Court reporters, who suffered light injuries while covering the release of the owner of Bulgaria's major torrent site, have lodged a complaint against the security guards.

The issue has been taken to Sofia city prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov, senior prosecutor Boris Velchev and Justice Minister Georgi Petkanov. The reporters, most of whom work for Bulgarian TV channels, have also approached the campaigning group Reporters without borders.

Checks have been launched by the Justice Ministry and Sofia City Prosecutor's Office into the journalists' claims that they have been beaten and kicked by the guards.

They say the guards forcefully prevented them from doing their job, namely cover the release of Eliyan Geshev, who was arrested in a police raid late on Friday.

Geshev, owner of the arenabg.com web site, which is one of Bulgaria's main torrent sites providing users with pirate music, movies and software, was arrested Friday evening only to be acquitted by a Sofia court a day later.

At the end of May 2006 the administrator and system operator of the arenabg.com web site were arrested for putting download links to 20 million songs and hundreds of films on the web site.

Bulgaria's justice minister did not hesitate to apologize to the journalists on behalf of the department that he represents.

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