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The body of Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova was found Saturday in a park, making her the third journalist murdered in the European Union in a year, reports the Guardian daily.
Marinova, 30, had reported on an investigation into the corruption of European funds shortly before being raped and brutally murdered in Ruse, a city in the north of the country, on the Danube, according to authorities Bulgarian.
"His death was caused by blows to the head and asphyxiation, his cell phone, his car keys, his glasses and some of his clothes disappeared," said Ruse regional prosecutor Georgy Georgiev.
Marinova was a presenter for a news program called Detector on the private television channel TVN, based in Ruse, one of the most popular channels in northeastern Bulgaria.
In a broadcast on 30 September, Marinova interviewed two Romanian journalists who were investigating several politicians and businessmen for alleged corruption of EU funds. Before the TVN interview, the Romanians had been briefly arrested by the Bulgarian authorities.
According to the Minister of the Interior, Mladen Marinov, there is no indication that Marinova's death was motivated by his journalism. "It's about rape and murder," he said.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists called on the Bulgarian authorities to launch a thorough investigation.
"CPJ is shocked by the barbaric murder of journalist Victoria Marinova," said Tom Gibson, CPJ's representative in the European Union, in a statement. "The Bulgarian authorities must make every effort and every possible resource to carry out a full investigation and bring those responsible to justice".
Under cover of anonymity, a TVN journalist told Agence France Presse: "We are in shock. In no case, in any form, have we ever received threats against her or against television. The reporter said he and his colleagues feared for their safety.
In October, Daphne Caruana Galizia, one of Malta's best known journalists, who had worked on the revelations of the Panama Papers, was killed after the bomb blast in a rented car that she used. In February, investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his friend were shot dead in Slovakia.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Bulgaria ranks 111th out of 180 according to the 2018 World Press Freedom Index, the lowest ranked member of the European Union.
