Another four Bulgarians were sentenced for taking illegal pictures of army sights—in other words espionage in Greece. Delcho Jechev, Veselina Peteva, Darinka Dimova and Tanya Vasileva were arrested on Sunday afternoon in front of a cantonment near the Greek city Orestiada. They were taking a walk to the city, when they got lost and ended up at a dead end road. At the end of this road was the cantonment. They took some pictures as a memory and after that they turned the car around and left. A little bit before crossing the border at Ormenion-Kapitan Petko Voyvoda, they were arrested by the Greek authorities.

As GRReporter informed you towards the end of August 2008, back then three other Bulgarians – two soldiers and one civil man, were also arrested while taking pictures of a cantonment near Orestiada and later on sentenced for espionage.

The lawsuit against the four, finished last night and they received probationary sentence – two for 18 months and the other two for 14 months. They were charged based on article 149 of the Greek Criminal Procedure Code for illegal shooting of army sights. “The case was very hard, because the prosecution wanted an effective sentence. They barely got away,” said the Bulgarian ambassador in Thessaloniki Kremen Stoev. This happy end is thanks to the lawyer of the four Bulgarians Iliana Vlasakidou, who was next to them constantly – from the moment of their arrest on Sunday. She was also the lawyer of the three Bulgarians, who also received probationary sentences of 15 months in August.

Ambassador Kremen Stoev advises all Bulgarian citizens to be very careful when they are close to Greek army sights, because our neighbors are very sensitive when it comes to taking pictures. One innocent at first sight picture, can lead to big problems. The above mentioned cantonment in Orestiada is not so important from a military point of view and pictures of it can easily be found in Google.

Right after the end of the case, the four tourists returned to Bulgaria and currently they are in Haskovo – their hometown.