The slaying of Bulgaria's top banker Emil Kyulev has heightened anxieties about the country's top political priority for EU membership in 2007 and has focused international attention on its weak judiciary, Matthew Brunwasser wrote in the International Herald Tribune.

"The murder of Kyulev, head of DZI Group, the biggest insurance and banking firm in the country, was particularly shocking because he did not fit the profile of the smugglers, extortionists and drug dealers who have been slain in a boom of organized crime-related deaths."

"Monthly wages in Bulgaria average about USD 200 who face public antagonism and often lack the motivation to tackle endemic corruption. The judicial system in particular is widely perceived as corrupt, inefficient and bureaucratically isolated from the reality of everyday life."

IHT cites Misha Glenny, a former BBC correspondent in the Balkans, who is writing a book on transnational crime and globalization, says the scale of organized crime is often a matter of perception. He points out Italy as an example of a country with organized crime and corruption that, because it is a relatively wealthy society, can absorb it better than a poor society.

"In Bulgaria, whatever the real scale, organized crime has taken on mythic proportions in the national psyche. Murders happen on the streets of the capital during the daytime. Gangsters have nicknames like The Beak, The Gorilla and The Doctor. Some killings appear to have been modeled on Hollywood films."

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