Final ruling: 20 years in prison for the killing of a 21-year-old in Pazardzhik
The Supreme Court of Cassation dropped the premeditation finding but upheld the appeals court's sentence. At first instance, the defendant had been sentenced to life.
Symbolic image · Photo: Bin im Garten / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
The Supreme Court of Cassation has upheld with final effect the 20-year prison sentence for the killing of a 21-year-old man in Pazardzhik on Sept. 29, 2023. The victim was stabbed twice with a knife in front of his girlfriend. According to reports, the motive was jealousy.
The Pazardzhik Regional Court had imposed life imprisonment for intentional murder committed with particular cruelty and awarded three of the victim's relatives 300,000 leva each in damages. The Plovdiv Court of Appeal cut the sentence to 20 years. The Supreme Court considers the killing intentional and particularly cruel but not premeditated: the decision was made immediately after the defendant saw the young man with his girlfriend, and events unfolded in a rapidly escalating emotional situation.
Twenty years is the maximum term of fixed imprisonment, and dropping the premeditation finding does not justify a lighter sentence, the judges said. The relatives' demands for a harsher sentence were rejected. The judges described what the victim went through as "extreme physical and psychological torment."