Former Sofia borough mayor will serve time for bribery

The former mayor of the Sofia borough of Mladost, Dessislava Ivancheva, is going to prison to serve a sentence for bribery. She announced she was being taken to the women's prison in the southern town of Sliven in a Facebook post Thursday morning. Ivancheva received a final sentence of six years behind bars, a BGN 12,000 fine and a ban on taking senior public positions for eight years.

Ivancheva, her deputy Bilyana Petrova and predecessor Petko Dyulgerov were all sentenced for demanding a bribe from a building contractor, Alexander Vaklin. They were arrested in central Sofia on April 17, 2018, in a high-profile law-enforcement operation which many saw as humiliating.

Ivancheva and Petrova have insisted throughout that they are innocent and that they had been framed.

Petrova will serve a sentence of five years plus a BGN 10,000 fine and a ban on taking high public offices for six years. Petko Dyulgerov got fopur years, a BGN 8,000 fine and no right to take senior public offices for six years.

The period of pre-trail remand and house arrest - a total of some three years - will be deducted from the final sentence.

While her case was in court, Ivancheva gave birth to a baby boy.