The family of Aysel Mustafova, which was thrashed by mistake by plainclothes Bulgarian policemen, is still in shock despite the apology of the Interior Minister.

Speaking before the media in the southern city of Kardzhali on Tuesday, Mustafova revealed that Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov had telephoned her family the previous night.

“I am grateful to the Minister for his apology. He said he was sincerely sorry about the incident, and expressed his regrets about the nightmare that my family had to go through. Before that he had apologized in public through the national media. But I am really disappointed with the actions of the head of the Regional Police Directorate in Kardzali, Commissar Todor Terziev who has not uttered a single word of apology,” said Mustafova.

Her family has already testified before an investigation committee of the local police, and is yet to testify before a national committee appointed specially by the Interior Minister.

She has expressed her outrage over one of the questions posed to her by the Kardzhali policemen – if she planned to include in her suit against the police the fact that her husband was offered a bribe in order to cover up the case when the officer found that he was beaten and arrested by mistake. The Kardzhali investigator claimed that the offered compensation for the damages of the house was not a “bribe.”

“I am going to sue them till the very end. They crushed my family. My daughter Shirin is in shock, she starts trembling and crying upon hearing a knock on the door. Last night a police patrol came to ask for the phone number of my husband Sabahatin without explaining why they need it; when she saw them, she almost fainted,” Mustafova explained.

Mustafova’s family was beaten by plainclothes policemen who broke into her apartment on the 6th floor of building 12 in the Vazrozhdentsi Quarter in Kardzhali thinking that her husband was a local pimp taxi driver known as “Dzhem”.