A 30-year-old Bulgarian broadcast journalist was raped and murdered Saturday in the city of Ruse, local media reported.
At the time of her murder, Victoria Marinova, a reporter and producer at broadcaster TVN, was reporting on an investigation into alleged corruption involving EU funds.
Police said there is no evidence to suggest the murder is related to Marinova’s work, according to local media.
Anti-corruption groups and members of the European Parliament called for a full investigation into the death.
“Shocked by horrific murder of investigative journalist Victoria Marinova in #Bulgaria. Urgently call for a full and thorough investigation. Those responsible must be held to account,” tweeted the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on freedom of the media, Harlem Désir.
Liberal MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld observed on Twitter that Marinova’s death is the third murder of a journalist in the EU in a year. Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed by a car bomb in October 2017, while Slovak reporter Ján Kuciak died in February.
Marinova’s final broadcast concerned an investigation by a group of Bulgarian journalists into companies involved in EU-funded infrastructure projects administered by local authorities. It alleged that 30-40 percent of funding received by a group of companies was lost to corruption and bribes.
In late September, Marinova interviewed two reporters working on the story, who had been detained by Bulgarian police, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Atanas Tchobanov, an editor at Bulgarian investigative portal Bivol.bg, one of the outlets involved in the corruption investigation, told POLITICO that Marinova’s next assignment was to visit a site in the village of Hitrino, where questions have been raised over a public procurement contract.
“TVN is one of the very few Bulgarian media reporting on our investigations,” Tchobanov said, noting “it is unclear at this stage whether the murder is connected to her work.”