Expression

On 6th October 2018, Viktoria Marinova, a Bulgarian journalist, presenter and administrative director of the local TV channel TVN was found dead in the town of Ruse. According to Bulgarian authorities, Marinova was raped, beaten and strangled. Marinova's last broadcast was an interview with Romanian journalist Attila Biro and Bulgarian journalist Dimitar Stoyanovfrom the Bivol.bg website, who were working on a story regarding allegations of fraud involving the misuse of EU funds by Bulgarian businessmen and politicians. The two, who were carrying out the investigation for the global investigative reporting platform Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), had been detained in September 2018 as they were investigating the affair which is known as #GPGate.

The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern over the "barbaric murder of journalist Viktoria Marinova" and called on the authorities to "carry out an exhaustive inquiry and bring to justice those responsible". Strong demands for an investigation into the murder of Victoria Marinova were made by EU leaders and the UN, with the UNESCO’s Director-General stating:

“…the use of sexual and physical abuse to silence a woman journalist, is an outrage against the dignity and basic human rights of every woman.”

In a matter of days, police arrested a man in Germany who they claimed was responsible for Marinova's rape and murder. At the time, the Bulgarian authorities said there was "no evidence to suggest the attack was linked to Ms Marinova's work". However, suspicions remain about the timing of her murder, with the BBC reporting a possible "political dimension" to the crime. In a lengthy interview on 8th November 2018, veteran investigative journalist Atanas Tchobanov, who led the #GPGate investigation, cast serious doubt on the authorities' version of events:

"I don’t trust their version about a supposed random sexual crime – by a Roma minority guy, who was drunk, who was under the influence of drugs and who himself says that he can’t remember what exactly happened. A very convenient story, which can be manipulated at the will of the authorities. I don’t see what the motives for his actions are...Because on the other side we have seen a streak of events related to the very serious investigative work we did on corruption and fraud with European funds for hundreds of million euros – GPGate. And we were threatened about this work in the weeks before Viktoria Marinova’s murder. She was one of the very few in Bulgaria who spoke about this issue, connecting very powerful people to the alleged network of fraud."

There has also been wider public mistrust of the local investigation into Marinova’s murder, with nearly 70,000 people signing a petition calling for an independent investigation into the case.

The #GPGate investigation has revealed links between the scandal and businessman Valentin Zlatev, the CEO of Lukoil Bulgaria and a friend of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. Bivol, the investigative journalism platform which broke the #GPGate story say they will continue their investigation and expect to publish another update soon.

The murder of the Marinova is the third murder of an investigative journalist recorded within the EU over the last two years. Jan Kuciak was killed in February 2018 in Slovakia, and Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in Malta in 2017.