Thursday's suicide of a murder suspect during a police search in his home in the Bulgarian city of Pernik on Thursday was the result of a serious mistake on behalf of the police, Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov believes.

On Friday, Borisov expressed his hope that Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov will punish the police officers responsible, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency informs.

Murder suspect Stoycho aka Chocho, believed to be a close ally of a local businessman nicknamed Fedyata, was brought home by the police on Thursday. As the police searched the apartment, he reportedly got hold of a pistol and shot himself in the head.

Stoycho was allegedly responsible for the murder of a 17-year-old Miroslava Nikolova whose dead body was found on Thursday. Nikolova, who was declared missing two months, was believed to be kidnapped for ransom.

Commenting on the case on Thursday, Borisov instructed Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov to spare some money from his salary and buy 3 or 4 beef steaks to award the police dog that found the body, a remark that stirred media controversy and was perceived as outrageous by many Bulgarians on Facebook.

In another controversial comment on Thursday, Borisov demanded that the dead girl's family apologize to the police for criticizing its work.

On Friday, the Prime Minister said he was sorry for his comments, claiming that he was "misunderstood."

However, he moved on to state that one of the children of another murder victim, Doremi Dzhorleva, a tax official in the northwestern Bulgarian town of Vratsa, should apologize to the police for criticizing it.

"One of the disappeared woman's children said some things about the police which were not true at all," Borisov said, advising the victim's son to apologize to the police authorities once his grief is over.