Bulgaria Jails Two Men Over Bus Bombing Killing Israeli Tourists
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – A Bulgarian court sentenced two Islamic militants to life imprisonment without parole over a 2012 bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver in an attack blamed on Lebanon’s Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah.
The Specialised Criminal Court on Monday found Meliad Farah, 39, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, 32, guilty of involvement in the blast at Bulgaria’s second-largest airport in the Black Sea resort of Burgas.
However, the two men of Lebanese origin were tried in absentia. The attacker was identified as a French-Lebanese national Mohamad Hassan El Husseini.
He was killed in the explosion, which also injured nearly 40 people. Witnesses said he tried to put his backpack inside the luggage compartment of the bus when it exploded July 18, 2012.
Prosecutors could not establish whether the blast was triggered by the bomber himself or remotely detonated by one of the two defendants, trial observers said.
LOGISTICAL SUPPORTERS
The five-member panel ruled that the two provided logistical support to the bomber. Their attack was aimed at causing confusion and fear among the peoples of Bulgaria and Israel, it said.
“The court’s sentence reflects the punishment we asked for and is adequate to the committed crimes. Whether it will be served or not will be a result of the search of the wanted persons, which is ongoing,” Prosecutor Evgeniya Shtarkelova told reporters.
The verdict can be appealed within 15 days at a higher court. A red notice that calls on authorities to arrest a wanted person has been issued by the international police organization Interpol for Farah and Hassan.
An investigation found that the attack was linked to the military wing of Hezbollah, leading the European Union to declare it a terrorist organization. Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor said in published remarks that Hezbollah backed the attack “in terms of logistics and financing.”
The bombing in southeastern Bulgaria underscored broader concerns in Europe about Islamic terrorism. It came 21 years after elsewhere in Eastern Europe a powerful bomb exploded near a bus carrying Soviet Jewish emigrants to the main airport in Budapest, Hungary, for their flight to Israel.
Two Hungarian policemen in a patrol car accompanying the bus were seriously wounded, while 4 of the 28 passengers on the bus sustained light injuries in that blast. The attacks contributed to increased security measures at the region’s international airports and Jewish sites.
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