site.btaProsecutors to Check Expert Witness from Whose Car Evidence Incriminating Senior Official Was Stolen

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Prosecutors to Check Expert Witness
from Whose Car Evidence Incriminating
Senior Official Was Stolen


Sofia, November 12 (BTA) - The prosecution service will check
why Stefan Benchev, a graphology expert from whose car two
notepads, admitted as evidence incriminating former Conflict of
Interest Commission chairman Filip Zlatanov, were stolen,
alerted the police a day after the exhibits disappeared. "The
way police officers handled Benchev's alert will also be
checked," Sofia City Prosecutor Hristo Dinev told journalists on
Wednesday.

The notepads were handed to the expert witness for a handwriting
analysis on September 3. On October 29, an investigating
magistrate requested the notepads back for a hearing of the
Sofia Appellate Court. On November 5, Benchev alerted Sofia's
Precinct Police Department No. 6 that a black briefcase
containing expert reports, notepads and memory sticks was
missing from his car. He did not specify what exactly the items
were and what cases they concerned.

Dinev dismissed as "insinuation" the allegation that the
notepads 'disappeared' in order to frustrate the check of the
initials cited in them. The prosecutor specified that court
exhibits of this type do not have to be safe-kept under a
special regime, like firearms or narcotics.

Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov sees a purely criminal act in
the disappearance of Zlatanov's notepads. According to him,
this would hardly influence how the cases develop further,
because the court has certified copies. Tsatsarov said it is not
fatal that the prosecuting magistracy will not be able to
examine Zlatanov's notepads.

Tsatsarov demands information about when and how the expert,
Stefan Benchev, has alerted the police about his missing
briefcase, how the Interior Ministry has responded and what had
happened with his car. Asked whether the experts' actions are
being checked, Tsatsarov said that the proper reaction will
follow if unlawful actions are found.

The Sofia Police Chief, Mladen Marinov, commented that his
subordinates of Precinct Police Department No. 6 had handled the
case professionally.

In early April 2014, Zlatanov was sentenced to three and a half
years' imprisonment for blocking a check against President Rosen
Plevneliev and delaying decisions in two other cases. In July
2013, prosecutors made public excerpts from Zlatanov's two
notepads, found during a search of his office, in which he
allegedly jotted down on whom "to crack down", who "should have
a conflict," or who "should not have a conflict". Records in the
notepads identified the people from whom the orders came by the
initials I. F., Ts. Ts. and B. B. After the row erupted, Iskra
Fidossova resigned as GERB MP and member of the party
leadership. The other two order givers are speculated to be then
interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and then prime minister
Boyko Borissov.

Parliamentary Majority, Opposition React

On Wednesday, the GERB Parliamentary Group issued a declaration
arguing that GERB is the party most interested that the whole
truth should be brought to light so as to unmask the 'scenario
mongers' who tried to discredit the Bulgarian President. GERB MP
Tsveta Karayancheva described the disappearance of the
documents as "bad cheap insinuation". "That's why all competent
authorities must do their job on the case," she insisted. In her
words, the disappearance of evidence does not entail a
dismissal of the case. In the opinion of another GERB MP,
Alexander Nenkov, "obscure quarters are trying to manipulate
public opinion."

Peter Slavov MP of the Reformist Bloc said that the scandal with
the notepads would not have happened at all if Bulgaria had had
electronic justice. According to him, this case proves the need
of reforms in the judicial system.

Yavor Haytov, MP of the Bulgarian Democratic Centre and former
deputy interior minister, asked what kind of jurisdiction
Bulgaria has when it was allowed for an important piece of
evidence, such as Zlatanov's notepads, to disappear and for the
entire legal proceedings to be vitiated. "Nobody can convince me
that the disappearance of a key piece of evidence in such a
notorious case is not a stain on the whole judicial system,"
Haytov said.

"The disappearance of the notepad is tantamount to an amnesty
for Filip Zlatanov and makes it impossible to prove what the
initials I.F., B.B. and Ts.Ts. stand for," said Kiril Dobrev MP
of BSP-Left Bulgaria. In the previous Parliament, he headed an
ad hoc committee of inquiry into the notepad case. "In the new
Government, we have a Deputy Prime Minister who is mentioned in
this notepad," Dobrev said.

For her part, Maya Manolova MP of the same parliamentary group
commented that it is not accidental that the mysterious
disappearance of the notepad came just days after the second
Borissov Cabinet took office. "This is the time when those who
order who should be hit and who should be covered up manoeuvre
for position in the echelons of power," she noted. In her words,
the initials from the notepad "are already full names in
power".

The BSP-Left Bulgaria Parliamentary Group expect a motion to be
entered for a hearing of Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov and
Interior Minister Vesselin Vouchkov about the disappearance of
the notepad, and that this motion will be carried. Atanas
Zafirov MP of that group was amazed to hear the Deputy
Prosecutor General appealing on the thieves to return the
notepad.

During Wednesday's plenary sitting, Ataka moved for a hearing of
Vouchkov and Tsatsarov on Zlatanov's notepad. National Assembly
Chair Tsetska Tsacheva declined the motion because it was not
entered in writing. VI, LI/LG, MY, DS