Itongadol.- Bulgarian police have recovered DNA evidence of one of the Hezbollah operatives who perpetrated the July 2012 bombing of a bus in the Black Sea resort city of Burgas, in which five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed, Sofia News Agency reported Sunday.
DNA belonging to Lebanese-born Canadian Hassan El Hajj Hassan, the man in charge of the logistics of the attack, was found at a hotel in Nesebar, a nearby resort town.
Hassan, who Bulgarian authorities say remotely detonated the bomb in the suicide bomber\’s backpack, arrived in the country some three weeks before the attack on June 28, 2012.
He stayed at the hotel in Nesebar for a week. He left two baseball caps and a towel in the hotel room, from which investigators extracted the DNA, according to the report.
Bulgarian authorities believe he was forced to leave the hotel hastily, leaving the incriminating items behind.
Last month, Bulgarian authorities announced that a third suspect had been identified in the crime. Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told reporters,"Two individuals were previously established. They are now three."
"The identification of the new suspect will extend the investigation and there will be new requests for legal help from abroad… It means we will need just a little more time," Tsatsarov said. He did not give any more details.
The suspects in the bombing remain at large.
The tourists had arrived on a charter flight from Israel and were in the bus in the airport parking lot when the blast tore through the vehicle, also killing the Bulgarian driver and wounding more than 30 people.
Bulgarian authorities previously named two men of Lebanese origin as suspects and said it believed the Lebanese Shi\’ite group Hezbollah was behind the bombing.
The European Union last July put the armed wing of Hezbollah on its terrorism blacklist over the incident.
Prosecutors in November said they aimed to wrap up the investigation by the end of April.