The notorious court case against Marinov brothers - Krassimir and Nikolai - who are charged with conspiracy to murder three people, was postponed for yet another time. On March 27 2009, Sofia City Court postponed the trial for September 16, after it accepted the fact that one of the other defendants Ivo Karageorgiev has had a heart surgery and was unable to attend the trial.

The court case against the brothers has been ongoing since 2005 with little success. Four other people are also accused of the same crime. Court hearings became a veritable farce with the older brother Krassimir appearing in a wheelchair or walking on crutches in the past.

The brothers are often described in Bulgarian-language media as key figures in the country's underworld, although nothing has been proven so far. They were arrested as part of nationwide police operation called Respect soon after the 2005 Parliament elections.

The brothers and their co-defendants are accused of plotting the murders of retired general Lyuben Gotsev, financial expert Nikola Damyanov and Ivan Todorov, nicknamed The Doctor, and of participation in an organised crime group and illegal possession of arms.

The case has been put on hold for the past year-and-a-half because of Karageorgiev's health condition.

In September 2006, Todorov was shot dead in his Porsche Cayenne in broad daylight in Sofia's central Lozenets neighbourhood. Damyanov, linked to the Varna-based industrial group TIM, died of a heart attack in October 2008.