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Bulgarian police are investigating the rape and killing of a television reporter and presenter whose body was dumped near the Danube River.
Authorities discovered the body of 30-year-old Viktoria Marinova in the town of Ruse, northern Bulgaria, on Saturday.
Journalist groups and officials in other countries have called for a full and independent investigation into her death after Marinova became the latest journalist to be killed in the European Union.
Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said on Monday that there was no evidence to suggest the killing was linked to Marinova's work.
"It is about rape and murder," he said. But a Bulgarian investigative online site owner called for an independent international inquiry.
Bulgarian police, however, said they are working on all possible scenarios, examining possible links to both her personal and professional life.
Marinova was a director of TVN, a small TV station in Ruse, and presenter of two investigative programs.
Her final show was a program about Attila Biro, an investigative journalist with the Rise Project Romania, and a colleague from Bulgarian investigative site Bivol.bg.
Bivol.bg owner Assen Yordanov said that he couldn't directly link Marinova's killing to her work, but noted that her 30 September show tackled "our very sensitive investigation into the misuse of EU funds. This is a topic on which no other Bulgarian national media dared to report on," he told The Associated Press.
He said his site had received "operational information that hits against our journalists working on this story are being discussed and prepared."
A vigil will be held for Marinova in the Bulgarian capital later on Monday.
Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia , who investigated corruption, was killed in October 2017 by a bomb that destroyed her car.
Swedish journalist Kim Wall was tortured and murdered during a private submarine trip in August 2017. Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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