site.bta Ataka Leader Siderov Asks Supreme Judicial Council to Strip Prosecutor General of Immunity

Ataka Leader Siderov Asks Supreme Judicial Council to Strip Prosecutor General of Immunity

Sofia, October 15 (BTA) - The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) Thursday gave a hearing to Ataka leader Volen Siderov, who called on one-fifth of the SJC members to initiate a procedure for the waiver of the immunity of Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov so that an investigation could start into an undeclared real-estate transaction of Tsatsarov's wife. The SJC heard Siderov at his request.

The nationalist party leader's move comes two days after Tsatsarov approached the National Assembly with a request to waive Siderov's parliamentary immunity in connection with an October 9 night altercation in central Sofia.

Around 10:30 p.m. on Friday, police were alerted about two MPs, apparently intoxicated, behaving arrogantly and rudely with the owners of a liquor and tobacconist store. The MPs: Siderov and Dessislav Choukolov, told the police officers who arrived at the scene that the shop was selling contraband cigarettes and drugs. Sofia City Prosecutor Hristo Dinev said that "persons enjoying immunity have committed an act of hooliganism characterized by extreme insolence and cynicism and resisting the law-enforcement authorities". According to Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Georgi Kostov, the persons enjoying immunity committed obscene actions and physically assaulted police officers who were performing their duty to protect public order. Asked to specify what these actions consisted of, Sofia City Prosecution Office Spokesperson Roumyana Arnaoudova explained that they included pushing and hitting police officers, members of the public and people who were trying to shop from the store. Later on, the prosecuting magistracy found that Siderov and Choukolov separately inflicted trivial bodily injury on two policemen acting in the line of duty.

Siderov told the SJC on Thursday that, in his opinion, Tsatsarov broke the law by first qualifying his actions as hooliganism and then requesting a waiver of his immunity. He called the steps taken by the prosecution service "an insult to his honour". The Ataka leader added that the request for the waiver of his immunity is based on an expert examination carried out by forensic medic Stanislav Hristov, whom he described as "a person trading in human body parts".

Yet again, Siderov denied that he had hit a police officer and argued to the SJC that everything was done in order to disgrace him.