German police arrest suspect in Bulgaria journalist's murder
David Martin
October 10, 2018
German authorities have detained a suspect in the murder of Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova, Bulgaria's top prosecutor said. From Berlin to Brussels, European governments have called for a swift investigation.
Bulgaria's interior minister identified the suspect as Severin K., a 21-year-old Bulgarian citizen with a criminal record.
"We have enough proof linking this person to the scene of the crime," Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said at a press conference.
German authorities said on Wednesday that they'd arrested Severin K. on Tuesday evening outside the northern city of Hamburg on a European arrest warrant. Prosecutors in the northern German state of Lower Saxony said they're currently verifying the conditions that are required to extradite him to Bulgaria.
News of the man's capture first appeared on the website of Bulgaria's 168 Chasa newspaper late on Tuesday.
Local television station TVN, where Marinova was employed, later reported the suspect and Marinova had not known each other.
BTV, another Bulgarian broadcaster, claimed that police had found the journalist's mobile phone in the suspect's apartment in the northern town of Ruse.
Journalism: A dangerous activity
In the first 10 months of 2018, 73 journalists and media workers have died — and not just in war zones. Threats to investigative reporters are increasing, with a number being arrested and jailed over the last year.
Image: Getty Images/C. McGrath
Viktoria Marinova, Bulgaria
The 30-year-old TV presenter had recently hosted investigative journalists working on alleged corruption involving European Union funds. She was brutally murdered in the northern Bulgarian town of Ruse in October 2018.
Image: BGNES
Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia
The 60-year-old author, <i>Washington Post</i> columnist and former editor-in-chief of Al Arab News Channel was last seen walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 to get papers to verify his divorce. His fiancee waited outside for 11 hours, and she says he never came out. Khashoggi had previously said he believed the Saudi leadership wanted to kill him.
Image: Reuters/Middle East Monitor
Samim Faramarz, Ramiz Ahmadi, Afghanistan
TV news reporter Samim Faramarz was killed in September 2018 with his cameraman Ramiz Ahmadi when they were reporting from the scene of an explosion in the west of Kabul. The car bomb went off just meters from where they were just finishing a live report. Afghanistan remains the deadliest place in the world to be a journalist.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Marai
Mario Gomez, Mexico
After Afghanistan and Syria, Mexico is the most dangerous nation for journalists. There were 14 journalists killed in 2017, and at least 10 more lost their lives in 2018. Mario Gomez, a 35-year-old correspondent, was shot dead by armed men as he left his home in Chiapas in September 2018. He had reportedly received death threats after investigating corruption among state officials.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Y. Cortez
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Myanmar
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had reported the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim villagers. They were arrested in December 2017 after being invited to meet police for dinner in Yangon. In September 2018, after 39 court appearances and 265 days in detention, they were jailed for seven years for breaching the 1923 Official Secrets Act.
Image: Reuters/A. Wang
Marlon de Carvalho Araujo, Brazil
A major issue in Brazil's election campaign was corruption. Radio journalist Marlon de Carvalho Araujo focused on reporting graft, and he wrote on corruption involving officials at various levels of the Bahia regional administration. In August 2018, four gunmen burst into his home in the early hours and shot him dead.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/E. Sa
Shujaat Bukhari, Kashmir
Kashmir journalist Shujaat Bukhari was shot dead outside his newspaper office in Srinagar in June 2018. A contributor to DW, he advocated a peaceful resolution to the conflict between India and Pakistan over the mountainous region.
Image: twitter.com/bukharishujaat
The Capital, Maryland, USA
Editor Wendi Winters, her assistant Robert Hiaasen, writer Gerald Fischman, reporter John McNamara and sales assistant Rebecca Smith died when a gunman shot through the glass door into their office in June 2018. The man, who had filed a defamation lawsuit against the paper, was arrested at the scene and charged with their murders.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Ngan
Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, Slovakia
An ex-police officer was named as the killer of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kusnirova in February 2018. The murders sparked mass protests and led to the resignation of the prime minister. Kuciak had been investigating ties between government officials and the Italian mafia.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Voijnovic
Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta
Daphne Caruana Galizia, an investigative journalist who linked Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to the Panama Papers scandal, was killed when a bomb destroyed her car in October 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/L.Klimkeit
10 images1 | 10
Murder 'not linked' to her work
Marinova's body was found in a park in the northern Bulgarian town of Ruse on Saturday. Her body showed signs of strangulation and rape.
Bulgaria's chief prosecutor, Sotir Tsatsarov, said on Wednesday that Severin K. has already been charged, although he has not yet been sent back to Bulgaria. Tsatsarov said added that evidence collected so far indicates a spontaneous attack.
"We have collected a lot of evidence which for the time being suggests that the person is guilty. He has been charged in absence for two crimes - rape and premeditated murder with extreme cruelty," Tsatsarov said.
Interior Minister Marinov said authorities believe "there is no apparent link to her work," but investigators are still looking at "all hypotheses."
The 30-year-old reporter had most recently hosted investigative journalists on her television show who had reported on the misuse of European Union funds by Bulgarian authorities.
Although authorities in Bulgaria have played down the likelihood that Marinova's murder was a direct result of her reporting, the country still ranks 111th in the world in terms of press freedom, making it not only the worst performer in the EU but the entire Balkan region.
The case has rekindled a heated debate over the safety of journalists in Europe. Over the past year, two other journalists working on investigations into state corruption were killed in Slovakia and Malta.
