site.bta Defence Minister Charged with Malfeasance in Office for MiG Repair Deal

Defence Minister Charged with Malfeasance in Office for MiG Repair Deal

Sofia, November 23 (BTA) - Outgoing Defence Minister Nickolay Nenchev was charged Wednesday with malfeasance in office for a deal with Poland for repair of MiG aircraft. Emerging from the Sofia Investigative Service after less than an hour there, Nenchev said that he is not worried.

His lawyer and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria leader Radan Kanev explained that the prosecutors have not yet given them the materials from the investigation.

Nenchev is free on his own recognizance.

He is the second minister in the outgoing government of Boyko Borissov to be charged only a week after the government resigned. His fellow government member, Peter Moskov, the Minister of Health, was charged a couple of days ago with malfeasance in office and mismanagement for a controversial vaccines deal with Turkey which prosecutors say had caused a detriment of 400,000 leva.

Both Nenchev and Moskov were nominated for the ministerial positions by the Reformist Bloc, the junior partner in the government coalition of Borissov's GERB party.

The charges against Nenchev had been expected. As he was leaving the Investigative Service Tuesday where he was questioned in connection with the government-cleared vaccines deal, Nenchev said that he would be charged the next day.

He was questioned for the MiGs deal last May but it has never been announced which aspect of the deal is in the focus of the investigators' attention - or what are the reasons for the probe, mediapool.bg wrote on Tuesday. The story recalls that in late 2015 Nenchev declined Russia's services for the MiGs' maintenance and signed a contract with Poland for repair of six engines for the old Soviet jets - which, predictably, caused a strong reaction in Moscow and it threatened to challenge the Bulgaria-Poland deal in court. The Russians claimed that they were the only ones with a licence to do the repairs, the story recalled.