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Reuters reported that a Bulgarian court sentenced two men of Lebanese descent to life in prison in a 2012 bus bombing case that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver and
The Bulgarian authorities blame Hezbollah.
The two men were tried in absentia in the July 18, 2012 bombing at the airport in the city of Burgas, on the Black Sea. His whereabouts are currently unknown.
The Specialized Criminal Court convicted Milad Farah (39 years old), who has Australian citizenship, and Hassan Hajj Hassan (32 years old), who has Canadian citizenship, for their participation in the attack and ordered them to pay compensation to the families of the dead and wounded.
A third man of Lebanese descent and a French national was killed in the attack when a bomb detonated in a backpack he was carrying near a bus at the airport.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the attack, which also injured more than 35 Israeli tourists.
A court of five judges ruled that the two men helped carry out the attack, which was aimed at causing confusion and fear between the peoples of Bulgaria and the enemy.
The sentence can be appealed within 15 days.
The International Police (Interpol) had issued a red warrant demanding that authorities arrest a wanted person in an effort to arrest Farah and Hassan.
“The court’s decision reflects the punishment we demand and is appropriate for the crimes committed. The execution or not of the sentences will be the result of the search for the wanted persons, which is what is happening now,” Prosecutor Evgenia Starkilova told the press.
Today, the judges did not refer to Hezbollah, but the prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the evidence “showed that the defendants … are linked to the extremist wing of the Shiite group Hezbollah.”
Washington considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and the European Union placed the armed wing of the group on its list of terrorist organizations after the Burgas attack.
“The perpetrators of the attack used counterfeit driver’s licenses printed in Lebanon with family ties to Hezbollah, and the use of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used to make fertilizers, in the bomb, the group says,” Starkilova said.
Chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev said last month that evidence indicated that Hezbollah provided financial and logistical support for the attack.
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