Brazil-Jailed Bulgarian Champ Denied House Arrest

Crime | February 29, 2012, Wednesday // 08:08
Brazil-Jailed Bulgarian Champ Denied House Arrest: Brazil-Jailed Bulgarian Champ Denied House Arrest Bulgarian weightlifter and Olympic champion, Galabin Boevski, was arrested in Ocotber for cocaine posession in Brazil. Photo by BGNES

The Federal Court in Sao Paulo has rejected the request of Bulgaria's former Olympic weightlifting champion, Galabin Boevski, to be released on house arrest.

The news was reported by Boevski's Brazilian lawyer, cited by the Bulgarian 24 Chassa (24 Hours) daily.

On Tuesday, the detainee had submitted a new request to be released on house arrest, this time with the Supreme Court of Brazil, asking to have a decision before March 6, the date of his first hearing.

Boevski, allegedly recruited as a mule to smuggle cocaine from Brazil to Western Europe, faces 15 years in jail if convicted of drug charges.

He was arrested on October 24th for possession of 9 kg of cocaine at the Guarulhos Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The drug was found hidden in special secret compartments inside his suitcase.

He was first sent to a temporary prison facility and a week later – to a special jail for foreigners.

The Brazilian attorney is stunned, according to 24 Chassa, because currently not a single evidence in the case can be found. The said suitcase had been broken to pieces to the extend no one can see even their label thus no one can prove Boevski's claim that he had purchased them from a local store.

"The situation is indeed strange. I cannot believe that this is the way to hold a case in any country," Boevski's Bulgarian lawyer, Ivaylo Dermendzhiev, says.

Unlike other Bulgarians held in Brazil on similar charges, the weightlifter fervently claims innocence.

At the end of 2011, the Director of Bulgaria's Main Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime, GDBOP, Stanimir Florov, made a surprising revelation, saying the cocaine which was carried by Boevski, was intended to be distributed in Bulgaria.

According to operational information of the Interior Ministry, Boevski was supposed to be paid between EUR 250 000 and 300 000 for the delivery and was checked by airport security over the fact all Bulgarians are listed in the column "risk passengers" in Brazil, said Florov.

On December 20, a Brazilian judge ruled to keep the former champion in jail and rejected the defense request to let his client spend Christmas under house arrest.

The defense is determined to press for Boevski's extradition and eventual trial in Bulgaria, citing the International Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which the two countries have signed and which has supremacy over state laws.

The lawyer's statement clashes with the opinion of Bulgarian senior officials, who have ruled out the extradition of Galabin Boevski to his home country, saying there is no prisoner transfer agreement between Bulgaria and Brazil.

The 36-year-old Boevski won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in the 152-pound category. He was banned for eight years by the International Weightlifting Federation for doping in 2004. He owns a chain of modern fitness facilities in the capital Sofia and has a number of other businesses.

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Tags: house arrest, GDBOP, Stanimir Florov, Bulgaria, Galabin Boevski, Brazil, drug trafficking, Brazil, drug trafficking, Ivaylo Dermendzhiev, olympic champion, confessions, Guarulhos Airport, Galabin Boevski, weightlifting, weightlifter, Brazil, Sao Paulo, Cocaine, drug trafficking, narcotics, drugs, innocent, Galabin Boevski, weightlifter, lawyer, Brazil

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