The district court in the city of Dobrich has decided to keep under arrest the Italian citizen Romeo Liberati, age 56, who has been arrested in Bulgaria.

A signal against the Italian has been received to the Schengen System for International Police Cooperation. Liberati has been searched, based on the European arrest warrant, issued in June 2005 by the Court of Appeals in French city of Colmar.

The man has been searched for conviction of serious offences – pimping and human trafficking – and should serve four years imprisonment.

The crimes have been committed in the period 2000-2001, when Liberati persuaded several women to prostitution upon their arrival in France.

The crimes have been committed by an international network with branches in Bulgaria and Turkey and included provision of premises and prostitutes, and transporting the money from these activities to other countries.

On Sunday, Liberati told the court that he personally attended the trials in the Strasbourg court and in the Court of Appeals in Colmar. In his words, in 2005 he moved to Italy, and on the next year – to Bulgaria, in order to avoid serving his sentence. He also said that he wanted to be voluntarily extradited to France.

The Dobrich district court decided that the request of the French authorities to keep the Italian citizen is justified. The court will schedule a case on the claim Liberati to be extradited in a 7-day period.

The court also ordered that the Italian Embassy to Sofia and the man’s family should be notified for his detention. The rule is a subject to appeal within three days at the Court of Appeals in the Bulgarian city of Varna.