The Supreme Court of Bulgaria has confirmed the life prison sentences in absentia for two Hezbollah terrorists for their role in blowing up an Israeli tour bus in the seaside resort town of Burgas, killing five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver in 2012.
According to the Bulgarian news outlet Sofia Globe, Bulgarian Prosecutor-General Ivan Geshev said on March 7 that the sentences had been confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation.
The two convicted Hezbollah terrorists – Meliad Farah, a Lebanese-Australian citizen, and Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Lebanese-Canadian citizen – fled to Lebanon after the bombing. The Jerusalem Post previously reported that Bulgaria urged Lebanon to extradite the terrorists but Lebanon’s government, where Hezbollah plays a dominant role, rebuffed the Bulgarian authorities.
Toby Dershowitz, senior vice president for government relations and strategy at the non-partisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Post, “The court’s affirmation of the guilty verdict and sentence is noteworthy but must be followed by enforcement of the Interpol red notices for the two to ensure they serve their sentences. Moreover, the initial findings of Hezbollah’s role in the bombing led Europe to designate Hezbollah’s so-called military wing [as a terrorist entity]. It’s time for both the EU and Bulgaria itself to designate Hezbollah in its entirety, joining the 20 or so countries that have already done so.”
France is currently the main impediment to a European Union proscription of Hezbollah’s entire movement as a foreign terrorist organization.
The International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, issued red notices to secure the arrests of the two Hezbollah terrorists. A third Hezbollah terrorist, the French-Lebanese bomb-carrier Mohamad Hassan El-Husseini, died during the terrorist attack. It is unclear if it was a suicide bombing or if the device was externally activated, resulting in El-Husseini’s death.
Who did the Hezbollah terrorists murder?
The Hezbollah operatives murdered Yitzhak Kolangi, 28, of Petah Tikva; Maor Harush, 26, of Acre; Amir Menashe, 27, of Petah Tikva; Elior Preis, 26, of Acre; and Kochava Shriki, 44, of Rishon Lezion. The bus driver was Mustafa Kyosov, 36, a Muslim from the village of Yurukovo in southwestern Bulgaria, who died in the hospital two hours after the bombing.
Bulgaria’s Specialized Criminal Court ordered the convicted Hezbollah operatives to pay 100 million lev ($62.3m.) in compensation to the relatives of the Israelis and the Bulgarian who were murdered in the bombing in 2020.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported on its website last year, “On the tenth anniversary of the July 18, 2012 suicide attack on a bus of Israeli tourists at Burgas Airport in Bulgaria, in which six Israelis were killed and several dozen wounded, Hezbollah supporters posted a photo on social media of the perpetrator, Muhammad Hassan Al-Husseini, which depicts him as a boy, as a member of Hezbollah’s Imam Al-Mahdi Scouts Association.”
Former Bulgarian interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who was responsible for determining that Hezbollah was behind the 2012 attack, urged Bulgaria to classify Hezbollah’s entire organization as a terrorist entity.
“Today, 11 years later, the Bulgarian court confirmed that Hezbollah is responsible for the Burgas bombing in 2012. I hope Bulgaria will join Germany and the Czech Republic and recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.”
Germany, the UK, Austria,Estonia, the United States, Canada, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovenia, the Arab League, and scores of Latin American, Asian and European countries have designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.