Man held in Bulgarian journalist murder probe to be released
Police said, at this moment there are no new facts or information which we can announce.
RUSE, Bulgaria (AFP) - A Romanian man who had been detained as part of the investigation into the killing of a Bulgarian journalist in the northern town of Ruse will be freed, police said on Tuesday.
The brutal murder of 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova, who presented a current affairs talk programme called "Detector" for the small TVN television channel, has shocked the country and drawn international condemnation.
Ruse police chief commissioner Teodor Atanasov said Tuesday that a man had been detained, adding that "we’re still checking his alibi so he is not officially a suspect for committing the crime yet".
However Atanasov later told journalists that "at this moment there are no new facts or information which we can announce".
"The Romanian citizen will be released," he said.
Marinova’s body was discovered on a riverside path in Ruse on Saturday.
Authorities have said she died from blows to the head and suffocation. She was also raped.
Prosecutors have said "all leads" are being considered, including possible links to Marinova’s professional activity.
An episode of her programme aired on September 30 featured interviews with two investigative journalists from Bulgaria and Romania who had been working on corruption allegations.
Marinova is the third journalist to be murdered in Europe in the past 12 months after Jan Kuciak in Slovakia in February and Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in October 2017.
