Suspended prison sentence for Bulgarian who violated quarantine
A court in the Bulgarian town of Turgovishte has sentenced a 38-year-old man to a year in prison, suspended for three years, for breaking quarantine, a statement by the Prosecutor’s Office on April 22 said.
The man, named in the statement as Mehmed M, had returned from Germany and had been placed in mandatory quarantine by the Turgovishte regional health inspectorate.
He had been meant to remain at an address that he had specified in a declaration until the end of March, but a check on March 21 found that he was not there.
The man was prosecuted under anti-epidemic laws in the context of measures against the spread of Covid-19. The sentence was a result of a plea bargain approved by the court.
In a separate statement, the Prosecutor’s Office said that the district prosecutor’s office in Blagoevgrad had lodged criminal charges against two people who had violated quarantine orders.
They had been ordered to remain in the village of Brezhani in the Simitli municipality but had violated the order by leaving for the village of Cherniche.
A court hearing is scheduled, the statement said.
To date, the Blagoevgrad district prosecutor’s office has brought to court four indictments concerning crimes under the law against violation of anti-epidemic measures and non-compliance with quarantine in the conditions of a pandemic and State of Emergency in the country. Sentence has been handed down in the first.
Fifteen pre-trial proceedings have been initiated under the same law, two of them during the four-day Orthodox Easter weekend, the statement said.
(Photo of the court building in Turgovishte: Prosecutor’s Office)
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