Strange things are happening in the Specialized Criminal Court of Appeal (SCA), even two years after its closure. A study by BIRD showed how the court panel there has been unable – or unwilling – to move a landmark case to the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) for two (!) years.
We are talking about the case “Taki’s Hammers” – a case that started back in 2014. Then Taki’s “shock” brigade was brought to court as an organized crime group – his subordinate thugs engaged in beatings, arson, kidnappings and even murders aimed at securing the business interests of their boss. Interests that can never be fully served through the channel – through lawyers, bribes, etc. That is, brute force is resorted to, and on a regular basis.
This case will be remembered from the very beginning for the direct intervention of Sotir Tsatsarov at the level of pre-trial proceedings. According to information from at least two independent sources, it was Prosecutor General Tsatsarov who in 2014 intervened in the draft indictment in order to conveniently “fall out” of it specifically and only Christoforos Nikos Amanatidis – Taki. From which then comes an extremely strange and even schizophrenic accusatory construction, which enters the court – you cannot have an OCG on trial (and numerously) without the leader and organizer of the OCG himself being prosecuted! However, the Specialized Court accepted to hear the case and proceeded on its merits.
The judge-rapporteur is the president of the court himself (at a later stage) Marieta Raykova. It is worth adding here that only a year later Taki was removed from the Interpol system for wanting, i.e. the prosecutor’s office withdrew the red notice issued for him.
Seven years of torment in Spetsa followed, before the case ended with a whole galaxy of effective sentences (and two suspended sentences) at first instance. At that time, however, some of the defendants had already served their sentences in pre-trial detention.
In the verdict in the case it is explicitly written that it is about:
“An organized criminal group formed by H.N.A. and led by H.N.A.“
H.N.A. is Christoforos Nikos Amanatidis – Taki. Т.е. отново поставяме въпроса как е възможно лидерът на ОПГ-то да не е подсъдим заедно с подчинените си?!
And that’s not all – in a verdict in another, secret case C-348/2010 on the inventory of the Sofia City Court it is also written that some of the defendants committed the incriminated acts in complicity with H.N.A.
And so the case went to the SCA, where it ended relatively quickly, in less than a year – in July 2022. The verdict was handed down by the following panel of judges: Venelin Ivanov (chairman), Adelina Ivanova (rapporteur, seconded), Stoyan Tonev (seconded).
And here the circuses begin, which we think are far from accidental. For the first time in August 2023 – i.e. a full year later – the case reached the Supreme Court of Cassation. However, the supreme judges refused to open a case and returned it to the lower instance with instructions for bringing the cassation appeal in line with the law – i.e. all things that should be known ex officio to the special judges.
Even after the closure of the SNA and the SCA, the respective reporting judges remain responsible for finalising and administering their cases. This is also the case with the rapporteur Judge Ivanova, who 4 months later, in December 2023, made a second attempt to “upload” the case to the Supreme Court of Cassation. This attempt also failed ingloriously, he wrote then De facto, as in the repeated instructions of the supreme judges we read, verbatim: “The judge of the appellate court should make efforts, incl. through inquiries from the National Population Database, as well as assistance from the Directorate General “Security” at the Ministry of Justice, to establish whether the said defendants, incl. subs. B., have registered as a permanent and/or current address and another address, other than those to which messages have been sent. Depending on the results, inquiries should also be made by the Directorate General “IN” at the Ministry of Justice, the pre-trial detentions in the country, the Directorate General “Border Police” (regarding the registered trips of the persons) and others, as the judge of the appellate court deems necessary.“
To put it bluntly, the judge from the SCAC demonstrates either incompleteness of legal knowledge, or procedural sloppiness, or both. A third option is also possible – the lack of sufficient diligence on the part of the special judge to be motivated by the approaching absolute statute of limitations, which, according to our calculations, will occur up to a maximum of one year. We dare to say this after we have done extensive research and comparative analysis – and we have come to the conclusion that the case law does not know of any other case in which there is such a huge delay and chicanery in the movement of a criminal case from the appellate to the cassation instance.
And if the statute of limitations is approaching, it is approaching. And apparently the support of the (former) special justice for Taki continues, continues.
Материалът The “Taki’s Hammers” case hit the specialized court anvil е публикуван за пръв път на BIRD.
