The Sofia Court of Appeal has decided that Euroroma leader Tsvetelin Kanchev, and co-accused Dimo Dimitrov and Hristo Vassilev, should remain in custody over the Christmas period.

The court rejected on Thursday a request by Kanchev to be allowed to spend Christmas with his family and children.

The three stand accused of blackmailing Nikolay Nikolov, former head of the Bulgarian Civil Defense Directorate. Kanchev, one of six men arrested in the case, was detained on December 1.

Once again, there was a failure to present to the court evidence “obtained by special intelligence means”, consisting of recordings of alleged conversations between the accused.

Police explained that the recordings existed, but that they were in the Kardarash Roma dialect, and no interpreter had yet been found who could translate them.