The Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office has asked Russia to extradite 3 officers of the GRU, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Russian Armed Forces, accused in Bulgaria of poisoning the arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, his son and the production director of the Emco arms company. announce Euractive.

The request was submitted by the Sofia Prosecutor’s Office as part of the attempted murder case initiated by the acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov, who was appointed in June of this year. Sarafov took over the case after the dismissal of Ivan Gesev, Bulgaria’s high-profile prosecutor general, who was accused for years of turning a blind eye to high-level corruption and engaging in internal political infighting.

The names of the three GRU agents being investigated by Bulgaria are Serhiy Fedotov, Georgy Horshkov and Serhiy Pavlov. Fedotov is also suspected of involvement in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Britain in 2018.

The identities of these three were first revealed by journalists from the investigative website Bellingcat during the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent who fled to Great Britain.

The case of the poisoning of Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev

During a reception organized in Sofia on April 28, 2015, Emilian Gebrev fell into a coma after being poisoned, which he survived.

Bulgaria issued an international arrest warrant for the 3 suspects back in January 2020, when it formally charged them but did not publicly identify them.

“Three citizens of Russia have been indicted for attempted murder,” the Sofia prosecutor’s office said at the time.

Bulgarian prosecutors now say the poisoning of Gebrev, his son and the director of Gebrev’s arms company Emco happened after the businessman’s car door was smeared with poison. As in the case of the poisoning of Skripal and the dissident Alexei Navalny, three Bulgarians were poisoned with the neurotoxic substance “Novachok”.

At the same time, 6 other Russian intelligence officers are accused in Bulgaria of 4 explosions that occurred at military warehouses in the country over the past 12 years, although their real number is believed to be higher.

The warehouses contained ammunition and military equipment that were to be sent to Georgia and Ukraine.

At the same time, Euractiv reminds that the last step of the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office regarding the extradition of GRU agents is more of a protocol, since the Russian Constitution prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens, regardless of the crimes they are accused of abroad.