According to the filing, which draws on investigative material sent from Bulgaria, the suspect landed at the airport in Thessaloniki, Greece, on October 14. He rented a car that morning and drove across the border into Bulgaria. The next morning, the professor's neighbors noticed the young Israeli loitering suspiciously near Atanasov's home. One neighbor photographed him and his rental car and passed the images to local police. Two neighbors later identified him in a photo lineup.
The fatal attack took place on October 15 at about 1:10 p.m. Security cameras recorded Atanasov walking toward Sofia's Joliot-Curie metro station carrying a purple suitcase and a black bag, with the suspect following behind him.
According to the indictment already filed against him in Bulgaria, the two men entered an elevator leading down to the station. There the suspect brutally attacked the elderly professor, striking him hard on the head and upper body and causing a severe head injury. An eyewitness told investigators she saw an older man and a younger man in dark clothing and a black knit cap enter the elevator. Shortly afterward she heard "loud blows" and saw the younger man run out of the elevator alone.
Security footage taken minutes after the attack shows the suspect fleeing the scene holding a black bag similar to the one the professor had been carrying. Only the purple suitcase was found inside the elevator. Atanasov was taken to a local hospital in critical condition, where doctors pronounced him dead. The prosecution's request quotes the Bulgarian indictment, which says the murder caused the victim great suffering and that the multiple injuries point to cruel and extreme conduct.
The suspect then made a quick escape, investigators say. By 6:24 p.m. he had returned the rental car at Thessaloniki airport, and that same evening he boarded a flight back to Israel.
Testimony and evidence gathered by Bulgarian police indicate that Atanasov had voiced real fears for his life before the killing. He said he had received threats from a neighbor of his sister in a dispute over the ownership and control of her apartment. According to the report, that neighbor was the Bat Yam suspect, who also acted as the sister's proxy.
Atanasov was a respected figure in Bulgarian academia. For decades he served as a lecturer and senior researcher at Sofia University's Faculty of Biology, specializing in proteins and biological membranes, and he carried out research in Germany and Japan.
Bulgaria filed an indictment against the suspect on October 17, two days after the killing. Israeli prosecutors told the court he poses a high risk and a real danger of fleeing justice, because he holds Russian citizenship in addition to his Israeli citizenship. Since Russia does not extradite its citizens to foreign countries, Israeli law enforcement officials fear that releasing him could allow him to escape there and derail both the extradition to Bulgaria and his prosecution.
