Burgas Appeals Court has overturned Nikola Burgazliev's house arrest and sent him back to custody. The judges say there is a real risk that the defendant will flee. The reasons for the ruling are now known.
The case reached the appeals court after prosecutors lodged an appeal. The regional court had earlier eased the measure from detention to the milder house arrest. A panel of the Appeals Court heard the appeal behind closed doors. Its decision is final and cannot be appealed.
Burgazliev is on trial over a car crash. The measure was challenged before, less than two months ago. The appeals judges say circumstances have not changed enough since then to justify a milder measure.
The court says there is no new evidence against the reasonable suspicion that Burgazliev committed the crime. The evidence behind the charge still stands.
The case is at first instance: the indictment has been filed, the preliminary hearing is over and the trial is under way. Because of this stage, the court finds that the first condition for detention is met.
On one point the appeals judges agree with the regional court. They say there is no real risk that the defendant will commit another crime, because his record is clean and he has no history of offences.
They differ on the risk of flight. The court notes that the trial is nearing its end. It points to the nature of the act, the way the crash happened and its causes. It also weighs the extremely grave consequences, the strong public anger and the fact that a close relative of the defendant lives abroad.
The judges say checks on the EU's internal borders, including in Bulgaria, have been eased, and the "risk analysis" approach is often not effective enough.
Their conclusion is firm: a milder measure would not stop him from fleeing and would not ensure the case ends on time. So the detention is lawful and justified in the public interest.
On 30 October we reported that the Burgas regional prosecutor's office had lodged an appeal against the house arrest of 19-year-old Nikola Burgazliev. Before that, he had spent 14 months in pre-trial detention. He is charged over the ATV crash in Sunny Beach on 14 August 2025.
House arrest sharply limits freedom, and electronic monitoring adds control, the court says. But the device only detects and signals when a person leaves the set area. It cannot prevent someone from fleeing.