The head has not been found and it is still not completely clear how Atanas Hristev died
The Plovdiv Court of Appeal appointed an additional triple forensic medical examination, which should provide many answers regarding the death of 42-year-old Atanas Hristev from Stara Zagora. The defendant for his murder is his acquaintance Bozhidar Krumov, accused of hitting him on the head with a bottle after drinking and arguing on the evening of December 2, 2020, Hristev fell and did not move again. Krumov continued to drink, then went out for more alcohol, continued to drink, and only after hours decided to get rid of the corpse. First he cut off the head and threw it away, it has not been found to this day, then he proceeded to cut up the body and put the parts in bags on the containers. He lived with the remains of the corpse for ten days, until bums found part of the victim’s legs in a street cauldron and filed a report.
It is assumed that the blow to the head with the bottle was fatal, but medical experts cannot confirm this categorically. They are only convinced that the parts found are from the same body. That is why the court in Plovdiv asked new experts to answer the questions whether there is a direct connection between the blow and Hristev’s fatal end, what are the injuries on the body, whether the dismemberment was done during life or after death, as well as whether he has data that he he resisted. From this, one can possibly reason about inevitable defense, because in one of his interrogations, Bozhidar Krumov claims that Hristev first slapped him and broke his glasses, and then started choking him.
Before the first instance – the District Court in Stara Zagora, Bozhidar Krumov admitted his guilt, although he claimed that he did not remember anything after being hit with the bottle. The pronounced sentence was 17 years in prison, which he did not contest, and there was no protest from the prosecution. However, the murdered man’s son appealed the sentence through his mother.
The next hearing in the case is on December 10 of this year.