Report: Burgas bomber's accomplice arrested

Bulgarian border police have arrested a man suspected of aiding the perpetrator of the July 18 terror attack that claimed the lives of five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver in Burgas, a news website based in the resort city reported on Thursday, citing an insider source. 

The country's interior minister denied the report.

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A police source told Besove.bg that the alleged accomplice was apprehended after a lengthy manhunt in the woods of the Strandzha mountain near the Turkish border. The suspect was eventually discovered outside the village of Zvezdets when he lit a fire to get warm, drawing the attention of the police.

According to the report, the detainee's passport showed that he had crossed the Bulgarian-Turkish border several times times. He is said to be fluent in Bulgarian.

The suspect, who bore a striking resemblance to the computer-generated image of a man presumed by the police to have assisted the terrorist, was taken to Burgas and handed over to the intelligence services and the local crime investigation unit. During the interrogations he reportedly admitted to being a member of a new Al-Qaeda branch.

However, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told journalists later Thursday that the report was untrue, and that no arrests connected to the terror act have been made.

Immediately following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Hezbollah was behind the suicide bombing, and that the terrorist group acted at Iran's behest.

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