site.btaJudge Roumyana Chenalova Placed on National Wanted List

Judge Roumyana Chenalova Placed on National Wanted  List

Sofia, April 14 (BTA) - Sofia City Court judge Roumyana
Chenalova has been put on a national wanted list, the
Prosecution Office said on Tuesday.

On February 26, the Sofia City Prosecution Office instituted
pre-trial proceeding against Chenalova for office malfeasance
and documentary fraud. On March 25, she was personally served
with a subpoena to appear in court in the capacity of a
defendant, the message of the prosecution authority reads. The
subpoena pointed out that she had to be in court at 10.30 am on
March 31 and, if she could not do so for valid reasons, several
other dates were also indicated. Chenalova did not appear in
court but submitted instead several petitions, where, however,
she did not point out any valid reasons for her absence from the
proceeding. For this reason, the Security Regional Directorate
in Sofia and the Security Regional Directorate in Stara Zagora
were instructed to bring her forcefully to court.

According to reports, submitted by the latter two authorities,
Chenalova was not found at the addresses in the two cities
pointed out as addresses for service within the proceeding.

The first disciplinary procedure against Chenalova was
instituted by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on December 17,
2014 in connection with a bankruptcy case against two
Bulgarian subsidiaries of France's Belvedere Group: Belvedere
Distribution and Domain Menada. French Ambassador to Sofia
Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes has expressed doubts about the
manner in which the case had been assigned to Chenalova and
accused Velkov, appointed by the judge as a temporary
trustee-in-bankruptcy for the two companies, of abusing the
law so as Belvedere would be dispossessed of its two Bulgarian
subsidiaries even after they paid up their alleged debts to
the alleged creditors.

In January 2015, the SJC suspended Chenalova as SCC judge for
six months on account of this disciplinary procedure, which is
also looking into possible bias shown by Chenalova about the
Belvedere case in a public statement. A third breach concerns
the delay of nearly 50 cases allocated to Chenalova.