Australian man Jock Palfreeman has been freed from a Bulgarian prison, after spending 11 years behind bars for the killing of a local student.
The 32-year-old was released from the high security Sofia Central Prison today, and was taken by car to a detention centre in the outskirts of the capital.
He will be required to stay there until his passport and travel documents can be arranged, at which point his lawyer says he will be able to leave the country.
Jock Palfreeman was just 21 years old when he was involved in the fatal stabbing of law student Andrei Monov in December 2007.
He says that during a night out in Sofia, he saw Monov as part of a group of more than a dozen young men attacking a Roma, and ran over to assist.
When the attack turned on him, he pulled a knife from his pocket and waved it around in an attempt to scare the group away.
In the ensuing fracas, Monov sustained a single stab wound to the side, from which he later died. His companion Antoan Zahariev also received a slash wound to his body.
Palfreeman was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty on the basis of self defence. Prosecutors argued hat he attacked the group unprovoked.
He was found guilty in 2009 and sentenced to 20 years with a non-parole period of 10.
While his most recent parole application was rejected, a court of appeal was satisfied that he had been rehabilitated, and ordered his release.
