site.btaSpecialized Prosecution Office Finds No Evidence of Crime in Relation to Audio Recordings Allegedly Featuring Prime Minister's Voice

Sofia, December 18 (BTA) - Bulgaria's Specialized Prosecution
Office (SPO) has not found any evidence suggesting the
commission of a criminal offence in an investigation of a
conversation allegedly involving Prime Minister Boyko Borissov,
the prosecution service said in a press release on Friday. An
audio recording of that conversation was leaked to media outlets
 on June 12, 2020.

The supervising prosecutor concluded that there are no
sufficient grounds for a reasonable assumption that the alleged
act satisfied the substantive elements constituting a publicly
prosecutable offence. The prosecutor therefore issued a warrant
refusing to institute pre-trial proceedings.

The Specialized Prosecution Office (SPO) instituted a case file,
 acting on alerts submitted by Yes Bulgaria Party Chair Hristo
Ivanov citing allegations circulated in the media, based on
audio recordings featuring "a voice resembling that of Prime
Minister Boyko Borissov".

The SPO has established that the recording was authentic.

In the course of the check, Borissov, then finance minister
Vladislav Goranov, Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) Deputy
 Chair Maria Filipova, prosecutors Vessela Stoilova and Bilyana
Gulubova, former prosecutor general Sotir Tsatsarov and
incumbent Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev were asked to give
explanations.

In the recording made while Tsatsarov, Geshev and Goranov were
apparently present in the room, the voice resembling Borissov's
describes that his tactic of dealing with his European
counterparts is to explain to them that he is a simpleton and
has not done anything out of malice. He refers specifically to a
 conversation he had with the heads of government of Bavaria,
Poland and Hungary. The PM also says that he "played the fool"
talking to the Bavarian Minister President. Having analyzed the
evidence, the prosecutor in charge of the case did not establish
 that Borissov's conversation with his three counterparts, which
 is referred to in Ivanov's alert, actually took place.

In the recording, the voice is heard as saying that he had
ordered the FSC to crack down on Eurohold "so as to smash that
guy's face in for not doing my bidding," apparently referring to
 the owner of the insurance company which wanted to buy the
Czech energy company CEZ's assets in Bulgaria. The SPO explained
 that the Public Financial Inspection Agency had not conducted a
 financial check of Eurohold for the 2018 - 2020 period. In
April 2019, however, the FSC checked the insurer "to analyze its
 financial standing in connection with an intention made public
to acquire the Bulgarian assets of CEZ". The purpose of the
FSC's check was to find whether the prospective buyer held the
funds needed to pay the price of the purchase and to maintain an
 adequate infrastructure in the electricity distribution sector.
 

Former deputy economy minister Alexander Manolev is mentioned
during the recorded conversation, implying that Borissov had
warned him and that "he will now be charged and ruined" in
connection with a guest house that he built by misusing EU
funds. The prosecutors did not find that Borissov had exerted
any influence whatsoever in connection with the proceedings
against Manolev.

It transpires from the recording that the PM had personally
ordered the Interior Ministry to scrutinize guest houses built
by the family of Elena Yoncheva, who was later elected Member of
 the European Parliament from the opposition Bulgarian Socialist
 Party Elena Yoncheva. The SPO says that there is no evidence of
 any order given by Borissov for the conduct of a check
regarding Yoncheva and any persons closely linked with her.

In another part of the recording, the voice sounding like
Borissov's is heard as calling National Assembly Chair Tsveta
Karayancheva as "a stupid c**t from Kurdjali". Regarding that
part of Ivanov's alert, the SPO says that no evidence of the
commission of a publicly prosecutable offence had been
established. NV/ZH