site.btaParties, Law Enforcement Follow Up on Last Week's Six Violent Deaths Case

Political parties and law enforcement Friday followed up on a high-profile criminal case in which five men and a 15-year-old boy met a violent death between February 1 and 8. Their bodies were found in two remote mountain locations in Northwestern Bulgaria: a lodge near the Petrohan Pass and a camper van near Okolchitsa Peak. Forensic experts established that all six died of gunshot wounds. Law enforcement officials said the principal leads they followed, based on ballistics findings, are homicide succeeded by suicide or suicide only. The deceased were associated with a non-governmental conservation group called National Protected Areas Control Agency (NPACA).

Political tensions have escalated over the handling of the case. The opposition Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) demanded the resignation of acting State Agency for National Security (SANS) Chair Denyo Denev, blaming him for withholding information from Parliament and suggesting possible links between SANS and members of the NGO. Denev categorically denied that SANS assets had infiltrated the organization and said his agency fulfilled its duties by checking earlier tipoffs and referring them to the prosecution service.

The prosecution service said on Friday that, acting by permission of the supervising prosecutors, records of the pre-trial proceedings initiated in connection with the tragedy, including witness statements, expert findings, procedural records, written and physical evidence, had been sent to the National Assembly Chair, "marking a significant step amid mounting political pressure and intense public scrutiny."

The prosecution service said the records were submitted because of the high public interest and respecting the principles of openness and transparency in the work of the judiciary, as well as the need for its interaction with the legislative and executive branches of government. The step also responds to a proposal by two members of the incumbent legislature.

The reference is apparently to a motion entered by Yes, Bulgaria, requiring SANS, the Interior Ministry and the prosecution service to provide the National Assembly with the information they hold on the case, including whether special investigative devices had been deployed at a mountain lodge where three of the bodies were found. The party's Co-Chair Bozhidar Bozhanov said that on Thursday the majority in two parliamentary committees had refused to consider the motion, arguing that they were concealing information because they had something to hide, while his party had nothing to hide and therefore wanted the information to become public. He further said that they would continue to insist on this because if the institutions had been able to prevent the suicide and the killing of a child, they should have done so. Yes, Bulgaria was also proposing the establishment of an ad-hoc parliamentary committee of inquiry into the case.

Also on Friday, Yes, Bulgaria Co-Chair Ivaylo Mirchev said that Interior Minister Daniel Mitov and Interior Ministry Secretary General Miroslav Rashkov were avoiding the Petrohan case because they had to disclose sensitive information, including the fact that in April and May 2025 NPACA had held joint tactical exercises with police units from the town of Montana.

Reacting to this, the Interior Ministry said in a press release later in the day that in April-May 2023 the Montana Regional Directorate of the Interior contacted NPACA for the provision of airsoft equipment needed for an upskilling tactical exercise of law enforcement officers.

Continue the Change Chair Assen Vassilev said on Friday that the information that emerged in the Petrohan case demonstrated a breakdown in the judicial system's ability to deal with a crime as serious as crimes against children. "For more than 12 months, nothing happened at the SANS, the prosecution service and the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, and this creates the feeling that a person cannot obtain justice unless it comes to vigilantism, which is very frightening because that is the beginning of the end of a state," the opposition MP argued.

There Is Such a People (TISP) will move a revision of the Non-Profit Legal Entities Act that would prohibit NGOs' engaging in activities similar to, or overlapping with, those of bodies vested with public functions, banning the delegated exercise of public powers by non-profits and the delegation to them of powers by central and local government authorities, TISP MP Alexander Rashev said on Friday. "It became unequivocally clear from the horrifying Petrohan-Okolchitsa case that in 2022 the government had delegated its control and public functions to an NGO that turned out to be a cult with paedophile tendencies," the lawmaker said. "For us, our children come first. When they are threatened in one way or another, there is no force in the world that can say this should not be discussed," TISP Deputy Chair Stanislav Balabanov said for his part. "We will politicize Petrohan as much as necessary to protect our children," he added.