While the hunt continues for the terrorist cell that helped carry out the attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, new testimony from one of the Israeli women injured in the attack sheds new light on the investigation. Gilat Kulangi, who lost her husband Itzik in the attack, says that moments before the explosion, the terrorist was arguing with her husband and a friend, took their bags out of the trunk and put his own in instead. “An operator activated the load by remote control,” Kulangi told investigators.
Israel’s Channel 2 News has reported that Gilat Kulangi, who sustained serious injuries herself, has been telling relatives who came to her bedside at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, that only seconds before the attack, her late husband and his good friend, the late Amir Menashe, were arguing with the terrorist over storage space on the tour bus.
“He came over to the bus, pushed their bags aside and put his own bag down,” she related. “They started to argue with him – and that’s when his operator, who saw them from a distance – activated the explosive load.”
At this point authorities are verifying Gilat’s testimony, together with a report that the terrorist had attempted to rent a car at the airport. According to this report, the employee at the car rental desk became suspicious of the terrorist and refused to rent him a car. After he had seen his picture in the news, the desk clerk informed police.
Presumably, if the terrorists had been trying to secure a vehicle for himself, he did not have any intention of committing suicide.
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that the terrorist who commanded the attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, is rated now as the highest threat to the London Olympic games.
He is reported to have carried at one point a U.S. passport under the name of David Jefferson. The assumption is that he may be carrying a similar charge to the one that was used in the attack on Israeli tourists.