site.btaCourt Issues Final Ruling Keeping Evelin "Brendo" Banev in Prison

The Sofia Appellate Court has upheld a lower court ruling dismissing Evelin "Brendo" Banev’s request for conditional early release from prison, the court said on Thursday. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

In April 2026, the Sofia Appellate Court rejected a proposal by the then head of the Sofia Central Prison, Borislav Chorbanski, to grant Banev early release. At end-March, former caretaker justice minister Andrey Yankulov dismissed Chorbanski after the latter submitted his resignation.

Banev surrendered to Sofia Prison on June 24, 2024, after having been the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2018. He is serving a prison sentence of 10 years and six months and has three final convictions for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Evelin "Brendo" Banev was arrested in 2012 in a Bulgarian-Italian law enforcement operation and in 2013 received a 20-year prison sentence in Italy for involvement in an international cocaine-trafficking ring. In July 2018, the Sofia City Prosecution Office issued a European Arrest Warrant to locate him so he could serve a six-year prison sentence, after he was not found at his known addresses and his whereabouts were unknown.

Banev, who has been wanted under Interpol Red Notices since 2018, surrendered to the Bulgarian authorities on June 24, 2024 and was taken to Sofia’s Central Prison. In the days that followed, he asked the Bulgarian court to let him serve in Bulgaria the sentences imposed on him in Italy and Romania, and Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria sought a parliamentary hearing of caretaker Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov over Banev’s appearance at Sofia Central Prison.

At the hearing in Parliament on June 28, 2024, Stoyanov said the Interior Ministry had information that Banev entered Bulgaria by plane between late March 2022 and early June 2022.

In April 2025, SCC ruled that Banev will serve a total prison sentence of ten years and six months in Bulgaria for crimes committed in Bulgaria, Romania and Italy, with time already served in detention in Italy and in Sofia deducted from the term. The court noted that the Italian authorities had not provided the reasoning behind their sentence and that communication with them had been slow.