site.btaPM Indicates He Has No Plans to Replace Interior Ministry's Chief Secretary, Head of State Agency for National Security

PM Indicates He Has No Plans to Replace Interior Ministry's Chief Secretary, Head of State Agency for National Security


Brussels, February 13 (BTA) - Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has
indicated that he intends to keep the Interior Ministry Chief
Secretary and the head of the State Agency for National Security
(SANS) despite the pressure for their replacement amid an
illegal surveillance scandal. "The moment we touch the special
services in this situation, the opposition will be inflamed and
will start thinking that we are seeking revenge and
confrontation," he said before Bulgarian reporters in Brussels.
He also argued that the present peace of mind - that nobody is
persecuting or wiretapping anybody - will be lost if personnel
changes are made in the special services.

GERB's partners in Parliament, the Reformist Bloc and the
Patriotic Front, said Thursday that there are grounds for the
replacement of the Interior Ministry Chief Secretary, Svetlozar
Lazarov, and the chairpersons of SANS and State Agency for
Technical Operations (SATO) over their role in a special
surveillance case where the object has turned out to be the
information system of the Interior Ministry and the surveillance
warrant was issued for a period exceeding the time limit
prescribed by law.

"This State and myself need at least a half-year of calm to
accomplish what we have started. The easiest thing would be to
purge them [the special service chiefs] but who will replace
them and what good will it bring! They will start talking of a
police state again. I have learnt my lessons," said Borissov.

He said that the Interior Ministry chief secretary is "working
very hard". "If his superiors asked him to do stupid things, it
was them who really did them. With the newly adopted changes in
the Interior Ministry Act Parliament reinstated the powers of
the President to appoint the chief Secretary and thus opened up
the option of Lazarov's replacement."

Borissov added that his hope now is for the prosecution office
to identify all culprits in the unlawful surveillance scandal.
If Lazarov and SANS chief Vladimir Pissanchev are found to be
responsible for wrongdoing, the Prime Minister would agree to
replace them. "But the two of them are working hard, the report
[of the bureau controlling the use of special surveillance means
on the surveillance scandal] says they did a good job. [Plamen]
Oresharski, being the [ex-] Prime Minister asked them to do
what they did and he is the one to be held responsible,"
Borissov said.

***

BTA correspondent Nickolay Jeliazkov contributed to this story
from Brussels.