Bulgaria's government proposed on Wednesday new anti-terrorism laws to stem the wave of would-be jihadists crossing its territory to join Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq via Turkey.

Bulgaria currently has no legislation to stop suspected foreign fighters from entering or leaving the Balkan country, unless an international arrest warrant has been issued.

Eight Bulgarians were indicted Tuesday on charges of supporting the Islamic State group jihadist group, the public prosecutor's office said.

Six men from the central cities of Plovdiv, Pazardzhik and Asenovgrad were arrested on Tuesday morning and arrest warrants were issued for another two suspects who were still being sought, the prosecutors said in a statement.

A Berlin court has fined three Lebanese men on allegations they seized a 15-year-old relative against his will in what he says was an attempt to force him into marriage because he's gay.

State Court spokesman Tobias Kaehne said Thursday the boy's father and two uncles were each fined 1,350 euros ($1,430), or 90 days in jail, if they don't pay.

Two men have died in heavy snowstorms in Bulgaria that have left tens of thousands of people without electricity for days, authorities said Tuesday.

The frozen body of an elderly man was found near a bus stop in the southern region of Krumovgrad while another man died from a heart attack while clearing snow in the central Stara Planina mountain range.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed alarm Wednesday over fines levied on newspapers in Bulgaria for reporting on companies' financial activities and on the banking sector.

Two publications were also penalized for refusing to reveal the sources of their financial reporting, provoking the OSCE to voice concern about media liberty in former-communist Bulgaria.

Six Bulgarian contractors for the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) who were held for a week by Sudan rebels were freed on Sunday, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said.

"The operation for liberating them ended. The six are in a safe place," ministry spokeswoman Betina Zhoteva told AFP.

When Bulgarian police on January 1 arrested Frenchman Fritz-Joly Joachin, a self-confessed "old friend" of the Charlie Hebdo attackers, he was not the first suspected Islamist trying to cross the EU's south-eastern border into Turkey.

Indeed, Bulgarian Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov says, "hundreds" of Europeans have travelled to Bulgaria to traverse the 275-kilometre (170-mile) border into Turkey, some then crossing into Syria to join Islamic State (IS) militants.

A Bulgarian court ruled Tuesday that a Frenchman who admits knowing the Charlie Hebdo attackers but denies being an Islamic extremist could be extradited to France following an arrest warrant issued by Paris.

Muslim convert Fritz-Joly Joachin, 29, arrested on January 1 as he tried to cross from Bulgaria into Turkey, told the court in Haskovo in southern Bulgaria: "I am innocent. I want to return to France."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Bulgarian leaders Thursday seeking to help the cash-strapped former communist country wean itself off Russian energy supplies, battle rampant corruption and improve security.

Kerry arrived in Sofia late Wednesday on his first official visit after a day of talks in Geneva seeking to make progress towards an elusive Iran nuclear deal, and was due to leave for Paris late Thursday.

Bulgaria has arrested a Frenchman wanted in his own country for terrorism and who allegedly planned to take his son to receive a radical Islamist upbringing in Syria, prosecutors said Monday.

Fritz Jolie Joaquin, 29, a French citizen of Haitian origin, was arrested while trying to cross Bulgaria's southeastern Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint with Turkey on a bus on January 1.