Bulgaria Remembers Tragedy at Indigo Disco Club

Society | December 21, 2008, Sunday // 00:00
Bulgaria Bulgaria Remembers Tragedy at Indigo Disco Club: Bulgaria Remembers Tragedy at Indigo Disco Club Flowers were laid by parents and friends of the seven dead teenagers at their monument seven years after the Indigo Disco Club tragedy. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria marked Sunday the seventh year since the tragic stampede at the "Indigo" disco club in Sofia in which seven teenagers perished.

Six girls and a boy aged between 11 and 15 died late on December 21, 2001 in a stampede on an icy stairway as 600 youngsters tried to get into a Christmas party at the Indigo Club. Several other children were injured.

Seven years after the tragedy the parents and friends of the dead teenagers laid flowers at their monument.

After dragging on for more than six years, the court in Sofia issued the final verdicts on the Indigo case in 2008.

The owner of the disco club, which turned out to be illegal, Angel Nikolov was found guilty of causing the death to more than two children by negligence. He has been sentenced to pay a fine of BGN 1 000. Nikolov was found guilty of failing to secure safe entry into the disco club, which was found to be the cause of tragic incident on the eve of Christmas five years ago.

The former head of the Youth and Sports Committee Tsvyatko Barchovski has been sentenced to three months on probation and a fine of BGN 1,500 for renting out the adjacent stadium and the club unlawfully.

Each of two of the Indigo bouncers at the time of the tragedy - Georgi Vasiliev, and Anri Silagi - have been sentenced to a fine of BGN 800 for failing create safe order for entering the disco.

The two bouncers and the owner Angel Nikolov have also been sentenced to pay to the parents of the dead teenagers compensations amounting to a total of BGN 50 000.

The persons who mourned the Indigo victims on Sunday remarked that little had changed seven years after the tragedy pointing to a very recent example - the murder of the 20-year-old pharmacy student Stoyan Baltov on December 6, 2008, in Sofia's Studentski Grad quarter, where he was attacked by five boys for no reason before the Amnesia Disco, which also turned out to be illegal.

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