site.btaUPDATED Former Sofia Borough Mayor Leaves Prison after Presidential Pardon

Dessislava Ivancheva, a former mayor of Sofia's Mladost Borough, was released from the women's prison in Sliven on Tuesday afternoon after she was granted a presidential pardon by Vice President Iliana Iotova.

On her way out of the penitentiary institution, she thanked Iotova and told journalists that she was in a hurry to get back home to her three-years-and-seven-months' old son and her sick mother. Ivancheva pointed out that she was still shocked and unable to believe what happened, after she and her friends have been submitting requests for an early release every year.

Earlier in the day, the Justice Ministry told BTA about Ivancheva's pardon, and the news was also confirmed by the President's Administration.

The Ministry said that Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev had countersigned the Vice President's decree and had forwarded the case file to the General Directorate Execution of Penalties. He had also ordered the arrangements to be made for Ivancheva's release.

When pardoned, the former mayor had to serve 10 months of a six-year term of imprisonment to which she was conclusively sentenced by the Supreme Court of Cassation in early November 2022 on charges of demanding a BGN 75,000 bribe from building contractor Alexander Vaklin. Her co-defendants: deputy borough mayor Bilyana Petrova and Ivancheva's predecessor Petko Dyulgerov, received a five- and a four-year sentence, respectively. Ivancheva and Petrova insisted throughout that they were innocent and had been framed up.

The former mayor has served nearly five years of her sentence because the time of work, pretrial detention and house arrest are deducted.

In addition to the custodial penal sanction, Ivancheva was fined BGN 12,000 and was disqualified from holding a senior position in central or local government for eight years. The fines imposed on Petrova and Dyulgerov were BGN 10,000 and BGN 8,000, respectively, and the disqualification period for both was six years.

The mayor and the deputy mayor were arrested in central Sofia on April 17, 2018, in a high-profile law-enforcement operation which many saw as humiliating.

In April 2025, the Lovech District Court left without consideration Ivancheva's request for conditional early release. The Veliko Tarnovo Appellate Court recently rendered a final judgment dismissing her request.

Back in November 2022, Vice President Iotova said she would consider the pardon only after a formal request and accompanying petition were submitted. In mid-November 2022, representatives of the Green Mladost Civic Association submitted a formal pardon request on behalf of both Ivancheva and Petrova, following the final judgment that upheld their prison sentences.

Petrova was granted an early release from prison by the court in 2024 owing to a severe illness and said on Facebook on Tuesday that she is finally free after the expiry of her conditional sentence. Dyulgerov also left the prison in 2024.