Danail Ganchev, the son of the prominent Bulgarian businessman Grisha Ganchev, will remain in prison, the Bulgarian Special Court of Organized Crime ruled late Sunday evening. Ganchev and five others were arrested on suspicion of organized crime and tax evasion following a special police operation codenamed “Sugar.”

The group is accused of stealing millions of Bulgarian levs through tax evasion. In two months alone, the group stole BGN 200,000 (US$131,219), the Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told  NTV. Tsvetanov said that the investigation is still in its beginning phase, and that the total amount stolen by the group is probably much greater.

Aleksandar Simovic, a former member of the Zemun clan from Belgrade, Serbia was charged with the 2006 murder of a fellow clan member who agreed to testify against the group, Novosti news reported on Thursday. Simovic was also charged with participating in the murder of the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003.

Simovic was charged with murdering Zoran Vukojevic, who told police about crimes committed by the Zemun clan. Vukojevic was killed in June 2006, and Simovic was arrested in November that year.

According to the indictment, Simovic, his brother Milos Simovic, Zoran “Povo” Povic, and several others ambushed Vukojevic in front of his house in Zemun. They then drove him to a location on the highway outside of Belgrade, where Simovic bludgeoned and then shot him. The gang set Vukojevic’s body on fire. Simovic and his brother were fugitives at the time.

Povic was seriously injured during the abduction, in a fight which allegedly broke out in the car while Vukojevic was being transported to the murder site. The gang took Povic to an emergency room, where he later died.

Simovic was further charged with illegal weapons possession. Among the weapons seized from his apartment was a gun used to kill Vukojevic.

Simovic is charged with 9 murders and three kidnappings which he committed as a member of the Zemun clan. Prosecutor Radisavljevic said that the indictment against Simovic was filed on January 13, and that the court approved it at the end of February. Simovic’s trial is set to begin on May 22.

The Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) on Wednesday called on the member states to work on ensuring the transparency in funding of election campaigns and political parties.

A new report by GRECO points to a number of shortcomings in the anti-corruption regulatory frameworks of the member countries.

A new Defamation Bill in England and Wales will offer greater freedom of speech, said Queen Elizabeth in the annual Queen’s Speech to parliament delivered on Wednesday. The new bill could end libel tourism, a practice where defendants sue media organizations in the UK because of the UK courts expansive concept of jurisdiction and its pro-defendant laws.

A draft of the bill was published in March 2011. The bill states that claimants will need to prove that they were seriously harmed before they can sue for defamation, and that a clause on “responsible publication on matters of public interest” can protect the media from undue censorship.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued 36 indictments against an organized crime group based in Zenica, central Bosnia. The suspects are charged with damaging the state budget for US$2.2 million through tax evasion and money laundering. 

Of the 36 indictments, 21 were issued against individuals, and the remaining 12 against legal entities. The group, described in the indictment as highly organized and with clearly defined roles, allegedly operated under the leadership of Fahrudin Cago and his right hand man Smail Mujcinovic. Fahrudin Cago is the owner of “Cago komerc,” a tobacco distribution company which sold cigarettes manufactured by the cigarette factories “Fabrika duvana Sarajevo” in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and “Fabrika duvana Rovinj” in Rovinj, Croatia.

Alleged Kosovar mafia boss Naser Kelmendi admitted illegal construction of a hotel in Montenegro, the Montenegrin Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime Djurdjina Nina Ivanovic said in a press release on Monday. 

The Montenegrin prosecutors gathered evidence showing that Kelmendi began building the hotel “Casa Grande” in Ulcinj in 2009 without a building permit. Further, he continued building the hotel even after the municipal government ordered him to stop the construction. Despite the government orders, the hotel was finished and opened in early 2010.

Russia will not revise the controversial gas contract with Ukraine, political experts in Ukraine believe. The former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymosheko is currently in prison for signing the contract that the government says put Ukraine at a disadvantage.

"[Russia’s] Moral, political and diplomatic support for Tymoshenko is actually a signal that nobody will simply review gas agreements," said the Director of Ukraine’s Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

Four Croatians were allegedly arrested Friday in connection to an international drug trafficking gang based in the Dominican Republic, the Croatian state TV station HRT reported on Sunday. According to unofficial information obtained by HRT, two Croatians were arrested in the Dominican Republic, one was arrested in Italy, and one in Zadar, Croatia. The suspected Croatian members of the drug trafficking group are all from Zadar.

Bulgaria passed a controversial bill on confiscation of illegal assets late Thursday evening, in a long awaited move. The Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov had threatened earlier to resign if the law was not passed by the Parliament, Novinite news reported in March. 

"Every Bulgarian citizen who had illegally acquired any asset will have this asset confiscated. This is what common folk want and what we passed. We are in power today, but others will come after us and this law will still be in place," Borisov said at the Thursday session.

France seized US$17 million in real-estate from the Russian businessman and ex politician Boris Berezovsky at Russia’s request, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said on Saturday.

In Russia Berezovsky was sentenced in absentia for fraud and money laundering. Berezovsky, now living in London, fled Russia in 2000 and was granted political asylum by the United Kingdom in 2003.

“I don't know anything about my property being seized. [Prosecutors] were talking about my yacht being seized, but then it turned out the yacht was not mine,” Berezovsky told Interfax news on Saturday. He was referring to an earlier case in 2011 when, at Russia’s request, the French authorities seized two yachts believed to be Berezovsky’s. It was later ruled that the yachts did not belong to Berezovsky.