This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Hundreds of people have attended the funeral of the Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova, as authorities said a murder suspect arrested in Germany would be extradited soon.

Mourners carrying flowers and wreaths flocked to the north-eastern city of Ruse to pay their respects to Marinova, whose body was discovered near a path next to the Danube last Saturday.

Authorities said she died from blows to the head and suffocation. Marinova had also been raped.

The Bulgarian government has disputed the immediate assumption by many international bodies and rights groups that the killing, which has shocked the country and drawn global condemnation, was connected to Marinova’s work. The prime minister, Boyko Borisov, said the suggestions were part of a smear campaign.

A 20-year-old Bulgarian suspect, named as Severin Krasimirov, was arrested in the northern German city of Stade, near Hamburg, on Tuesday.

On Friday, a German court said the suspect would soon be sent back to Bulgaria, adding that he had said during questioning that he did not want to kill Marinova and denied raping her.

Krasimirov admitted having an argument with her, the court said, and “under the strong influence of alcohol and drugs, punched the woman in the face, at which point she fell down. He then picked her up and threw her in a bush, but said he then left the scene.”

Several Bulgarian TV channels have broadcast interviews with the suspect’s mother, Nadezhda Krasimirova. Speaking from her home in Stade, she said her son had told her he killed Marinova and was going to give himself up when he was arrested.

After a memorial service, Marinova was buried in a private ceremony in Ruse.

Marinova, who presented a current affairs show on the local television channel TVN, is the third journalist to be murdered in Europe in the past 12 months, after Ján Kuciak in Slovakia in February and Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in October 2017.

Her final show included interviews with two investigative journalists from Bulgaria and Romania who had been working on allegations of corruption and misuse of EU aid.

Bulgaria has the lowest score for media freedom in the EU. Globally, it ranks 111th of 180 countries, according to Reporters Without Borders.