Bulgaria Seeks EU Assistance in Tracing Terrorist's Calls

Crime | August 3, 2012, Friday // 08:18
Bulgaria Seeks EU Assistance in Tracing Terrorist's Phone Calls: Bulgaria Seeks EU Assistance in Tracing Terrorist's Calls The computer-generated image created by the Bulgarian police of the bomber in the Burgas Airport terrorist attack. Photo by Interior MInistry

The Regional Prosecutor's Office in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas has asked a number of countries to trace possible cell phone contacts of the suspected terrorist responsible for the bombing attack on an Israeli tour bus.

The authorities have found a SIM card on the crime scene believed to have belonged to the perpetrator of the terror act outside Burgas Airport on July 18. The attack killed five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver and injured more than 30.

The investigators hope to use the phone logs to shed more light on the attacker, his possible ties with some organization and his travels, the Bulgarian 24 Chassa (24 Hours) daily writes, citing own sources.

According to the publication, the Brussels-based European mutual legal assistance network Eurojust has started a parallel probe after emerging leads that the suspect could have been from Belgium or another EU Member State.

A few days ago, Eurojust have contacted the authorities in Burgas, requesting information about a possible "Belgian connection."

According to witness accounts, the attacker spoke French fluently and used broken English.

The publication reminds that in October 2011, Eurojust declared that Bulgaria is not among the European countries that are under the threat of terrorism. The organization accounted that there has been no alarm about terrorist plots against Bulgaria since its 2007 EU accession, but nevertheless stressed that because financing of terrorist organizations often comes from organized crime, terror acts cannot be ruled out in the future.

On Thursday, Bulgaria asked all INTERPOL member countries to make public the computer generated image of the suspected terrorist in a bid to identify the man.

Remains of the man recovered from the scene of the fatal attack have been used to create an image showing his possible appearance as part of an appeal for public assistance in identifying him.

At the request of Bulgarian police, INTERPOL issued a Black Notice – used to seek information about unidentified corpses – to each of its 190 member countries in all four official languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish) and is now also publishing this reconstructed image to engage the public's help in identifying the man.

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Tags: INTERPOL, Burgas bus bombing, Burgas, terrorist attack, suicide bomber, bomber, Israel, Israelis, Israeli tourists, Burgas airport, Sarafovo, phone, calls, logs, SIM card, Eurojust

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