Bulgaria's Burgas District Court Wednesday gave the country's ice-dancing world champion Maxim Staviski a 2.5 years prison sentence, suspended for a five-year period.

The sentence was made over causing a heavy car crash, which killed one and injured three in last August.

According to local press, the court also banned Staviski from driving for four years, minus the time when his license was confiscated after the accident.

The deadly crash occurred on August 5 last year after Staviski veered into the opposite lane on a bridge near the city of Burgas and bumped headlong into another car with four people riding in it.

The civil claim, filed on behalf of a girl named Manuela Gorsova who was left comatose after the fatal hit, set at 2 million leva (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars), was rejected for the second time. Manuela Gorsova, represented by her father, will get 80,000 leva compensation.

The civil actions, brought to court by the parents of Peter Petrov, the man who died in the crash, were also cut, and Staviiski will pay only 180,000 leva, instead of 500,000 leva as the relatives demanded.

The punishment imposed could be appealed in a 15-day period.

(Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2008)