The Bulgarian investigation into the July 2012 Burgas bus bombing is entering its final phase. Bulgarian officials had long ago linked – and then piled on more evidence – implicating Hezbollah operativs in the attack, which killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian.

Now Sofia is signalling that it’s time for the trial to begin:

“Our intention is to go to court. An indictment should be prepared in the near future, in the first three months of next year when we have collected explicit data for the guilty persons,” Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told reporters. The Balkan country has identified the suspects as 32-year-old Meliad Farah, also known as Hussein Hussein, an Australian citizen, and 25-year-old Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Canadian citizen, both of Lebanese origin.

Bulgarian officials suggested last February that the two suspects – later identified as Meliad Farah and Hassan El Hajj Hassan – are living in Lebanon. One of the suspects, Australian national Farah, may even still be using Facebook and is befriending “a number of women in Bulgaria.”

A third suspect, who planted the bomb, died in the blast.

The Bulgarian investigation in the bus bombing, coupled with the Cypriot prosecution of a confessed Hezbollah operative involved in a similar plot, proved sufficient to move the European Union to designate Hezbollah’s so-called “military wing” as a terrorist entity. The implicit distinction, between Hezbollah’s military and political wings, is one which doesn’t exist according to the group’s officials.

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