January 7, 2013
Burgas bombing investigator dismissed for leaking info to media
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Burned buses at Bulgaria's Burgas airport on July 18, 2012. Photo by REUTERS/Stringer
An investigator in the deadly July bombing in Burgas was dismissed for leaking classified information to the media.
The Prosecutor's Office dismissed Staneliva Karadzhova after she provided information about the latest developments in the probe of the July 18 attack, the Bulgarian news agency Novinite reported. Five Israelis and a Bulgarian were killed in the attack at the seaside resort.
Karadzhova reportedly was dismissed on Jan. 3, the same day she told a local newspaper that Bulgaria’s security services had identified one of the perpetrators of the bombing. The suspect was not named.
The Office of the District Prosecutor in Burgas said in a statement issued Monday that Karadzhova was dismissed because "she spoke to the media without clearing her statement with the supervising prosecutor," The Associated Press reported.
American and Israeli intelligence officials attribute the suicide bombing to a joint Hezbollah-Iran operation.
The bomber used the alias Jacque Felipe Martin; an accomplice was known as Ralph Willima Rico. Neither suspect's true identity has been discovered, according to Novinite.
Martin, Rico and the third accomplice, whose actual identity was discovered, all used fake U.S. identification documents from the state of Michigan.
The blast occurred on a bus soon after a charter plane, Air Bulgaria Flight 392 from Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel, landed at Burgas Airport. The bus was the second of four carrying Israeli tourists from the airport to hotels in the city.
