site.btaSofia City Court President Resigns

Sofia City Court President Resigns

Sofia, February 24 (BTA) - Sofia City Court (SCC) President
Vladimira Yaneva has tendered her resignation, BTA learnt from
SCC sources on Tuesday.

On February 19 the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) unanimously
suspended Vladimira Yaneva as President of the Sofia City Court.
The suspension was proposed by Prosecutor General Sotir
Tsatsarov on the grounds that pre-trial proceedings had been
launched against Yaneva earlier this week.

The proceeding has been launched over a recent scandal with a
wiretapping operation codenamed Worms. The Worms scandal was
triggered by a statement of Atanas Atanassov, Chairman of the
Parliamentary Internal Security Committee, about wiretapping of
protestors against the government of prime minister Plamen
Oresharski in 2013-2014. Subsequently, it transpired that the
question is about information leakage from the Interior
Ministry for unknown purposes after Yaneva authorized the use
of special surveillance means (SSM) for 300 days.

Yaneva will continue to serve as common judge.

The resignation is expected to be put to the vote at the SJC
meeting on Thursday. If the Council accepts it, an acting SCC
President has to be appointed.