Police Probe Homophobia Motive for Murder in Bulgarian City

The centre of Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second city. Photo: Svetoslav Todorov Media reports say police in Bulgaria’s second biggest city, Plovdiv, have made several arrests after man in his thirties died after apparently being lured via to a meeting via dating app then beaten up in what has been described as a “cruel” and possibly homophobic attack. The victim was reportedly lured via a dating app, which some reports named as popular gay hookup service Grindr, to a site near Youth Hill, a location near many of the tourist sights close to the centre of Plovdiv, on Tuesday. The man was then badly beaten and later discovered by passers-by and taken to hospital. Nova TV said he had suffered a severe brain injury and various fractures. He died several hours later. The age of the victim has been reported by some sources as 37 and by others as 31. Some reports claimed the perpetrators were teenagers, both males and females, who livestreamed the beating on TikTok. The name of the victims has not yet been confirmed by the authorities. However, Atanas Kalchev, mayor of Krichim, a small town near Plovdiv, said the victim was originally from Krichim. “The case is extremely serious and is characterised by a high degree of public danger due to the cruelty of the crime committed,” Kalchev said in a statement on Wednesday. “Even if the initial theories [about a homophobic attack] don’t get confirmed, this doesn’t take away from the weight of the crime,” he added. Bulgarian LGBTQ+ rights NGO GLAS (Gays & Lesbians Accepted in Society) called for a “prompt, thorough and impartial investigation”. “Investigators are examining whether the crime was motivated by hatred related to the victim’s sexual orientation,” GLAS said. It noted that in 2023, sexual orientation was included in the Bulgarian Criminal Code as a factor in hate crimes. “If the investigation finds that the motive was indeed hatred based on the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, the law should be applied to its full extent,” GLAS urged. In 2020, there were a series of homophobic attacks in Plovdiv, also connected to young members of anti-LGBTQ+ groups. This week’s case echoes the murder of 26-year-old Mihail Stoyanov back in 2008, who was killed in a park in Sofia. It became one of the most high-profile homophobic crimes in the country’s history and in 2022, the European Court of Human Rights censured Bulgaria over the case.