site.btaPrime Minister, Prosecutor General, Ministers Discuss Shooting of Tax Official

Sofia, December 21 (BTA) - At a meeting here on Thursday, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, the leadership of the National Revenue Agency (NRA) and the Customs Agency, Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov, Interior Minister Valentin Radev, and Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov discussed Monday's shooting of Ivo Stamenov, head of the fiscal control department with the NRA.

Stamenov was shot in his car at a junction in central Sofia on Monday morning. He is being treated in Sofia's Military Medical Academy. The department he heads was set up in early 2014 to fight VAT fraud.

Approached by journalists after the meeting, Goranov said that the attack against the high-ranking tax official is regarded as a shot fired at the State and statehood. He added that the doctors treating Stamenov have given positive news about his state.

Prosecutor General Tsatsarov said that for the first time in a long while there has been an attack that is not limited to a car set on fire or an encroachment on a person's property. In his words, the shooting of Stamenov is an exceptionally impudent and demonstrative attack that the State should respond to very harshly. The tax official's attempted murder is linked to the performance of his official duties, Tsatsarov noted. "From here onwards, the State should demonstrate that it is capable of protecting those who work for it," he added. Tsatsarov has entasks Deputy Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov with coordinating activities related to the case.

Interior Minister Radev said that a sign has been given to everyone working at the NRA and the Customs Agency that the State stands by them, and to the crime's perpetrators that the Interior Ministry is determined to uncover both the perpetrator and the person who ordered the attack against Stamenov.