Bulgaria: High court asked to revoke parole in 2007 killing

SOFIA, Bulgaria – Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor has asked the country’s highest court to revoke the parole a lower court granted to an Australian man convicted of fatally stabbing a Bulgarian student during a 2007 brawl.

Jock Palfreeman had served 11 years of his 20-year prison sentence when a three-judge Court of Appeals panel unexpectedly ordered him freed on Thursday.

The 32-year-old left prison the same day but was transferred to an immigration detention facility to await a new passport from the nearest Australian Embassy, in Athens.

Prosecutor-General Sotir Tsatsarov on Tuesday petitioned Bulgaria’s Supreme Court of Cassation to suspend Palfreeman’s parole and review the panel’s ruling.

Palfreeman’s lawyer, Kalin Angelov, called the prosecutor’s appeal “absurd.”

He says he advised Australian authorities to speed up the passport and put Palfreeman on a plane home.