- The accused driver Vaklin Khamchev missed a turn in the dark and went backwards with his tractor with a trailer, hitting the Beemve of Philip, Mihail and Angel
- The deceased left 5 orphaned children
About an hour after midnight on May 13, 2019, the 50-year-old now professional driver Vaklin Khamchev was traveling with his tractor with a trailer from Pazardzhik to Plovdiv. His goal is to return to Zlatograd, where he lives.
In the dark, he misses the turnoff for the village of Tsalapitsa and decides to turn back. While making the prohibited maneuver, a BMW is moving on the lane opposite him, in which Filip Mihailov, Mihail Mihailov and Angel Zmiycharov from Pazardzhik are traveling.
The three men are 22, 23 and 32 years old. The driver is Zmiycharov, who drives at 89 km/h with a speed limit of 60.
The car hits the truck and two of them die on the spot, the third dies later
The boys leave a total of 5 orphans, as recalled in all of the subsequent protests by their relatives. And they are demanding the maximum sentence.
But the punishment is far from what they expected, at least for now, because several court panels do not accept that the relevant legal qualification is “particularly serious case”.
And that is key to the years in prison in the driver’s sentence.
The assessment depends on two things – the first is the severity of the result of the crime, and with 3 victims, Khamchev’s defense does not dispute this issue. The second premise is the public danger of the perpetrator’s personality.
This is precisely what has been the subject of disputes in the courts for 4 years now.
The case started a year after the crash,
Vaklin Khamchev fully admitted his guilt and on August 18, 2020, the district court in Plovdiv sentenced him to 5 years and 4 months in prison, acquitting him on the charge that the death of the three in the beemve was a particularly serious case. His passbook was taken away for 5.5 years.
This judgment was attacked by all parties in the trial and the appellate magistrates overturned it, sending the case back for a new trial by a different panel of the first instance.
The motifs are characterized by extreme frugality. There is no answer to the numerous objections and arguments put forward by the parties, and there are no legal conclusions regarding the subjective attitude of the perpetrator to the committed act.
Thus, in order to consider that the case is not particularly serious, the district court only said that given the positive characteristic data of the defendant (as a person and as a motor vehicle driver) what was done cannot be qualified as a particularly serious case, without ever discussing the severity and public danger of the act with its specific features, specific harmful consequences and the circumstances that aggravate Khimchev’s responsibility, are part of the arguments for this.
And the second panel of the district court finds that it is not a particularly serious case
and the pronounced sentence is imprisonment for 5.5 years without the right to drive.
New appeals followed and in 2023, another panel of appellate magistrates reduced the sentence to 4 years in prison and 60 months without a license. The reason – what Khimchev did was reclassified under a lighter section of the Criminal Code, because it was accepted that after the collision he did everything possible to help by calling 112.
Thus, the case reaches the Supreme Court, which again returns it to the second instance, because in assessing whether the case is particularly serious, Vaklin Khamchev’s previous violations on the roads were not taken into account, as well as the danger of the violation, which led to the fatal end of three young men.
“The assertion of the private prosecution that in this case it is a matter of
a very deliberately committed violation of the rules
without the defendant being placed in an impossibility to objectively choose another place to change the direction of traffic, where this would not create a danger for other road participants.
The road was familiar to him, he knew exactly where he was, and in reality, by changing the direction, the defendant aimed to save a few more kilometers of traffic before continuing to Zlatograd again.
Carrying out the prohibited maneuver in the dark part of the day, with heavy and huge dimensions (compared to the passenger car) cargo vehicle, in the absence of visibility to the traffic lane on which the victim’s car was moving, with full awareness of the lack thereof, characterize the defendant as a reckless and extremely dangerous driver, and hence as an actor with a high degree of public danger, reads the reasoning of the supreme judges.
A few days ago, the case went through the Appellate Court in Plovdiv for the third time, and the pleadings focused precisely on Khamchev’s personality as a driver.
Before the accident, he had 3 speeding tickets
speed
and one criminal decree worth BGN 500 – for entering a prohibited area with the tow truck.
“The last violation was a month before the fatal accident, which occurred because Khamchev undertook the maneuver with the full knowledge that it was prohibited and very dangerous.
He then called 112, but did not even check how many people were in the car and in what condition they were. He is undoubtedly a perpetrator with a high degree of public danger,” emphasized one of the lawyers of the victims’ relatives – Kostadin Sariyski, and insisted on 12.5 years in prison and 3 years beyond that term without a license.
“For 30 years as a driver, Khamchev has only had a few violations on the road, but who doesn’t,” asked his lawyer Svetlana Paskaleva rhetorically.
And he emphasized that the three tickets for speeding were the result of a camera in front of the District in Zlatograd, where the restrictions were not followed en masse, because the place was not dangerous.
Khamchev himself gave an explanation for the BGN 500 fine to “24 Chasa”.
“They had just opened the road from Zlatograd to Kardzhali and I was traveling on it with a load. I saw new signs that it was forbidden for trucks over 12 tons. I called the employer and he told me to pass,” he said.
His defense emphasized complicity on the part of the dead driver
of the car because he was speeding. But the expertise in the case shows that the main reason for the tragic collision was Khamchev’s backward movement.
“I am very sorry for what I have done,” said the driver in his last words to the appeal magistrates. And his lawyer Svetlana Paskaleva insisted on a fair punishment, pointing out that Vaklin Khamchev is not distinguished by a high degree of public danger – he works and takes care of his family, he cooperated with the investigation, he always appeared in court, even the day before his jaw was operated on at the last session, but he was still present at the case.
In the end, the panel with rapporteur judge Elena Zakhova accepted that it was a particularly serious case and increased Vaklin Khamchev’s sentence to 8 years in prison and 9 years without a license.
But this is not the end of the process either, because the driver’s defense is categorical that it will appeal to the Supreme Court.
