case, Rusi Alexiev, was adamant that the young man committed the murder. He and one of the jurors were pushing for a guilty verdict. However, three other jurors ruled that Matev was innocent.

At the second instance, the case took a turn. The suspect was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, and the parents of the murdered boy were also awarded BGN 150,000 in compensation. Now their amount has been increased to BGN 200,000 each. On the question of the term of the punishment, the Supreme Court of Cassation agrees with the second instance.

During the trial, Matev claimed that he had nothing to do with the crime. After his arrest in 2017, his brother testified. He had said that his brother had confessed to the crime, explaining that he wanted to rob Ignatov, but trouble happened. The knife used to commit the murder was found in a manhole in the park 20 months after the crime. The weapon was quite dirty. A hair was found on it, which later turned out not to be the victim’s. Investigators had other evidence. Among them was a recording from a BNR security camera, which captured Matev fleeing the area minutes after the murder. References from mobile operators were also attached to prove his presence there at the same time.

At the trial of the first instance, what the defendant’s brother said was not considered as valid evidence. The reason – he spoke to a psychologist from the police, who basically did a polygraph test, but in this case only spoke to the young man. This conversation is not an official interrogation, and since the brother is a close relative, the law gives him the right not to testify if they will incriminate his brother in a crime. During the conversation with the police officer, however, this right was not explained to him, it was recorded in the reasons for the sentence.