site.btaFormer Sofia City Court President Yaneva Gets Conditional Sentence in Operation Worms Trial

Former Sofia City Court President Yaneva Gets Conditional Sentence in Operation Worms Trial

Sofia, January 15 (BTA) - The Sofia City Court (SCC) sentenced its former president Vladimira Yaneva to a one-year conditional sentence with a three-year probation period. Yaneva was tried for unlawfully authorizing the use of special surveillance means. 

The prosecution had asked for actual prison sentences of nearly two and a half years for Yaneva and the Interior Ministry's ex-internal security chief Todor Kostadinov.

Yaneva is charged with unlawfully authorizing the use of special surveillance means between September 12, 2013 and March 25, 2014 in Operation Worms, an investigation into a breach of the Interior Ministry criminal records database. She allowed the surveillance to last for 300 days even though the maximum duration allowed by the law is 120 days. Kostadinov is charged with preparing six documents (four requests for deployment of special surveillance means and two reference briefs) making false statements which were to be submitted to the SCC President. He acted on an anonymous tip-off that Ministry officials were leaking information from the database to interested persons for a pay ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 leva.

In March 2015, Yaneva was suspended as SCC president and as a judge because of pretrial proceedings launched against her in connection with Operation Worms.