Bulgaria: New evidence linking Hezbollah to Burgas bus bombing
Interior Minister says there is "no doubt who masterminded the attack" that killed five Israeli tourists and their driver.
By JPOST.COM STAFFBulgaria bus bomb 390(photo credit: REUTERS)
Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said Wednesday that his country has received additional evidence implicating Hezbollah in the 2012 bus bombing in Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian bus driver, Sofia News Agency reported.Thursday marks the oneyear anniversary of the attack.Yovchev who was speaking at a briefing, said that he would not provide any details of the evidence as the investigation was ongoing, according to the report.But the interior minister said that “there was no doubt who masterminded the act, only the ID of the perpetrator remained unclear.”He said that there was no change in Bulgaria’s position on the bombing and that Bulgaria “has leads pointing to Hezbollah.”The EU is to hold meetings this week, ahead of its foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, in an effort to marshal a consensus to include Hezbollah’s armed wing on its terror list.There is cautious optimism among EU and Israeli diplomats that Europe will sanction a part of Hezbollah.A diplomat from a country in favor of a Hezbollah ban said a “consensus is clearly building” because “the evidence that it [Hezbollah] committed terrorism on EU soil is strong,” AFP reported on Tuesday.The diplomat appeared to reference the evidence linking Hezbollah to last year’s bus bombing.Bulgaria said last month that it only had an “indication” that Lebanon’s Hezbollah might have been behind the deadly bus bombing last July and that this alone did not justify any EU move to list it as a terrorist group.
“It is important that the [EU] decision be based not only on the bombing in Burgas, because I think the evidence we have is not explicit,” Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin, told national state radio BNR in June.Reuters, Jonny Paul and Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.
